"Beat Visitor" makes another surprising appearance

Here's the first paragraph of an article appearing in Grantland today titled "Don't Look Now -- Rutgers is 6-0":

"I don't know who these two guys were, if they pictured themselves as historical reenactors or professional ironists, but they felt to me like fitting ambassadors for a college football program still trafficking on a 50-man melee with Princeton that took place in 1869. They were sitting along the rail in a corner of the end zone that could generously be described as "semi-vacant," and one of them appeared to be wearing a leather helmet, and together they were holding up a handwritten sign that read, 'BEAT VISITOR.'"

There's even a link to an Instagram image of the sign that's much clearer and closer than the one that I took from long distance at Saturday's Syracuse game.

See the white box above the R in the corner.

The article by Michael Weinreb after that first paragraph rehashes a lot of the old anti-bigtime-Rutgers-football arguments that we've all heard -- and been having -- for the past thirty years, but it's good to see the Beat Visitor "brand" getting another plug, even if it is being misunderstood by an outsider (Why can't one be an "historical reenactor", "professional ironist," and a simple bleeding-scarlet Rutgers fan at the same time? Or none of the above?). Any sign at a sporting event that elicits any thought at all is better than the normal arrangements of words beginning with large capital letters "E", "S", "P", and "N" designed to attract the network television cameras for ten seconds.

"Beat Visitor" was in R House today

At the 23-15 victory over Syracuse at Rutgers Stadium this afternoon, I noticed the sign in the following picture.
All I had was my iPhone camera, so you can't read the letters in the square white box above the large block R in the corner near the student section, but it reads "BEAT VISITOR":

The extra point being attempted in this photo was not successful.

It wasn't me holding up the Beat Visitor sign (though more than one person on Twitter asked if it was). If it was you, let me know in the comments below, or at @BeatVisitor.

Six and Oh feels great, as does beating Syracuse in this last of many meetings since 1914.  I had so much fun at R House this afternoon, that I'm watching the game again on SNY Encore now.

Go Knights!

Rutgers vs. Pittsburgh (the 2005 version) was a turning point

Click Here for a great recap by Aditi Kinkhabwala of the last meeting between the Panthers and the Scarlet Knights at R House on Friday, September 30, 2005.

The win marked the first time Rutgers (3-1, 1-0) won its league opener in 11 years. It was the first time the Scarlet Knights took out Pitt (1-4, 0-1) in seven years, the first time they've won three games in a row in 13 years and the first time they refused to allow the old trappings of Rutgers football to wholly trap them.

For those of us who were there that night, it certainly seemed, along with the Michigan State game the year before, like a turning point for our Knights. And as with the Michigan State game the year before, we saw the lucky banner unfurled in the stands:

The biggest fan-made sign across from Pitt's bench read "Beat Visitor" . . .

Her article also reminds us how many young players who are still on the team made important contributions in that pivotal victory. Tiquan Underwood played quarterback for a number of snaps, switching places with Ryan Hart at the last minute (Ryan took Tiquan's place at wide receiver) and running a Jabu Lovelace-type shotgun offense that caught the Pitt defense (and many of us in the stands) totally off guard. Glen Lee made a memorable fumble-inducing hit on an early kickoff. Jeremy Ito kicked three field goals. "Mike Teel of Oakland" moved the team from the RU 9 to the Pitt 46 on one series. And, it isn't mentioned in her article but a kid named Ray Rice carried 15 times for 114 yards, his first hundred-yard game of many.