12/28/2006

I can't believe that it's been eight years since we traveled to Houston for Rutgers' first bowl victory over Kansas State in the Texas Bowl. It's fresh in my mind tonight as I'm watching Arkansas and Texas play this year's installment at Reliant Stadium.

Here's the Houston Chronicle I picked up at the airport the morning after:

it's Keep-Calm-And-Chop-Louisville week

Don't tell anyone associated with the team, but this game on Thursday against the #8 Louisville Cardinals could end up being as pivotal for the Rutgers football program as the 2006 game against the #3 Louisville Cardinals. Just tell them to keep calm, and to chop Louisville.

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: