Looking at our Alma Mater through fresh (Fresno) eyes

Click here if you want to read a fresh appreciation of Rutgers and the State of New Jersey from Matt James of the Fresno Bee. Here's a representative quote:

"The first thing you notice about the Rutgers campus is that it's roughly the size of Greenland.
The name sounds like a small private college with a dozen ivy-covered buildings and tasteful school uniforms, but that would be far from the actual situation.
Rutgers has an ecological preserve in the middle of campus where they could have filmed "Last of the Mohicans." You could head to Accounting 208 and not be seen for a month. The preserve, alone, could hold the entire Fresno State campus.
Rutgers has a bus system that has at least 10 different lines. The city of Clovis has only five.
[...]New Jersey really is the Garden State. Could have sworn that was an ironic state nickname, you know, like calling Hawaii the Glacier State.
It really is beautiful, trees as thick as an opening-week frat party. The river that carves through campus is called the Raritan, which leads to the Rutgers alma mater: "On the Banks of the Old Raritan.""

When I've had relatives visit from Southern California and Nevada, they've always been amazed by this green state of ours, especially driving down the Parkway south of the Raritan. Let's hope the Bulldog players are still a little bit amazed and disoriented by the size and beauty of our school at 4pm tomorrow afternoon.

Get your game notes for TOMORROW'S opener by clicking here. You can also download the The Greg Schiano Radio Show or Inside Rutgers Football for your computer or iPod by clicking here.

Click on the following links to get interesting position-by-position comparisons of the Bulldogs and the Scarlet Knights on Fresno State's Bark Board for the QB, the RB/WR, and the OL/TE positions.

But tomorrow all the reading and anticipation will come to an end. I can't wait to see you there. Coat your vocal cords with a little bit of honey so that you can scream as loudly as possible! Let them be as impressed by our volume and spirit as they are by the beauty and size of our campus.

Book Your Air Travel Now, because if Sports Illustrated says it, it must be so!

According to the SI Bowl Projections posted yesterday, we will need to be in St. Petersburg, Florida to face the University of Central Florida Golden Knights on December 20th. Because it will be almost a home game for the gilded ones, we'll need to get a large and noisy contingent in Scarlet heading south (where we can also visit all those expatriate New Jersey parents and grandparents).

Even though this news comes from that most reputable of sports and swimsuit authorities, maybe you shouldn't start pricing and reserving Christmas-week flights from Newark, Philadelphia, JFK, and Atlantic City just yet. After all, their College Football Preview prediction from last August didn't quite come to fruition. Who needed a trip to Pasadena when we could go to Toronto anyway?

[FIVE DAYS, FIVE HOURS, ONE MINUTE & 29 SECONDS TO KICKOFF!!]

re: Ray Rice's professional progress

From page three of Don Banks' "Inside the NFL" at SI.com dated this morning:

"The more I see of Baltimore rookie running back Ray Rice, and the more Willis McGahee continues to have health-related question marks surrounding his surgically repaired left knee, the more I'd be inclined to snap up Rice if I were one of those Fantasy Football playing types (which I'm not).

"Ravens rookie head coach John Harbaugh loves the kid, but for now has to stick with the company line that McGahee is his starter. But no matter what the semantics, Baltimore is going to use the rookie from Rutgers early and often. And the onus is on McGahee to re-prove that he can be counted on to get on the field and produce.

"Rice touched the ball 11 times at home against the Vikings on Saturday and produced 94 yards, including a 42-yard burst the first time his number was called before the hometown fans. But that was only the start of the love affair. It's going to get better, Baltimore."

Baltimore may learn to love Ray as much as they love Michael Phelps (and as much as Ray is loved in New Brunswick, New Jersey).

S.N.O.R.T., or the Block R of Rutgers joins "the elite of the elite"

Rocky Top Talk today lists "The 29 Most Boring Football Logos" and the Block R of Rutgers takes pride of place in the first five that are mentioned.

"Madonna, Prince, Sting, Bono. Bozo. Only the most notorious are known by a single name. The elite of the elite, though, are known by the most extreme of abbreviations: a single letter. [...] Rutgers is sort of crashing the party. Fortunately for them, though, Rhode Island is the only state that begins with the letter 'R,' and it's common knowledge that it lacks the acreage for a standard football field, so while the red block 'R' may induce blank stares in college football fans, at least they won’t confuse it with another team."

Which is what we've said all along, the Scarlet Knights have never had a more distinctive, simple, and memorable (if maybe a little boring) helmet identifier. And it is the logo that will be identified with their rise into the higher competitive tiers of the college football universe.

Our first opponents, the Fresno State Bulldogs, were mentioned in yesterday's "LOL, Your Logo is SOOO Scary" for their muscled cartoon canine that is quite a bit less simple:

"Popeye’s dog had some potential as well, but the execution . . . oy. I think it’s the sweatshirt with the block 'F' on it. It does not stand for 'fear.' "

At least the Fresno State Bulldog is scarier than the panting fuzzy white sled dog of UConn.