Rutgers in the Polls

On this off week, The 7-1 Scarlet Knights (4-0 Big East) rose back up to 20 in the Coaches Poll and 24 in the AP Poll.

It's also interesting to see that the 8-1 Kent State Golden Flashes (5-0 MAC), the one team to beat the Scarlet Knights, won again and are very close to being ranked in both polls themselves.

This just makes the Labor Day opener even MORE important

The preseason AP football poll just came out and, as with the Coaches poll, not a single Big East team is in the top 25.
If you count down through the "Others Receiving Votes," you will see that the voters placed Pittsburgh Panthers at #28, Rutgers Scarlet Knights at #30, West Virginia Mountaineers at #32, Cincinnati Bearcats at #33, and South Florida at #45. Among the Big East football teams, only UConn, Louisville, and Syracuse are starting the season with no votes.
Not to put any pressure on the Scarlet Knights, but the Labor Day game is going to put Cincinnati or Rutgers into the top 25, and move the other down into the forties or worse.
Go Knights!

Please Participate in Beat Visitor's Summer Sidebar Poll

In the most recent ESPN preseason rankings from May 9th, the Fresno State Bulldogs are listed at #21. The only Big East teams on Mark Schlabach's post-Spring rankings are West Virginia (#9) and Pittsburgh (#19). The Knights do not make an appearance on his (or many other) preseason prognostications.
So far, the only preseason ranking on which both the Bulldogs and our Scarlet Knights have simultaneously appeared is the AthlonSports.com top 25, in which the Dogs are #25 and the Knights are #22.
Losing Ray Rice to the Baltimore Ravens has obviously introduced a question mark into the minds of many football writers, so I really have no idea at this point about whether our team will find enough support to be listed in the preseason coaches and AP polls.
That widespread uncertainty leads directly to my question in the new sidebar poll, "Who Will Be in the AP Preseason Top 25? a) Rutgers, b) Fresno State, c) Both, or d) Neither." It will be interesting to see what visitors to this blog say between now and mid-August. Please add your vote (even if you, like me, are unsure).
Here's my one firm prediction. No matter which of these teams appears on the preseason poll, the winner of their September 1st meeting will definitely appear on the first regular-season listing.

Reason #16 for the Knights to Beat the Huskies Tonight

REASON #16: They are in our spot!
The Scarlet Knights started the year at number 16 in both the AP poll of August 18 and the the Coaches Poll of August 3. They also spent a week at 15, 13, 11, 10, 21, and 25 this fall, but now some usurping puppies from Storrs, Connecticut, have come from nowhere to take our number 16 in week 10 of the AP poll (and 20 in the Coaches, and 13 in the BCS[!]), so we're coming up there tonight to take it back.

REASON #15: The man in green to your left.
I have a feeling that if Mike Teel gets into any trouble with overthrowing the ball tonight up in the Nutmeg State, then this might be the night that the football world (or at least that miniscule part of it that receives ESPNU) will get its first real glimpse of Jabu Lovelace in something more extended than a one- or two-play appearance or in a mopping up role in a blowout (though that would be nice too). I still can't help thinking that, given the chance, the backfield of Lovelace and Rice could look very similar to the backfield of White and Slaton.

As annoying as it is to see the Huskies leaping up the rankings and holding tenaciously to the Big East lead as we enter November, it is great to see the Scarlet Knights in the thick of the national football picture, with a chance to play a nationally-ranked team for the third week in a row. If our team can end this stretch winning two of those three games (and then keep it up against Army, Pittsburgh, and Louisville), we'll be playing someone more impressive than Kansas State at a location more impressive than the Texas Bowl at the end of the year.

It's been over a year since the Knights have been unranked

Last year, on September 23rd during week 5 of the season, the 4-0 Scarlet Knights began their most recent appearance in the national polls, at 23 in both the AP and Coaches polls. They stayed in both polls from 9/23/06 until this past Sunday, 10/7/07, hitting highs of 7 in the 2006 poll and 10 in the 2007 poll. The end of this year-long streak is worth commemorating here simply because the Scarlet Knights have never had anywhere near this kind of run of national prominence in their long history.

That being said, this season isn't over. This important month isn't over. October could easily end with the Knights in a position much higher in the polls than "Other teams receiving votes".

There are three games left in October. Two of them at home against teams that are currently ranked in the top ten.

• A win against Syracuse at the Carrier Dome next Saturday probably won't get the Knights back into the top 25 unless it's another week of carnage among the ranked (but a win, of course, is absolutely necessary).
• A win against #5/5 South Florida at home on the 18th on Thursday-night TV will definitely move the Knights back into the national rankings, maybe into the teens (assuming, of course, that RU had taken care of business against the Orange 5 days earlier).
• Following up a win over USF with a win against #8/9 West Virginia on the 27th would definitely have them ranked back in the teens with a good chance of taking the Big East crown (and the conference's BCS bowl).

This season is far from over.

Go Knights!

(And since I started this entry by mentioning last season's success, I have to mention that last season's star, Brian Leonard, had 102 yards rushing on 18 carries & 33 receiving on five catches for the St. Louis Rams yesterday. If they had been winning rather than losing, maybe he would have had the opportunity to run even more at the end of the game. Go Rams! )

Shake-up week

Only Nebraska, at number 25, didn't change position in the AP poll out this afternoon. Everybody else in the poll changed position, and the Big East was at least as shaken up as any conference, with Rutgers (21 AP/21 Coaches) & West Virginia (13/12) moving down and South Florida (6/9) & Cincinnati (20/24) moving up (and Louisville still missing in action). So the new poll in the Beat Visitor sidebar asks you "Which Big East team will end 2007 with the highest AP ranking?" Vote between now and November 1.
With the Scarlet Knights playing all three of the teams ranked ahead of them in Rutgers Stadium in October, they have their fate in their own hands.
Go Knights!!

Scarlet Knights hit the Top Ten for the 2nd straight year

Last year it was the Texas Bowl . . . This year it will be the . . .?

Add another streak to the 10 straight Rutgers Stadium home wins, the 17 straight polls in the national rankings, the 6 straight games scoring 30+ points, and the 6 straight games without allowing a sack. It is now 2 straight years with the Scarlet Knights making an appearance in the top ten. They are now number 10 in both the AP and the Coaches polls out this afternoon.

I know it's early in the season and a lot will change from this point in the season (e.g., Syracuse & Connecticut are currently sharing the Big East lead after their victories over Louisville & Pittsburgh yesterday, but they probably won't be there in December), but let's hope that the Knights continue their upward climb in the rankings and that it's not another one-week appearance at these rarified heights, like it was between the Louisville and Cincinnati games last November. And speaking of Louisville and Cincinnati, Louisville has dropped out of the top 25 in both polls out today, but Cincinnati has entered the AP poll at #24 and is first among the "others receiving votes" in the Coaches poll (in other Big East rankings, West Virginia is still 5/5 and South Florida is up to 18/18.)

Rutgers at #11 in both polls out this afternoon

Going into an off week, not only is Rutgers at #11 in both the AP and the Coaches polls, but there are now four Big East teams, half the conference, ranked in the top 25: West Virginia (5 ap/5 coaches), Rutgers (11/11), Louisville (18/19), and newcomer South Florida (23/24).

The Scarlet Knights open the 2007 season at #16 in the AP Poll

The AP poll is the poll that counts when people (ok, USC fans) start shouting WE'RE NUMBER ONE. It's out this afternoon, and as the following excerpt from an MSNBC article points out, this is the first time that the football team representing our Alma Mater -- a team with a longer history in college football than anyone -- has been on the list to start the season:

Ohio State, last year’s preseason No. 1 and the loser of the national title game to Florida, is No. 11 to start the 2007 season. No. 12 is California, followed by Georgia, UCLA and Tennessee.

No. 16 Rutgers is ranked in the preseason for the first time, as is No. 23 Hawaii.

Penn State is No. 17 and Auburn, Florida State and Nebraska round out the top 20. Arkansas, TCU, Hawaii, Boise State and Texas A&M are the final five.

The Southeastern Conference has six ranked teams, most of any league. The Big Ten and Big 12 are next with four and the Pac-10 and Big East have three each.

In other news, a magazine published by a little television station in Connecticut called "ESPN The Magazine" prints something they call a College Football issue this week; it fails to mention the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in their "power rankings" or treat our team with anywhere near the adulation that Sports Illustrated (an actual magazine) does in their current issue. (We think they're all secretly Connecticut Husky fans and simply jealous of the team located just to their southwest in New Jersey).

Another First for Fans of the Knights: Watching the Preseason Polls

There was absolutely no dissent after the Scarlet Knights' Bowl win in Houston. Every final poll issued after the dust from the bowls had settled was unanimous in ranking our boys number 12 in the country, finishing ahead of perennial powers and preseason favorites like Texas and Notre Dame. None of those major polls (or any of the preseason publications) had the psychic abilities to place Rutgers in their 2006 preseason top 25.

This year, of course, is different. Rutgers is ranked from #13 to #21 in the three 2007 preseason polls compiled on Wikipedia's 2007 rankings page so far. They are also #15 in this list from Dennis Dodd of CBS Sportsline that includes four Big East teams in the top 25 (with South Florida usurping the space usually reserved for unranked Florida State and Miami).

Is 2007 going to be a great year, or what?