BeatVisitor Dot Com Cleans House and Prepares for the B1G Time

On this day after the Pinstripe Bowl loss to the team with the most obnoxious drunken fans in college football (some Golden Dome supporters in section 322 provided a strong argument against ever serving beer at R House), I decided to refresh the BeatVisitor dot com sidebar to your right (if you're viewing this on a non-mobile device). I've removed the links to the USFs and UConns and Temples and replaced them with links to the Ohio States and Penn States and Michigan States on our football schedule for the foreseeable future. If you know of any strong or humorous Big Ten blogs that I haven't included in this first pass, please suggest them in the comments.

I was thinking of mentioning the interim conference we're leaving, which I've never mentioned by name here in this blog, to complain about their bad officiating and petty money grubbing, but I won't bother naming them now; they're in our past. Rutgers should post a picture when their ugly logo is removed and the B1G logo is painted on our field. That will be a day to celebrate.

I've also placed the 2014 schedule high on the sidebar. 2013 is over. Life begins again in Seattle on August 28th. Keep Calm and Chop Cougars.

Time to look ahead to Next Saturday. Keep Calm and Chop Temple.

Rutgers can't afford to underestimate our opponents from across the Delaware. Here's your poster for the week.

With another noon starting time, is there any way to make sure a higher percentage of students and other fans are in their seats at the kickoff?

Beat Temple!

A Scarlet Knights fan at the Rutgers Temple game
in the open-ended Rutgers Stadium on Halloween 1998.

In ten minutes I'll be over on Twitter at @BeatVisitor and watching this revived rivalry between the Cherry and White Temple Owls and the Scarlet and Black Rutgers Scarlet Knights on SNY.

Go Knights!

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Halftime Update: A very sloppy first half by the Scarlet Knights with penalties, dropped passes, and two turnovers. The Temple Owls are up by 10-0.
Rutgers can't rely on 3rd-quarter magic every week if they intend to stay undefeated.

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Final Update: With a final score of 35-10 and a complete domination of the second half offensively and defensively (Nova touchdown passes to Wright, Jamison, Harrison, and Jefferson, a fumble return by Greene and even a blocked punt thrown in for a little special team balance), Rutgers' #15 BCS ranking probably won't suffer any damage.

The Scarlet Knight Life for Temple Week

I sense an opening for the Knight who rides the horse and has a sword made from real steel!

Carry On and Chop Temple (again, now with a more appropriate Queens College 1766 crown)

You can download an original image or pdf or make your own poster here, using the Keep Calm-O-Matic: http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-temple-2/

Keep Calm and Chop Temple

You can download your own version (or make your own variations) here: http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-temple/

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.

The preliminary BlogPoll ballot of Beat Visitor dot com is up for your commentary

Once again the undefeateds all remained undefeated and the only major changes in the top 15 are caused by the losses suffered by Southern Cal and Va Tech. There was more action at the bottom, where 3 of my previous bottom 5 lost and fell off the list.

I expect that if there are disagreements with my picks this week (and I expect that there will be disagreements), those disagreements will revolve around a couple of names in my new bottom three.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Florida
3	Texas
4	Cincinnati
5	TCU	2
6	Iowa	1
7	Boise State	1
8	Oregon	2
9	LSU
10	Georgia Tech	1
11	Pittsburgh	1
12	Penn State	1
13	Southern Cal	7
14	Ohio State	1
15	Houston	1
16	Arizona	2
17	Utah	3
18	Miami (Florida)	1
19	California	3
20	Oklahoma State	3
21	Notre Dame
22	South Florida	3
23	Rutgers
24	Virginia Tech	10
25	Temple
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: West Virginia (#21), South Carolina (#23), Central Michigan (#24).

Once again, I'm glad to show my work (wouldn't it drive you crazy when you'd solve a complicated quadratic equation in your head in algebra class and your teacher wouldn't accept it because you didn't make any pencil scribbles to back up your idiosyncratic mathematical logic). You can click on the thumbnail of my handwritten notes up above as always to see all of this week's scores and records and some of my rationale for this week's choices, especially the additions. I don't expect the fact that I've finally added Notre Dame to stir up any controversy, but the addition of Rutgers and Temple probably deserves a comment.

• 6-2 Rutgers is replacing another 6-2 Big East school, West Virginia, but Rutgers' losses to two teams in the top 15, Pitt & Cincy, don't look as bad as the Mountaineers' losses to USF and Auburn. Also, I simply feel that the young Scarlet Knight offense is on the verge of gelling and going on an end-of-season run. We'll know for sure where they belong after their next game against South Florida.
  
• 6-2 Temple is replacing a losing MAC school, Central Michigan (7-2), after beating Navy yesterday. The Owls' six-game win streak is their longest since 1974 and their last loss was to Penn State. I personally feel great for Temple. How many times did we watch them play the Scarlet Knights over the years? It was a long-time rivalry with a nearby team; they always brought a lot of their own fans up the Turnpike from Philly to Rutgers Stadium. It was awful to see the depths they sank to in recent years; it's too bad we can't say "sorry" and give them Louisville's place in the Big East.

Feel free to let me know where you feel my ballot is full of shit.

This Saturday is the last chance in 2007 to Beat a Visitor at Rutgers Stadium

Of course, when we say "beat a visitor" we are referring to the metaphorical beating that takes place on the scoreboard.

I found a great story about our wonderful neighbors down the Pike in Philly who take the phrase a tad more literally.

This is from an undated interview from The Pittsburgh Standard between Ramesh C. Reddy and the person in the Pitt Panther costume (shhh, don't tell your kids the Panther's not a real wild predatory feline!!):

Ramesh: Cool! What has been a memory you would like to forget as a Pitt Panther?
Panther: Memory I would like to forget? (Hmm) Every year I go to Temple and I always go up into the crowd because I am from Lancaster and have a lot of family and friends that go to that game. The crowd there is really intense; they are mean people, really mean to the mascot. I went up in the stands to see some family and would go around and make my rounds. There must have been a group of 12 kids that just beat me up.
Ramesh: Awe
Panther: Yeah, I guess that would be probably the memory I would like to forget. This year was not that bad but the year before I got beat up pretty bad.
Ramesh: Awe man! Did your uniform come off?
Panther: Yeah, my head blew off
Ramesh: Awe, that is not good!
Panther: I guess Temple would be the only time it happened. I just lay down and took it.
Ramesh: Awe
Panther: I covered my face and curled up. That’s about all I could do.
Ramesh: Did anyone come and rescue you?
Panther: Eventually! It took time but eventually some Pitt fans saw what was happening, ran down and helped me out.

I think I can speak for my fellow fans at Rutgers Stadium when I pledge that we will keep our hands off the person wearing the plush feline head this weekend. The people wearing gold helmets, however, are on their own.

No Single-Game Tickets for Public Sale in 2007?

According to this article in the Sporting News, there will be an attempt to offer at least one single-game ticket to each of the 6,000 people on the season-ticket waiting list, and I know from mailings I've received that there will be an offer to Alumni Association members for homecoming against Norfolk State on September 15, and of course undergraduate students will get theirs, but other than that I haven't heard of any other tickets going on sale (other than on StubHub and other resellers).

But remember how easy it used to be to decide to see a game at Rutgers Stadium at the last minute, just because it was a nice day?

Rutgers vs. Temple, 31 October 1998

This Blog May Be New, But I'm Not a Bandwagoneer (not that that's a bad thing)

When the picture of my son was taken on Halloween of 1998 after a Rutgers victory over Temple (21-10), I had already been watching games at the Stadium since I started at Rutgers College 25 years earlier.
There are now plenty of complaints about rich bandwagoneers grabbing the best seats and closest parking lots with large contributions. I find it hard to complain about people who are willingly donating the money that will help to keep my beloved Knights at the level they reached in 2006 -- and keep Greg Schiano on his path to becoming the Joe Paterno of the Garden State.

I'll gladly continue to tailgate miles away and take the shuttle bus from the RAC in order to see the quality of football I've seen over the last couple of seasons. I don't see any point in complaining about parking spaces or crowds or traffic or newcomers. We're not going to continue selling out the Stadium game after game without quite a few "bandwagoneers". Remember days (like the one pictured above) when the Stadium was silent as the band played On the Banks of the Old Raritan toward gleaming (and very empty) aluminum benches? Could we then imagine a day like the last home game of the 2006 season against Syracuse when NO ONE left the Stadium even though the result of the game was never in doubt? Could we then imagine that the highlight of our day would be a full-throated singing of the Alma Mater and watching Brian Leonard lead the band with the game ball in one hand and the knight's sword in the other?

If I weren't already bleeding Scarlet, this is a bandwagon I'd be glad to jump on.

Everyone's welcome in R House!