Game Day at R House

See you all (except for @KyleBobbleflood) at Rutgers Stadium at noon as the Knights #ChopKansas.

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.

Homecoming 1992

On Halloween of 1992, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights had one of their more memorable wins in the early Big East era over the Virginia Tech Hokies, 50-49 as time ran out.
Don't feel like you have to watch all three and a quarter hours as homework for this year's Homecoming against Wisconsin (though there are great shots of the pre-expansion Stadium, giant shoulder pads, television coverage unmarred by on-field computer-graphic distractions, etc.), but please watch Brian Fortay lead the last Rutgers drive at least; it begins at about the 2 hour and 50 minute mark of this video.

Another First Meeting in this First B1G Year

I did the same for Michigan, Ohio State, and Nebraska, so here are early team pictures of Wisconsin and Rutgers to commemorate the Homecoming game this Saturday that has been entirely too long in coming. The Wisconsin football program is a year older than Ohio State's and only twenty years younger than Rutgers', having been established in 1889.

The 1903 Wisconsin Football Squad, with pads starting to make their appearance.

The 1891 Rutgers Football Team (I'm not sure of the subtleties of the 1891 rules, but I think the player with the Clockwork Orange bowler was the designated knife carrier).

The 1891 RU image is a New York World-Telegram & Sun photograph from the Library of Congress.

"My Father Sent Me To Old Rutgers" revisited

It's been more than a month since the last game at R House, but you remember which first verse you're singing at the Homecoming on Saturday, right?

Here's a Wordle constructed from all the 1873 lyrics.

The Life of a Rutgers Man in the [Eighteen] Seventies

With the attempted 2013 changes to the first verse of the 1914 lyrics to "On The Banks of the Old Raritan" still fresh in everyone's mind, it's a great time to revisit Howard N. Fuller's (RC, '74) hastily-penned 1873 version which gives a quick contemporary sketch of a Rutgers man's progression from freshman hazee to sophomore hazer to junior card player to senior maiden slayer. 

It's amazing the first and last verses made it from 1873 to 2013 completely unchanged (only the chorus's "my boys" became "my friends" with co-education) while verses II through V couldn't even make it past 1914. The original central verses were unfamiliar to me, but it's amazing how fresh and alive (and politically completely incorrect) they feel.

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.
(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.
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)
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)

Let's sing (loudly) the original first verse at the beginning and end of Saturday's Homecoming game, though we probably won't be singing about all-night euchre players with wicked plans to haze first-year students and become serial slayers of the hearts of many women. It is interesting though that while many schools have replaced "freshman" with the gender-inclusive "first-year student" in the 21st century, the gender-neutral "Fresh" in verses II and III here could be politically correct today (though the first-year hazing and fearful gauntlets and tortures probably less so).

Your Keep-Calm-And-Chop Poster for Homecoming Week

Sorry it's a little late this week, but here's a "Keep Calm And Chop Houston" poster to add to your 2013 collection:

See you at Homecoming at R House on Saturday!

Chop Kent Week Begins

The eighteen hours that Kyle Flood gives the Scarlet Knights to celebrate a win is complete, so we are now officially into preparation for the Kent State Golden Flashes. Previously unbeaten Cincinnati's loss yesterday to the Toledo Rockets show how dangerous is for a Big East team to overlook a one-loss MAC team.  We hope that that 7-0 Knights can keep their intensity and focus on being 1-0 each week to prepare for 6-1 Kent State.
Here's our little propaganda contribution to that effort:

http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-kent/

You can get your own original pdf or png image by clicking on http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-chop-kent/ .  And remember, if you tweet, to use the #ChopKent hashtag this week.  #ChopTemple was trending during yesterday's 35-10 win.

The Homecoming Victory Video

Sorry I've been away from this page for awhile, but here's a short video of last Saturday's game at the Stadium from my seats, including an ominous pregame warning and shots of UConn's missed field goal and the following celebration.
That's two in a row at R House!

Scarlet Knight Streaks

School Spirit versus Buffalo, 30 August 2007

Current Streaks Entering the Norfolk State game on 9/15/07

15 -- Rutgers (#13 AP/ #13 Coaches) has now been nationally ranked in 15 consecutive polls, a school record.
9 -- The home winning streak, at nine games, is now the 6th longest in the country (after only USC, Louisville, Florida, LSU, and BC). After Saturday’s game, the current Knights could be halfway toward matching the record home-win streak of twenty games set when yours truly was a student On the Banks in the mid-Seventies.
5 -- Five straight games scoring 30 points or more.
5 -- Five straight games in which the offensive line has not allowed a sack.
5 – Ray Rice’s current streak of 100+ yard games (he shares the RU record of 7 straight games with J.J. Jennings).

3 -- Three straight Homecoming Day victories. The last Homecoming loss was to Pittsburgh in 2003.
2 – Ray Rice’s current streak of 1,000+ yard seasons. Could he be halfway to his third thousand-yard campaign after the third game of the 2007 season?