Rutgers and Kansas State in the news.

There's an article in the Washington Post this morning, "Long way from dark days, Kansas State and Rutgers surge into position for memorable seasons," about the Scarlet Knights and the Wildcats, their 4-0 starts, and their current national rankings.

The writer of the article dares to look ahead in a way that this writer dares not:

"Rutgers’ next five games line up like this: home against UConn, home against Syracuse, at Temple, home against Kent State and home against Army. It doesn’t take much of a leap of faith to project the Scarlet Knights getting to 9-0, and bringing back memories of 2006 when they went 11-2 and stunningly slipped into the national championship conversation for about a week.
"Can Rutgers and Kansas State stay undefeated heading into November? It won’t take a miracle."

When I see the names of these two schools in one sentence, I think back instead of forward. I think of my first trip to Texas with my son, my first bowl game, and the Scarlet Knights' 37-10 win in the 2006 Texas Bowl. This 46-yard TD run by Ray Rice was only one of many highlights:

Tweet Number 1766

Some people look at big round numbers as significant, but I just noticed that my latest tweet as @BeatVisitor was tweet number 1766! There's no number of any more significance for those of us who spent any time On the Banks, or for a blog and Twitter account dedicated to the team that plays in The Birthplace of College Football.

Tweet number 1766 of @BeatVisitor

If I had realized that I was up to tweet 1766, maybe I would have written it about something more uplifting that drunken Arkansas fans.

"Rutgers Drunk"

The title of this blog post doesn't refer to your intermittent correspondent's time in that noisy college town on the banks of the Raritan River when the drinking age was 18; it refers instead to a euphemism for a state of extreme intoxication referred to in an Arkansas Razorbacks' blog that I stumbled upon this morning.

The writer in Arkansas Expats talks about names for different types of inebriation and their anecdotal origins. There's "Grandma Drunk" (something about taking someone's Grandma to a sports bar) and "Kentucky Drunk" (following a 2007 Arkansas football loss to that basketball powerhouse that caused the writer's brother-in-law to go on a legendary bender), and now there's this suggestion:

"...And following the debacle I witnessed Saturday night inside Razorback Stadium, "Rutgers drunk" should be a deserving candidate as well.

"The only problem is that right now there isn't enough booze in the world to numb the anxiety, angst, or apoplectic rage that comes with a preseason Top Ten team posting a 1-3 record in its first four games, including losses to members of he Sun Belt and the Big East. Whiskey worked wonders for helping us temporarily forget watching Andre Woodson march a basketball school up and down our football field, but it falls way short of medicating properly a loss to freaking Rutgers."

Here's hoping that the liquor stores and bars in and around Storrs, Connecticut also need to do some serious restocking of their shelves on the week after Rutgers' next game on October 6.

2012 Home Opener

I'm watching my first Rutgers game of the year today (on SNY, not in Piscataway) and I'm tweeting as @BeatVisitor.