Homecoming 1992

On Halloween of 1992, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights had one of their more memorable wins in the early Big East era over the Virginia Tech Hokies, 50-49 as time ran out.
Don't feel like you have to watch all three and a quarter hours as homework for this year's Homecoming against Wisconsin (though there are great shots of the pre-expansion Stadium, giant shoulder pads, television coverage unmarred by on-field computer-graphic distractions, etc.), but please watch Brian Fortay lead the last Rutgers drive at least; it begins at about the 2 hour and 50 minute mark of this video.

Conference Age and Tradition

Watching the Premier League Club Guide on NBC Sports this morning, with all its stress on the age and tradition of England's top professional football teams, made me think about the age and tradition of America's college football teams in the 2013 Rump Big East (now known as the American Athletic Conference) and the 2013 Big Ten and what the move of the oldest school in either conference from one to the other will do to the average ages of both.  Here are the results of some quick internet historical research about the dates each of these schools was founded.

AMERICAN			B1G
UCF	1963		Illinois	1867
Cincinnati	1819		Indiana	1820
UConn	1881		Iowa	1847
Houston	1927		Michigan	1817
Louisville	1798		MSU	1855
Memphis	1912		Minnesota	1851
Rutgers	1766		Nebraska	1869
USF	1956		Northwestern	1851
SMU	1911		Ohio State	1870
Temple	1884		Penn State	1855
2013 Average	1881.7		Purdue	1869
			Wisconsin	1848
			2013 Average	1851.583

There's already an average 30 year difference in the Big Ten's favor even with the 1766 Scarlet Knights in the Rump Big East, but look what happens when Rutgers and Louisville check out next year and the difference extends to 50 years.

UCF	1963		Illinois	1867
Cincinnati	1819		Indiana	1820
UConn	1881		Iowa	1847
East Carolina	1907		Maryland	1856
Houston	1927		Michigan	1817
Memphis	1912		MSU	1855
USF	1956		Minnesota	1851
SMU	1911		Nebraska	1869
Temple	1884		Northwestern	1851
Tulane	1834		Ohio State	1870
Tulsa	1894		Penn State	1855
2014 Average	1898.90909		Purdue	1869
			Rutgers	1766
			Wisconsin	1848
			2014 Average	1845.786

The Big Ten will become 6 years older with the addition of 1766 Rutgers and 1856 Maryland, but the American Athletic Conference (if it's still calling itself that in 2014) will have become 17 years younger and only the addition of Tulane will keep the conference's average age just barely in the 19th century. Only two of the AAC's 2014 members will have been founded before Rutgers was already playing football in 1869.

Lots of unusual names on the 2013 Rutgers football schedule (luckily we won't have to remember them for long)

Click on the image to enlarge it to a readable size.

Keep Calm and Chop Louisville

It would have been great if Rutgers and Louisville had entered this Thursday's game both 11-0 and highly ranked. It still would have been wonderful if they both went into the game 10-1.  With both of them losing today, there may be a possibility that they will both drop out of their top 25 BCS rankings, but the stakes are exactly the same between these two 9-2 teams as they would have been if they had both been 11-0.
If Rutgers wins, we'll be the sole Big East Champions and going to a BCS game. If Louisville wins, there will be a 3- or 4-way tie of 2-loss teams, including Rutgers, sharing the title, but Louisville will almost certainly go to the BCS game.

Get you own original image or pdf at
http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-louisville-2/

Use the #ChopLouisville hashtag this week if you're on Twitter.

Lucky Member 13 of the Big Ten

Here are a few links about the reports today that Rutgers and Maryland may soon be invited to become the 13th and 14th members of the Big Ten [sic, of course, but no more ridiculous than the fact that the so-called "Big East" will soon include teams from San Diego, California and Boise, Idaho]:

• "Maryland, Rutgers to Join Big Ten?" from SI.com, giving the basic AP story that is available all over the web this morning.
• Video on ESPN.com on the possibility focusing more on Maryland than Rutgers, but bringing out important points about the Big Ten giving up on Notre Dame after the Dame picked the ACC. Also noting that Maryland and RU are both AAU academic institutions, Land Grant universities, in states contiguous to the current Big Ten, and in large TV markets the Big Ten Network would like to break into. The way Andy Katz descibes it in this video, you wonder why the Terrapins and the Knights aren't already playing the Wolverines, Buckeyes, and Nittany Lions.
• "Rutgers coach Kyle Flood is mum on possible move to the Big Ten" from NJ.com quotes Coach Flood, who echoes the feelings of all long-time Scarlet Knights fans: ``I’ve heard a lot of things over the last eight years and I’ve come to realize that the best thing for me to do is the not react to it. Those types of decisions I leave up to Tim Pernetti and the athletic department. I know they’re going to make sure that regardless of what happens, we’ll be in a good place.’’  He needs to concentrate on only one thing, making sure the 9-1 Knights are 1-0 again this week against Pitt.
• Steve Politi's take on the change on NJ.com puts the case for the change in its best light, and includes the following quote from former AD Bob Mulcahy: "The Big Ten is the dream scenario. That’s what I always felt. I felt the combination of land grant universities and research universities, plus athletics, Rutgers would fit right in.”

Also, it's hard to imagine a more natural rivalry than the one that could develop between the state universities of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Welcome the Owls to the Beat Visitor Sidebar

I know that I've been very remiss in cleaning up my sidebar links, doing little more than relegating a multitude of West Virginia football blogs to the dustbin of Big East history last season (should I delete our friends from Syracuse now, or wait until the end of the season?).

I know there must still be links that are outdated or blogs that are moribund (but, as Beat Visitor has shown you in the past, rumors of blog death can sometimes be greatly exaggerated). I'm putting off that major overhaul, but there was one glaring omission that needed to be rectified immediately. So, as we enter Owl Week (known as #ChopTemple week on Twitter), I have added Temple Football Forever to the list of Big East links to your right (unless, of course, you're reading this on a mobile device). I've also added the Philadelphia Inquirer Temple blog.

Welcome.

Kudos for Khaseem Greene's Role in Yesterday's Syracuse Win

Here's a photo of Khaseem Greene being awarded his helmet sticker on ESPN for his 14-tackle, 1.5-sack, 3-forced fumble, and 1-interception performance yesterday in Piscataway.

In addition to the gaudy statistics of yesterday's Syracuse game, what I find most amazing about watching Khaseem Greene on the field is the strength and textbook form of his tackles. Runners do NOT move or fall forward once they are in his grasp.

In addition to his helmet sticker from Lou Holtz et al., he is also the Walter Camp Defensive Player of the Week, and there will be more well-deserved Conference honors to come.

~~~~~~~~~~
Update 10/15: Khaseem Greene has been named the mid-season "Defensive Player of the Year" in the Big East by CBSSports.com (with Coach honors going to Kyle Flood and "Best Game" honors going to Rutgers-Arkansas).

Another 10/15 Update: It's not a surprise, but it's now official that Khaseem Greene has also been named Defensive Player of the Week by the Big East and in ESPN.com's Big East Blog.

One More 10/15 Update: Athlon Sports has also picked Greene as Big East "Defensive Player of the Year" at the halfway point (with Coach Flood again receiving coaching honors, R.J. Dill being named "Newcomer of the Year," and Gary Nova the "Midseason Surprise").

A 10/16 Update: The weekly Chuck Bednarik Award from the Maxwell Football Club for the defensive player of the week has also been handed to Khaseem.

Another 10/16 Update: Khaseem has been named the Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Week by the Football Writers Association of America.

What's at stake with UConn today.

1) BIG EAST: A win in this season finale means that Rutgers will share the Big East crown with Louisville (which won yesterday) and maybe Cincinnati and maybe West Virginia. A tie between Rutgers, Louisville, and Cincinnati would give Rutgers the BCS bid, but all the Scarlet Knights can worry about is hucking the fuskies first (while rooting for Syracuse to lose to the Bearcats).

2) NATIONAL RANKINGS: Rutgers is at number 26 in the USA Today Coaches Poll, at 30 in the AP Poll, 29 in the Harris Poll, 30 in the ESPN Power Rankings... With a convincing win at Rentschler Field today, the Scarlet Knights should be ending the regular season in the top 25 in most, or all, of these polls.

After being picked by "everyone" to finish last in the conference this year, these are not insignificant accomplishments.

I'll be over on Twitter @BeatVisitor tweeting updates this afternoon.

Go Knights.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Update at the half: UConn 24--Rutgers 10. 21 of the Huskies' points came off turnovers deep in the Rutgers half of the field. In the first drive Juwan Jamison fumbled while being injured, but the good news is that he came back in the 2nd quarter with a taped ankle and scored the one Rutgers touchdown. Connecticut can't count on Rutgers handing them the ball with a short field three more times in the second half.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update at the end of the 3rd quarter (because I'm not sure if I'll feel like updating at the end of the game): UConn 40 -- Rutgers 10, and we can't blame it on turnovers this time. And at the beginning of the 4th quarter, UConn just downed another punt at the one-yard line, with Gary Nova making his first appearance at quarterback. My faith in miracles is starting to dwindle though.

~~~~~~~~~~
Final: UConn 40 -- Rutgers 22

The Big East Tie-Breaker Formula

So, if Rutgers beats UConn next week, the Scarlet Knights are assured of a share of the Big East championship. The only question will be, how many other champions will there be. Here's the current crop of contenders:

Big East Overall PF PA STRK

Rutgers 4-2 8-3 294 185 W3

Louisville 4-2 6-5 227 206 W1
Cincinnati 3-2 7-3 337 200 L2
West Virginia 3-2 7-3 368 268 W1
Pittsburgh 3-2 5-5 256 228 W1
Connecticut 2-3 4-6 224 235 L1

And here are the tiebreaker instructions:

All references to "rankings" refer to the BCS Poll released after the regular season is completed for all BIG EAST members.

TWO-WAY TIE

The winner of the head to head match-up will represent the BIG EAST in the Bowl Championship Series.

THREE-WAY TIE

A "MINI-CONFERENCE" IS CREATED AMONGST THE THREE TIED TEAMS

Scenario I:

All three teams have either a 6-1 or 5-2 record and have each won one game and lost one game against the other tied teams in the mini-conference. In this case, the highest ranked team amongst the three earns the bid. If two of the three teams are tied for the highest ranking, the bid is earned by the team winning the head-to-head match up.

Scenario II:

All three teams have 5-2 records, and within the mini-conference, Team A is 2-0, Team B is 1-1, and Team C is 0-2. Team A earns bid regardless of ranking.

FOUR-WAY TIE

A "MINI-CONFERENCE" IS CREATED AMONGST THE FOUR TIED TEAMS

Scenario I:

In the mini-conference, Teams A & B are 2-1, and Teams C & D are 1-2. The higher ranked of the 2-1 teams earns the bid. If the 2-1 teams tie for the highest ranking, the bid goes to the team that won the head-to-head match up.

Scenario II:

In the mini-conference, Team A is 3-0, Team B is 2-1, Team C is 1-2, and Team D is 0-3. Team A earns bid regardless of ranking.

So if Rutgers beats UConn and Louisville and West Virginia both lose a third game, it's simple, Rutgers goes to the BCS bowl, because Rutgers won the head-to-head meetings with Pitt and Cincy. But there are a lot of other ties where Rutgers does not win the BCS spot. We can't worry about that yet. We just need to huck the fuskies next week, as they say, and let the chips fall where they may.

What a Difference a Month Makes

I don't pretend that Beat Visitor dot com and Protect R Turf have an identical readership, but I think it's safe to assume that we both have a readership that consists mostly of Rutgers football fans. A few days ago I noticed that we had asked our readers almost the same question.
The Protect R Turf question was asked before the Army game and the results were completed before the UConn game on Halloween (a Halloween that will induce nightmares in the little children of Storrs for years to come), when RU had yet to chalk up its first Big East victory. The question was "How many Big East games will Rutgers win?" As you can see from the graphic in the upper left, 2 wins was the winner with 27%, followed by 3, 4, and Zero wins with 24%, 24%,and 16% respectively. 5 wins received only 4% of the meaningless internet polling clicks.

So move forward a couple of games to the sidebar poll that I posted just before the UConn game and which ended earlier today, with the Knights' BE record standing at 2-2. In answer to my similar question, "What will Rutgers' 2009 Big East Record Be?" the results were much less equivocal. Now a full 62% of Beat Visitor readers are sure that the Orange, Cardinals, and Mountaineers will fall like wind-blown dominoes before the mighty Scarlet Knight juggernaut on its way to a 5-2 Big East (and 10-2 overall) record.
What a difference a month makes.

What to watch when your Scarlet Knights aren't playing football.

As a fan of Rutgers Scarlet Knights football, you might think that there's no reason at all for you to pay the slightest attention to any of this weekend's college gridiron battles while our Knights are enjoying a bye week, mais au contraire mon frère!
There are at least 10 games in which you, as a loyal son or daughter of Rutgers, should have at least a mild rooting interest over the next three days. Here they are, in order of appearance (not in order of importance):

Tonight @ 7:30pm: Virginia Tech at East Carolina. You should root for the Pirates to beat the Hokies. While not vital, it's necessary for some teams currently ranked in the twenties to lose to make room for the Scarlet Knights.
Friday @ 8pm: Boise State at Louisiana Tech. The Smurfs must lose, as must every other undefeated team except Cincinnati. The best chance for the Scarlet Knights to make it into a BCS bowl begins with the Bearcats making it to the National Championship game. To do that they need to do more than go undefeated; they need for all the other undefeated teams (or all but one) to lose.
Saturday @ 12 noon: UCF at Texas. See above. Death to Longhorns.
Saturday @ 12 noon: Northwestern at Iowa. The Hawkeyes are undefeated? The Hawkeyes must lose.
Saturday @ 12 noon: Syracuse at Pittsburgh. We Rutgers fans want to see Otto the Orange giggling with glee and rolling on the sidelines of Ketchup Stadium as Syracuse breaks out of their week of extreme bad luck with a laughingly easy victory over the Panthers. Why? Not only does Cincinnati need to win convincingly every week, but the Panthers need to lose three games in order for the Scarlet Knights to jump over them in the Big East standings.
Saturday @ 12 noon: Louisville at West Virginia. The Mountaineers need to have the best possible record and ranking when they enter Rutgers Stadium on December 5th, so say bye bye Cardinals (& move one step closer to the end of the Kragthorpe era at PapaJohnsStadium).
Saturday @ 2:30pm: Navy at Notre Dame. Notre Dame is another of those schools ranked in the twenties that needs to make room for the Scarlet Knights. Plus we'd just love to see the Midshipmen beat the Leprechauns after losing to the Temple Owls last week. Plus we just love to see Notre Dame lose. Don't you?
Saturday @ 3:30pm: LSU at Alabama. The losses need to be evenly distributed around the SEC in November, so this Saturday it's the Crimson Tide's turn to be mauled decisively by the Tigers of Baton Rouge.
Saturday @ 4pm: TCU at San Diego State. The Aztecs need to rip the heart out of any Horned Frog dreams for an undefeated 2009 season.
Saturday @ 7:15pm: Vanderbilt at Florida. Florida is undefeated. You know for whom to root. Commodores. Commodores. Toot. Toot. Toot. (If that isn't their cheer, it should be.) OK, so Vanderbilt lost to Army. All that means is that if the Gators don't beat them by twenty points, then the Gators don't deserve their top national ranking.
Saturday @ 8pm: Connecticut at Cincinnati. You almost feel sorry for the fluffy white doggies from Storrs this year. With a couple of bounces in their favor in the fourth quarter, they could be 8-0 rather than 4-4, but as Rutgers fans we have to root for them to go 4-5 on Saturday night, and for them to lose convincingly to the Big East leaders, for all the reasons already given above.

Which Big East teams to root for in Week Seven

There are four games this week that will involve Big East teams. If you're a fan of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights who is unsure of how to root in any of these contests, we'll be glad to give you guidance.

~~Thursday, October 15, 7:30pm
The 5-0 (1-0) Cincinnati Bearcats will be visiting the 5-0 (1-0) South Florida Bulls for the marquee Big East matchup of the weekend. One of them will leave Raymond James Stadium with their first loss and the other will be the favorite to win the Big East's BCS Bowl bid. So, for whom should we Friends of Rutgers root? It's easy. As annoying as they are, we need to root hard for USF (aka, South Florida, Ponce de Leon University, Flamerica University, Sunshine State University, Citrus State University, etc.). There are two reasons for this. 1) Cincinnati will need to lose twice if Rutgers is to have any chance of winning the Big East, and 2) the higher USF is ranked when they visit Rutgers Stadium in November, the more of a bump it will give to the Scarlet Knights' national ranking and recognition when the Knights win that game on November 12th.

~~Friday, October 16, 8pm
The ferocious 5-1 (2-0) Pittsburgh Panthers (see illustration to the left for identification purposes) head to Piscataway, New Jersey to take on the 4-1 (0-1) Scarlet Knights of Rutgers. If you have any doubt as to which way you're rooting in this one, then you are reading the wrong blog. One of these two teams will be ranked by many poll voters at the end of the night. If you are lucky enough to have tickets for the game and you feel that you are not willing to stand and yell loudly enough to damage to your vocal cords whenever the Knights are on defense, then you should stay at home, watch on ESPN, and give your tickets to someone louder and more rambunctious. The only words that should not be allowed on Friday night? That's easy: "Down in Front!"

~~Saturday, October 17, 12pm
The 2-3 (0-1) Louisville Cardinals will be visiting the 3-2 (0-1) University of Connecticut Huskies. This is a pick'em in which Beat Visitor dot com is taking no formal position. As long as the Scarlet Knights beat both teams later this year, you can root based on which of your personal hatreds is greater.

~~Saturday, October 17, 3:30pm
The 4-2 Marshall Thundering Herd will be thundering into Morgantown to meet the 4-1 (1-0) West Virginia Mountaineers. This one is easy not only for Rutgers fans, but for all fans of Big East teams. Let's Go Mountaineers! The Big East should not be dropping any games to non-conference foes as long as sportswriters and fans of other conferences are questioning our conference's legitimacy and ownership of an automatic BCS Bowl bid.

Syracuse is the only Big East team to have the coming week off. There will be no Crying Child next weekend.

Refreshing the Sidebar

A few days ago we cleared some deadwood from the sidebar, so this afternoon I added some fresh blood.

• Eye of a Panther
  Astro's Bulls Blog
• Brian Bennett's Big East Blog
• Upstream Red Team
• Scarlet Chop

It seems you can never read too much about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights or our upcoming Big East football opponents as the 2009 season quickly approaches (or, at least, I can't). If you know of other Rutgers or Big East football links that you check regularly, or if anyone knows of an independent Cincinnati Bearcat blogger, please let me know in the comments. Next up? A list of my most frequently visited Rutgers football Twits (or Twitterers or Tweeters, or whatever it is we are calling ourselves these days).

Scarlet Knights at 27 (with a bullet) on the ESPN Power Rankings

The Rutgers Scarlet Knights are getting more preseason respect than I expected from the ESPN Power Rankings. As with many other preseason college football polls, there are no Big East teams in the top 25, but the Scarlet Knights are on the cusp, at 27 (with Pitt at 30, Cincy at 35, USF at 39, and WVU not receiving any votes).

Looking at the individual voters, Rutgers was placed in the top 25 by 5 of the 15 ESPN voters, specifically by Rece Davis (at 15), Pat Forde (at 19), Ivan Maisel (at 23), Joe Schad (at 24), and Mark Schlabach (at 24). Surprisingly, Brian Bennett, the ESPN Big East blogger who picked Rutgers at the top of his Big East Power Rankings earlier today, did not put Rutgers (or any other Big East teams) in his top 25.
At the risk of being accused of "embarrassing, poll-credibility-damaging homerdom," I'm tempted to put my Scarlet Knights in my preseason BlogPoll top 25 too, but I probably won't. Though my gut places them in that company, I'll wait to move them up after the Labor Day game (you can safely assume that I have them no lower than 26 right now, lurking, waiting for anyone in the top 25 to lose in week one).

Beat Visitor's Preseason Sidebar Cleanup

I'm finally getting around to starting some preseason cleaning of the Beat Visitor sidebar (maybe inspired by the BlogPoll cleanup mentioned yesterday). I've added and subtracted blogs in the sidebar on a one-by-one basis over the years, but this is the first time that I've gone through the whole list looking for dead wood that needs to be pushed out.

No, don't worry. We haven't painted the sweater on the
Rutgers: Birthplace of College Football statue a bright scarlet;
I simply played with color saturation levels.

The following Rutgers football blogs have been removed because they haven't been updated in the past year (or their link is dead):

• Knight Hawk
• Knights of Scarlet Blog
• R Sidelines View (created and deleted in the Summer of '09)
• Rutgers Universe City
• Scarlet Days and Knights

If you are the owner of one of these blogs and you decide to resurrect your creation, please let me know. And if you write, or know of, another blog that's dedicated primarily to Rutgers football and updated with some regularity, please suggest it for the list in the comments section.

The same goes for Big East blogs that you feel are worth reading. Here are the inactive blogs I removed this morning:

• Let's Go Drink Some Beers (WVU)
• Bastard Sons of Pinfall Marks (WVU)

And if you've been inactive for months and haven't been cut yet, get busy (or at least write one blog entry a year).

Motivation Anyone?

In case the Scarlet Knight football players needed any more motivation to play as if their season depended upon it on September 7th against the Cincinnati Bearcats, or in case the Rutgers fans needed any reason to fill all the seats of the expanded Rutgers Stadium on Labor Day (and to make as much noise as possible -- your throat will have a few weeks to rest before the next important game), here it is, courtesy of today's preseason Big East media poll:

1) Pittsburgh Panthers
2) West Virginia Mountaineers
3) Cincinnati Bearcats
4) University of South Florida Bulls
5) Rutgers Scarlet Knights
6) Connecticut Huskies
7) Louisville Cardinals
8)Syracuse Orange

I don't make predictions here at BeatVisitor.com, but I love for my Knights to be underestimated at the beginning of the season (and for Wannstedt and the Panthers to be overestimated. How many years in a row do the Knights need to pummel them before we get respected by the pundits?).

The Quote of the Day

"Having Joe Paterno endorse Rutgers as the 12th member of the Big Ten is akin to having Noah support you for a spot on the Ark."

--Steve Politi, Star-Ledger Sports Columnist, 29 May 2009

Scarlet Knights in the Big Ten in 2010??

Is this story from this morning's Smoking Musket about Rutgers moving from the Big East to the Big Ten (soon to be twelve) appearing anywhere else on the internet??

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE 5/28/09: Of course it became obvious immediately after my post yesterday that this "story" from a West Virginia blog was not true when it was not appearing anywhere else on the web (except here at Beat Visitor and some WVU blogs that picked it up from the Smoky Muskrat). But there is good reason to believe a headline that reads, "Rutgers University to Leave Big East, Join Big Ten Conference," especially when we see that Joe Paterno is in the news around the nation again today calling for a twelfth team in the Big "Ten":

"If I had my choice, someone that can give us the biggest TV exposure in the East," Paterno said, offering as possibilities "Syracuse, Pitt, Rutgers. Not in that order." [emphasis added]

I don't think there's any doubt that he exactly reversed the order of his personal preference.
And I don't think that Tim Pernetti and Rutgers should hesitate for one second if the offer is made!

The Company We Keep

I stumbled upon this website for CollegeBands.net through one of the Google links in my sidebar this afternoon.
I find it interesting that the only schools represented on their products are Georgetown, Harvard, Princeton, and Rutgers. If the Rutgers 1000 blog hadn't committed suicide on December 12, I'm sure they would have been very proud (or bemused or affronted or horrified).

Knights atop the Big East in 2008?

At least one writer, Brock Murphy at Lindy's, has made that prediction. His placement of the West Virginia Mountaineers in fifth is stirring up a not insignificant amount of dissent in the comments section.