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.

Exceeding Expectations

This is not where Maryland and Rutgers were expected to end up in the Big Ten pecking order at the end of this, their inaugural season:

Maryland Chopped

If you missed today's Maryland game, be sure to look for the replay on BTN, or find someone who has it on their DVR, or at least watch the highlights online.

Rutgers wins and the Knights are 7-5 (3-5) in their first B1G season. That was a GREAT win. #MarylandChopped #RFootball
— Beat Visitor (@BeatVisitor) November 30, 2014

The Rutgers (lack of) defense was painful to watch in the first half, but the offense was steady throughout and Gary Nova acquitted himself excellently in his last regular season game as a Scarlet Knight. The comeback from 25 points down at 35-10 to win by 41-38 was impressive and historic and the perfect way to end this inaugural Big Ten season.
It's also not a bad way to begin a rivalry with an I-95 neighbor.
Or to silence all the negative nellies on Twitter.

Someone should get a game ball for whatever was said to the defense during halftime.

Great Film on the Rutgers/Princeton Cannon Wars

How long will it take before Maryland or Penn State establishes a rivalry with us as deep as the one between Rutgers and those pretentious rich assholes in orange?

Knights, Tigers, and Cannons. Oh My! (2012) from Zack Morrison on Vimeo.

Throwback Uniforms from the 'Nineties for Saturday's Maryland Game

The Maryland Agricultural College (which became the University of Maryland in 1920) fielded its first football team in 1892.

The 1892 Maryland Agricultural College football team with their bowler-hatted overlord.

The 1891 Rutgers football team had a shady-looking guy in a black suit and bowler too.

This will be the last in a BeatVisitor.com series that began during this inaugural Big Ten year with early photos of  Michigan's football team and continued with Ohio State, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan State,

Unlike some of the other Big Ten matchups this year, these teams have a little bit of history between them; the Scarlet Knights' all-time record against the Terrapins, 4 wins and 5 losses, needs to be evened up this week.

Keep Calm and Chop Maryland

I was in a television- and internet-free zone almost all weekend, but I see from the score that things didn't work out too well for the Scarlet Knights in East Lansing. I'm not sure I'll watch if it's re-run this week on BTN or dig back into my Twitter timeline to confirm that the whiny side of the Rutgers fan base was out in full force on Saturday afternoon.

The only goal this week is to go 1-0 against Maryland and finish the regular season with a 7-5 record that no one would have predicted for our first season in the Big Ten.
Here's this week's poster:

Last Saturday's Halftime Show at R House

For those of you who weren't there (or for those of you who were waiting in line through halftime for a hot chocolate or a urinal), here's the joint patriotic appearance of the Rutgers University Marching Scarlet Knights and the Indiana University Marching Hundred on video:

I'm sorry this home season is over so early, but I hope we see this kind of joint appearance again soon, like when Ohio State comes to Rutgers Stadium next year.

The Throwback Photo for Our Next Opponent, the Michigan Agricultural College.

As with Rutgers changing its name from Queens College after the Revolutionary War made that royal name politically incorrect, our next football opponents have had some name changes too. In 1855, the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan was founded; in 1861, it became the State Agricultural College; in 1909, the Michigan Agricultural College; in 1925, the Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science; in 1955, the Michigan State University of Agriculture and Applied Science; and finally, in 1964 it became plain old Michigan State University.

In the tradition we started in this inaugural Big Ten year with MSU's big brother Michigan and continued with Ohio State, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Indiana, here's a photo of the 1915 Michigan Agricultural College football team.

The 1915 Michigan Agricultural College football team.

The 1917 Rutgers College football team.

It's Michigan State Week.

It was a fun win against Indiana at R House today, but now it's time to concentrate on our next opponents, the Michigan State Spartans.

Here's the BeatVisitorDotCom poster for the week:

Rutgers Women Moving On in the NCAA Soccer Tournament

The Rutgers women won their first 2014 NCAA tournament match tonight, beating La Salle 2-0 at Yurcak Field with goals from Amanda DeVolk and Stefanie Scholz.
Next up? The second-seeded University of Virginia women, who won their first game 8-0.

Rutgers>The State of Michigan

As of now, there is only one team in the Big Ten that has a winning record over both Michigan and Michigan State, Rutgers.

I just thought that fact was worth putting on the record before we put our lifetime 3-2 record on the line against Michigan State in East Lansing in two weeks. (The Scarlet Knights are, of course, 1-0 against that other team from the mitten state.)

October 4, 2014.   Wolverines 24 - Scarlet Knights 26

Keep Calm and Chop Indiana

This Saturday, of course, we'd like to see the Hoosiers beat that team from Pennsylvania, but here's the poster for next week when Indiana make its first visit to the The Birthplace of College Football.

"...headlong running, wild shouting, and frantic kicking..." Happy 145th Birthday to College Football

I'm republishing the following for new visitors to Rutgers who wonder about "The Birthplace of College Football" line that's proudly displayed next to the football field at R House. Tomorrow is the 145th anniversary of that first intercollegiate football game played between the men of Rutgers and Princeton in New Brunswick, New Jersey on November 6, 1869, just across the river from the current Stadium on the site of the College Avenue Gym.


The details of the game, played by two teams that still needed to agree on rules at game time, are a little like reading the details of an alien game from a foreign land, but this game was neither soccer nor rugby. It was something new, being invented on the fly by college students, and here's a first-hand report of that first intercollegiate game of "foot-ball" played on American soil, exactly as reported first in Rutgers' daily newspaper, the Targum, in 1869, and as reprinted in a short book published for Rutgers' 200th anniversary in 1966, Aloud to Alma Mater, edited by George Lukac, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press,  pages 67-69.

Enjoy! But remember, at some point there will be a pop quiz on this information for our new Big Ten conference opponents.
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The Birth of Intercollegiate Football

On Saturday, November 6, Princeton sent twenty-five picked men to play our twenty-five a match game of foot-ball. The strangers came up in the ten o’clock train, and brought a good number of backers with them. After dinner, and a stroll around the town, during which stroll billiards received a good deal of attention, the crowd began to assemble at the ball ground, which, for the benefit of the ignorant, we would say, is a lot about a hundred yards wide, extending from College Avenue to Sicard Street. Previous to calling the game, the ground presented an animated picture. Grim looking players were silently stripping, each one surrounded by sympathizing friends, while around each of the captains was a little crowd, intent upon giving advice, and saying as much as possible. The appearance of the Princeton men was very different from that of our own players. They were almost without exception tall and muscular, while the majority of our twenty-five are small and light, but possess the merit of being up to much more than they look.

Very few were the preliminaries, and they were quickly agreed upon. The Princeton captain, for some reason or other, gave up every point to our men without contesting one. The only material points were that Princeton gave up “free kicks,” whereby a player, when he catches the ball in the air, is allowed to kick it without hindrance. On the other hand, our practice of “babying” the ball on the start was discarded, and the ball was mounted, in every instance, by a vigorous “long kick.”

Princeton won the toss, and chose the first mount, rather oddly, since it had been agreed to start the ball against the wind. At three p.m. the game was called. The Princetonians suffered from making a bad “mount” or “buck” as they call it; the effects of which were not remedied before the sides closed, and after a brief struggle, Rutgers drove it home, and won, amid great applause from the crowd. The sides were changed, Rutgers started the ball, and after a somewhat longer fight Princeton made it a tie by a well directed kick, from a gentleman whose name we don’t know, but who did the best kicking on the Princeton side.

To describe the varying fortunes of the match, game by game, would be a waste of labor, for every game was like the one before. There was the same headlong running, wild shouting, and frantic kicking. In every game the cool goal-tenders saved the Rutgers goal half a dozen times; in every game the heavy charger of the Princeton side overthrew everything he came in contact with; and in every game, just when the interest in one of those delightful rushes at the fence was culminating, the persecuted ball would fly for refuge into the next lot, and produce a cessation of hostilities until, after the invariable “foul,” it was put in straight.

Well, at last we won the match, having won the first, third, fifth, sixth, ninth, and tenth games; leaving Princeton the second, fourth, seventh, and eighth. The seventh game would probably have been added to our score but for one of our players, who, in his ardor, forgot which way he was kicking, a mistake for which he fully atoned afterward.

To sum up: Princeton had the most muscle, but didn’t kick very well, and wanted organization. They evidently don’t like to kick the ball on the ground. Our men, on the other hand, though comparatively weak, ran well, and kicked well throughout. But their great point was their organization, for which great praise is due to the Captain, Leggett ’72. The right men were always in the right place.

After the match, the players had an amicable “feed” together, and at eight o’clock our guests went home, in high good spirits, but thirsting to beat us next time, if they can.

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Never too early to start #ChopIndiana week

Continuing the tradition in which BeatVisitor.com introduced our new Big Ten opponents Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska, and Wisconsin, here are a couple of early team photos showing our October 15th visitor to The Birthplace of College Football, the Indiana Hoosiers, who began playing football in 1887, just 18 years after that first game between Rutgers and Princeton, and are another team we have never met before on the gridiron.
I couldn't find any 19th-century portraits of the early Hoosiers, so I've gone with slightly later photos for both squads in advance of this very first meeting.

The 1910 Indiana football team after beating Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago team 6-0.

The 1917 Rutgers team featuring future All-American and valedictorian Paul Robeson.

How to End the Rutgers Homecoming Curse

What curse, you ask? Well, here are the results of the last eight Homecoming games at R House:

• Homecoming 2014 - Wisconsin 37 - Rutgers 0 (1st shutout since posting a zero on the scoreboard at Notre Dame in 2002)
• Homecoming 2013 - Houston 49 - Rutgers 14 (1st 2013 home loss)
• Homecoming 2012 - Kent State 35 - Rutgers 23 (1st 2012 loss; Kent State was a 13.5-point underdog against an undefeated and 15th-ranked Rutgers)
• Homecoming 2011 - The last Homecoming win at The Birthplace of College Football was the 21-20 squeaker over Navy that required a blocked field goal to seal the win.
• Homecoming 2010 - Tulane 17 - Rutgers 14 (Tulane was a 17-point underdog)
• Homecoming 2009 - Rutgers beat an FCS opponent, Texas Southern, by a score of  42-0 for the 600th victory in the program's history.
• Homecoming 2008 - Another close win over UConn requiring a late missed field goal.
• Homecoming 2007 - Another victory over an FCS opponent, 59-0 over Norfolk State.

So, you get the idea. Short of scheduling FCS opponents for Homecoming, how can we combat this obvious curse? Simple.
End Homecoming Games.
Read this. It's a silly tradition from the South and West anyway that only started between Missouri and Kansas in  1911. We won't miss it, and it doesn't encourage more alumni and students to show up anyway if there's a little bit of cold rain.

The First Meeting of Rutgers and Wisconsin Summed Up in One Photo

Taken with 3:48 left in the game. Janarion Grant on the 20 to receive a punt.

Quite a difference from our last home game.