Exorcising the Curse

Along with the many ridiculous reasons being given for the second-half collapse of Rutgers' football fortunes in 2013 -- Players? Coaches? Fans? -- the obvious cause keeps getting neglected, the curse of Howard N. Fuller. When the glee club changed his classic 140-year-old lyrics "My father sent me to old Rutgers / and resolv'd that I should be a man" to an anodyne politically-correct "From near and far we come to Rutgers / resolved to learn all that we can" before the Arkansas game, the curse began.

With the score of today's UConn debacle at 14-7 in favor of the Huskies, I plugged in my SG and attempted to drive the curse away.


Surprisingly, it didn't work. The Huskies won 28-17.

Obviously, I can't exorcise this curse all by myself.

The 1873 Lyrics

I.
My father sent me to old Rutgers,
And resolv'd that I should be a man;
And so I settled down,
In that noisy college town,
On the banks of the old Raritan.

II.
As Fresh, they used me rather roughly,
But I the fearful gauntlet ran,
And they shook me so about
That they turned me inside out,
On the banks of the old Raritan.

(Chorus)
On the banks of the old Raritan, my boys,
where old Rutgers ever more shall stand,
For has she not stood since the time of the flood,
On the banks of the old Raritan.

III.
I passed through all these tortures nobly,
And then, as Soph, my turn began,
And I hazed the poor Fresh so,
That they longed for Heaven, I know,
On the banks of the old Raritan.
(Chorus)

IV.
And then I rested at my pleasure,
And steered quite clear of Prex's ban,
And the stars their good-bye kissing
Found me not from euchre missing,
On the banks of the old Raritan.
(Chorus)

V.
And soon I made my social entrée
When I laid full many a wicked plan,
And by my cunning art
Slew many a maiden's heart,
On the banks of the old Raritan.
(Chorus)

VI.
Then sing aloud to Alma Mater,
And keep the Scarlet in the van;
For with her motto high
Rutgers' name shall never die
On the banks of the old Raritan.
(Chorus)

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.

Keep Calm and Huck the Fuskies

I'm almost glad that we're playing this one at Rentschler Field rather than at R House. In years past those Thanksgiving weekend "crowds" in the student section have been pretty anemic when the undergrads are all back in their Moms' & Dads' homes sleeping off turkey and pumpkin pie (and pumpkin ale) hangovers two days after our annual national all-you-can-eat family-style buffet.

After watching films of the Rutgers season so far, I'm sure the Huskies are hoping to see Gary Nova on Saturday. Our coach would have to be an idiot to oblige them.

~~~~~~~~~

UPDATE @ 11am on 11/25:

As proof that the Rutgers coaching staff reads BeatVisitor.com religiously (more religiously than I write it), Chas Dodd has (finally!) been named the Rutgers starting quarterback for Saturday's game in Connecticut. This will be his first start since winning the Pinstripe Bowl against Iowa State in Greg Schiano's final game as head coach.

Forget today...Time to Keep Calm and Chop UCF

Here's this week's poster:

Keep Calm (and fire defensive coordinator Dave Cohen and name Chas Dodd the starting quarterback) and Chop UCF.

And the UCF Knights always remind me why I love anagrams:

If you can't say anything nice....

... use Twitter.
Rather than trying to summarize today's 52-17 loss to the Cincinnati Bearcats here, I just took all the words from the tweets I wrote at the Stadium this afternoon and threw them into a single vaguely-football-shaped word cloud.

You can click on the cloud to enlarge the smaller words, or you can see them in context by looking at twitter.com/beatvisitor if you're interested in today's frustrations.
The only things I'll add are that it will be a crime if Dave Cohen is still the Rutgers defensive coordinator when the Scarlet Knights take the field in our next game against the UCF Knights. And it will be a worse crime if Chas Dodd is not at least considered for the job of starting quarterback in that game. Anyone (of the few hundred of you) who stayed for the last three Rutgers offensive series this afternoon will know why. As at the end of the Houston game, in front of another empty Rutgers Stadium, Dodd demonstrated that he can move this team with confidence in a way that our starting quarterback fails to show in any consistent way.
From this day forward, the words "Gary Nova gives us the best chance to win" need to be banned. He doesn't. 

Keep Calm and Chop Cincy

It was strange to go through a November weekend with absolutely no football games of any note taking place last Saturday, but now we're only three days away from another long drive to Piscataway to see the Scarlet Knights take on the Bearcats at R House for the last time, so (in case you lost last year's) here's your Keep Calm and Chop Cincy poster.