A Rutgers Championship!

The football team may not be playing in the National Championship game between Ohio State and Oregon going on in Texas right now, but someone from Rutgers is going to Disney World.



The Rutgers Cheer and Dance team just won the "Cheer On Your Disney Side" contest being run by ESPN and Disney tonight, beating out the other finalists Auburn, LSU, and Santa Monica. The program wins a hundred thousand dollar grant and a trip to Disney World. The past few weeks have been rough for the SEC.

ASDSADADADASFA SADFGFGFDSGFDGFDGFD!!!

If you want to know what that means, you'll have to ask ESPN:

Seems ESPN used their ace graphics team as well as first-string announcers today: RT @StevePoliti Seems about right. pic.twitter.com/dvucj6WhWo
— Beat Visitor (@BeatVisitor) December 27, 2014

Despite the third-string ESPN announcers and the mostly empty Ford Field (why wouldn't people want to travel to Detroit on Christmas?), the Scarlet Knights had a great 40-21 win over the North Carolina Tar Heels today. The game wasn't as close as the score would lead you to believe, with Rutgers dominating on both sides of the ball for almost all game until late in the fourth quarter when UNC recovered two onside kicks and made things look interesting for a few minutes.

Freshman running backs Josh Hicks (202 yards, 1 TD) and Robert Martin (100 yards, 2 TD) made 2015 look very bright, but 2014 -- finishing at 8-5 with a convincing bowl win against an ACC opponent -- didn't look too bad either.

ASDSADADADASFA SADFGFGFDSGFDGFDGFD indeed!

Video Highlights of Yesterday's Maryland Game

You won't see many defensive highlights here until the very end of the video, but there are a lot of explosive offensive plays starring Nova, Carroo, Grant, Patton, Martin, and Hicks.

Desmond Howard and Kirk Herbstreit Don't Know Football

On the other hand, Katy Perry and Lee Corso weren't surprised by the Rutgers victory over Michigan yesterday in the historic initial meeting between these two schools.

And in case you were already tailgating seven hours ahead of last night's big win, here's the full video of one of the more interesting celebrity appearances on ESPN's College Gameday ever:

Beating Desmond Howard's old team at The Birthplace yesterday was a great accomplishment, but nothing would be more earth-shaking in the Big Ten than doing the same to Kirk Herbstreit's team in our next game in Columbus, Ohio on October 18th.

UConn vs. Chas Dodd 10/8/2010

I'm so glad to see Chas Dodd finally getting the start he has deserved this whole season. Here's a repeat of his first start against the Huskies in 2010 and video evidence of why the state of Connecticut was hoping to see the Gary Nova show this Saturday.


Note especially at the 2'46" mark when the ESPN announcers explain how Chas Dodd uses something called a "second read", which Gary Nova doesn't seem to understand.

Oh, and as long as we're bringing back Chas Dodd to close out the 2013 Rutgers football season on a higher note, please bring back these 2010 uniforms too.

And the correct opening words to our Alma Mater.

Rutgers North meets Rutgers South this Friday in Foxborough...

..and the Patriots and Buccaneers are engaging in joint practices at Gillette Stadium leading up to the nationally-televised preseason game. 

Here are the nine Rutgers players on each current roster as displayed on ESPN SportsCenter yesterday:

And, of course, Rutgers South is still coached by Greg Schiano.

Fire Mike Rice or Get Rid of Men's Basketball at Rutgers.

It's that simple.

I don't read sports pages when Rutgers isn't playing football and I'm not a big follower of the game of "basket-ball", but this tape on ESPN was brought to my attention today. The asshole shown in these videos reminds me of the kind of fascistic gym teachers who made me hate scholastic sports when I was in Junior High in Los Angeles. If I played for him, I'd lose on purpose.

Not only does he need to be fired immediately, but every player on the team needs a free shot to throw a basketball at his balls before he leaves. I wish one of them would have decked him when he laid hands on them during practice.

Any reader of BeatVisitor.com will know that I'm not a sports fan, I'm a Rutgers fan. But fuck Rutgers Men's Basketball until Mike Rice is gone.

Homeostasis in the BCS

The BCS rankings are being announced on ESPN as I write this, but only one number counts, and it hasn't changed from last week.

Rutgers is still #15:

BCS Standings as televised on ESPN 10/21/2012

"Beat Visitor" makes another surprising appearance

Here's the first paragraph of an article appearing in Grantland today titled "Don't Look Now -- Rutgers is 6-0":

"I don't know who these two guys were, if they pictured themselves as historical reenactors or professional ironists, but they felt to me like fitting ambassadors for a college football program still trafficking on a 50-man melee with Princeton that took place in 1869. They were sitting along the rail in a corner of the end zone that could generously be described as "semi-vacant," and one of them appeared to be wearing a leather helmet, and together they were holding up a handwritten sign that read, 'BEAT VISITOR.'"

There's even a link to an Instagram image of the sign that's much clearer and closer than the one that I took from long distance at Saturday's Syracuse game.

See the white box above the R in the corner.

The article by Michael Weinreb after that first paragraph rehashes a lot of the old anti-bigtime-Rutgers-football arguments that we've all heard -- and been having -- for the past thirty years, but it's good to see the Beat Visitor "brand" getting another plug, even if it is being misunderstood by an outsider (Why can't one be an "historical reenactor", "professional ironist," and a simple bleeding-scarlet Rutgers fan at the same time? Or none of the above?). Any sign at a sporting event that elicits any thought at all is better than the normal arrangements of words beginning with large capital letters "E", "S", "P", and "N" designed to attract the network television cameras for ten seconds.

The Initial BCS Standings Were Just Announced

Just announced on ESPN a few minutes ago, the undefeated Rutgers Scarlet Knights are the highest-ranked Big East team in the initial BCS rankings at number 15, higher than their AP (19) and USA Today (17) rankings announced earlier today.

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.

A Pet Peeve

I hate the way that televised football games have come to look more and more like video games and less and less like the game that we see from the stands.  Here's a photo I took from the screen with 40 seconds left in the first half of today's Rutgers / West Virginia game:

Rutgers Stadium on ABC TV, October 29, 2011

It's bad enough when they add the yellow lines and the arrows and the team logos and other crap to our green fields, but black lines on snow?  The fact that Rutgers is dressed in all black today makes it even more visually distracting, but if you look closely you will see that the black lines on the 20 and the 25 aren't even lined up with the white lines, which are still visible under the light snow.  Tell ESPN and ABC that the experiment failed!

Time for the second half to start with Rutgers still up by a score of 31 to 21.  As I said over on Twitter, I won't relax unless they have a 30 point lead with 30 seconds left.  I'm signing off here, so look for me over at @BeatVisitor.

AND GO RU!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE at 7pm:
Same old story. West Virginia scored 20 unanswered points in the second half and the final was 41-31 in favor of the Mountaineers.  I wasn't sorry that I was watching on television today.  I've been in attendance at Rutgers Stadium for too many of the 16 straight losses, many of which seemed to be in bad weather (or maybe that was simply my post-game mood).  I'm not sorry to see this team moving to the Big 12.

Believe

Here's the ESPN Eric LeGrand video.

The Quote of the Day comes from Chuck Klosterman

"I don't know what I see when I watch football. It must be something insane, because I should not enjoy it as much as I do. I must be seeing something so personal and so universal that understanding this question would tell me everything I need to know about who I am, and maybe I don't want that to happen. But perhaps it's simply this: Football allows the intellectual part of my brain to evolve, but it allows the emotional part to remain unchanged. It has a liberal cerebellum and a reactionary heart. And this is all I want from everything, all the time, always."

--Chuck Klosterman in an excerpt from "Eating the Dinosaur" on ESPN.com

It's something I've wondered about myself, how a guy who gave himself the nom de blog of True Blue Liberal could find almost all of his blogging time devoted to his beloved Scarlet Knights once the Bushes and Cheneys finally removed their claws from the levers of world power. There seemed to be a disconnect between the athletic and political topics.
I was not a big football fan in college at the end of the Nixon years. Chuck Klosterman even addresses that in this great book excerpt of his, how Nixon was the nation's number one football fan, poisoning the well for many of us. I knew a couple of great football players in my high school who quit the sport rather than cut their hair for a coach with neo-fascist leanings (it seems that all the lesser coaches of those years modeled themselves on Woody Hayes).
Klosterman's essay addresses the revolutionary character of football and how the game reinvents itself on regular basis while maintaining a much more reactionary veneer. It is definitely worth reading in full for his recap of pivotal coaching and strategy changes.
Specifically as a Rutgers football fan it will make you look at the Jabu package and the Wild Knight in a new light, and wish for the occasional play that will make the fans around you in the Stadium grumble, "What the fuck are those idiots doing now??" The article made me desire the shock of the new. It's generally when the fans are grumbling that the important changes in the game are taking place.

If only it WERE true . . . The Quote of the Day about Tim Brown's prowess.

I'm sure it will be corrected at some point today so I made sure to grab the part of the screen on which it appeared in Brian Bennett's midseason review of Rutgers published on ESPN.com at 1:35 this afternoon.

Offensive MVP: Tim Brown. The lone returning veteran receiver has been terrific in his new role as a No. 1 guy. He has 28 catches for 548 yards and three scores, averaging 196 yards per reception.

Almost two touchdowns per reception? Why are we even trying to run any play other than Savage to Brown? Even so, 19.6 yards per reception isn't bad either.
~~~
On a more serious note, Aditi Kinkhabwala has an article on SNY.tv about the close friendship between Tim Brown and Antonio Lowery of Rutgers with the late Jasper Howard of UConn. They knew each other from Miami.

Don't wait until the last minute to reserve your flight!

The first 2009-2010 bowl predictions are coming in and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights are getting some respectable early-season picks from the mainstream football press (if anything, the Rutgers fans and bloggers themselves are being a lot more conservative, at least publicly).

ESPN has Rutgers playing in Charlotte on December 26th in the Muffler Bowl (the Beat Visitor style guide calls for no brand names whenever possible, and you know which bowl we mean) against either Clemson or North Carolina.

Sports Illustrated has the Scarlet Knights meeting Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl on January 1. Like ESPN, SI also has Rutgers ranked at #27 in their first Power Rankings, the highest of the Big East teams (just ahead of West Virginia at #28).

Brian Bennett, the Big East blogger for ESPN, also has the Knights playing football in New Orleans on New Years Day.

Is it too early to check Orbitz for flights to Louisiana and hotel rooms in the French Quarter?

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).

Update: The ESPN Shop still wants the money of all you Rutigers [sic] fans out there

I first pointed this out in May of 2008 when I first noticed it, but the following advertisement directed at "Rutigers Fans" has now been on the Rutgers Team Page at ESPN.com for well over a year. If you're in the job market looking for a proofreading job, maybe you should contact the folks at ESPN (folks who obviously don't read Beat Visitor, or look at their own online content too often either).

Well, maybe it's better than the ESPN Shop of a few years ago, which didn't carry any Rutgers (or "Rutigers") products at all.

And it's not the first time a major sports money machine has dissed our alma mater with a typo.

Vote Early & Often. The Scarlet Knights Need Your Help

Pat Forde of ESPN (which stands for nothing) has given himself the job of remaking the top division of college football in a more television-friendly format, narrowing the elite group of teams from 120 to 40.

ESPN is asking for our help to pick the top forty teams. Click here and start placing the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in the top group (right now they are hanging out in the high sixties, between Mississippi State and Air Force).

Preseason Prognostications at the New York Times and ESPN.com today

First the Times, where this afternoon Paul Myerberg in The Quad blog, places Rutgers at #34 of 120 (last year he placed the Knights at #58 at the beginning of the season and re-ranked them at #34 at the end):

...Everything is in place for a conference title run. And I would not be surprised at all to see Rutgers claim its first Big East championship, though I am predicting this team will finish third in the conference, trailing Cincinnati and West Virginia. I’m concerned about a lack of explosiveness from this Scarlet Knights offense, which will break in a new quarterback while struggling to locate depth at wide receiver. {...} Only a major slip-up would prevent the Scarlet Knights from winning at least eight games for the fourth consecutive season.

Over at ESPN.com this morning, Brian Bennett made three predictions about Rutgers' upcoming season. 1) Tom Savage (#7 on the new roster, taking Tiquan Underwood's lucky jersey) will start at some point this season, 2) the Knights will have at least 9 wins, and "If things break right, the Scarlet Knights could be looking at a 10- or even 11-win season -- and their first Big East title," and 3) that Anthony Davis will be leaving the Banks of the Old Raritan for the pros on the first day of the next NFL draft.