More on this Friday's Coming Tournament

There's a great breakdown of what the Black Knights of Army need to do to beat the Scarlet Knights on the gridiron Friday night over at The Unbalanced Line,
an independent Army football blog.
After the venom poured on Rutgers' football team by some Rutgers "fans" after the Pittsburgh loss, it's interesting to see T.U.L. referring to the "Hollywood glitz and Big East swagger" of Rutgers. This year Rutgers will not be taking a victory over Army for granted and it should be a better game than it was the last time our red knights visited West Point and Jabu Lovelace and Ray Rice ran wild over the wet field (I still have a chill in the marrow of my bones from the cold wet sleet and snow that pelted us that night in the upper deck of Michie Stadium -- it was too cold and wet to sit; we stood through the whole game, but at least we had multiple opportunities to scream the Upstream Red Team chant). I'd love to visit West Point again, but I'm going to be away this weekend. It's a trip I'd recommend to any Scarlet Knight fan (or any football or history fan); if you don't have plans for Friday night, consider a trip up the Hudson, especially since the Rutgers-Army rivalry will soon be moving to bigger and less interesting venues in the Meadowlands and the Bronx.
Beat Army.

Jefferson, Lovelace, Natale, Savage, or Shimko. Who's the QB gonna be on December 5th versus West Virginia?

It's been a long time since BeatVisitor dot com, like every other blog and news site on the interwebs, has run a meaningless poll in its sidebar. How could we possibly forget that there's nothing that your average internaut likes more than clicking radio buttons over and over again to drive a political or other point home to his or her (usually his) fellow internauts?

Rectifying this mystifying omission of ours became our task this afternoon, so after spending minutes of our valuable time, we have come up with the following question: Who will be the Rutgers Quarterback for the LAST game of the 2009 season?

You like the way we threw that little twist in there? As everyone else in the Rutgers football universe is watching reports from the August camp and scrimmage for hints as to which QB will be Greg Schiano's field general versus the Bearcats on September 7th, we're asking you for your opinion about the name of the quarterback who will face the Mountaineers on December 5th. Tom Savage? D.C. Jefferson? Jabu Lovelace? Domenic Natale? Steve Shimko?

You can vote until kickoff time (18 days and 23 hours from now) on Labor Day. Start clicking.

Who'll Stop the Rain?

I hoped to get some nice pictures of Michie Stadium and the Corps of Cadets to illustrate this entry about last night's tournament of traditional gridiron skills between the Black Knights of the Hudson and the Scarlet Knights of the Raritan, but, as with the West Virginia game, I didn't feel like sacrificing my camera to the rain (and snow last night), so here's an appropriate picture taken before this season's USF game back in October.

It was obviously the Ray Rice show up at West Point last night with his school-record-breaking 243 yards and fifth game of 200+ yards. He now has 1,500 yards on the season with Pittsburgh and Louisville still to come.

But it was also at least partially the Jabu Lovelace show. He was the starting quarterback for every offensive touchdown in last night's 41-6 victory and he was in the game long enough -- between Mike Teel's 1st-quarter start and Chris Paul-Etienne's 4th-quarter mopping up -- to show a mix of play calls. Of course, given the weather conditions and the game situation, it was mostly a variety of rushing plays, but he even had one great long ball thrown to Tim Brown in the end zone that was only called back because Tim had placed a foot out of bounds on his dash down the sideline.

It was also a great defensive performance. The defense did not allow a single point or one sustained drive. The six points that Army put on the board were given to them via a sideline interception thrown by Mike Teel (quarterback rating 2.1 on 1 of 4 passing last night) in the first quarter. The coaches seriously need to think about finally giving Jabu Lovelace his first start next Saturday against Pitt. If Mike Teel's thumb isn't fully healed in the next week, they'd be stupid to do otherwise.

The most amazing statistic of last night's victory comes from the article about the game on ScarletKnights.com stating that this is the "...first road victory in the month of November since the 1998 season and the first of the Greg Schiano era." For long-time fans, one of the of the best things about the last three years is seeing these ugly monkeys falling from the back of the Knights.

Reason #16 for the Knights to Beat the Huskies Tonight

REASON #16: They are in our spot!
The Scarlet Knights started the year at number 16 in both the AP poll of August 18 and the the Coaches Poll of August 3. They also spent a week at 15, 13, 11, 10, 21, and 25 this fall, but now some usurping puppies from Storrs, Connecticut, have come from nowhere to take our number 16 in week 10 of the AP poll (and 20 in the Coaches, and 13 in the BCS[!]), so we're coming up there tonight to take it back.

REASON #15: The man in green to your left.
I have a feeling that if Mike Teel gets into any trouble with overthrowing the ball tonight up in the Nutmeg State, then this might be the night that the football world (or at least that miniscule part of it that receives ESPNU) will get its first real glimpse of Jabu Lovelace in something more extended than a one- or two-play appearance or in a mopping up role in a blowout (though that would be nice too). I still can't help thinking that, given the chance, the backfield of Lovelace and Rice could look very similar to the backfield of White and Slaton.

As annoying as it is to see the Huskies leaping up the rankings and holding tenaciously to the Big East lead as we enter November, it is great to see the Scarlet Knights in the thick of the national football picture, with a chance to play a nationally-ranked team for the third week in a row. If our team can end this stretch winning two of those three games (and then keep it up against Army, Pittsburgh, and Louisville), we'll be playing someone more impressive than Kansas State at a location more impressive than the Texas Bowl at the end of the year.

The Scarlet defeated the White 16-10 this afternoon

Click on this picture, or any other picture on BeatVisitor.com, to enlarge

Though the score wasn't really the point of course. White scored all 10 of its points in the first half with Jabu Lovelace leading the team, and Scarlet scored 10 of its 16 points in the second half with Jabu Lovelace leading that team (and he wasn't the only one changing jerseys). His 54-yard run for a touchdown in the first half was the offensive play of the game, and Jeremy Ito was impressive not only with perfect field goal records for both teams, but also taking over the punting duties from the graduating Hoboken Joe Radigan.

The important points, of course, are that no one was injured (though Kenny Britt took a scary hit right after his first reception of the game), that the weather (after a cold wet spring in New Jersey) was absolutely perfect, and that 11,079 spectators (a record for this scrimmage) had a great time in the Birthplace of College Football watching the game and hanging out with the players taking pictures and getting autographs after the game.

Don't miss it next year.

"I wasn't yelling Boo, I was yelling JA-bu!"

The heading of this article shouldn't need any explanation for anyone who witnessed one of Mike Teel's less impressive passing performances at the Stadium during his first two years wearing Scarlet. Despite his stellar performance in Rutgers' most recent game (see illustration and click to enlarge & read the front page), there may be days in his last two years on the banks of the Raritan when some of us in the stands may again express a momentary preference to see Jabu Lovelace under center.

There's a great piece by Joe Queenan on the Op-Ed page of this morning's New York Times entitled Life in the Mean Seats; it has nothing to do with Mike Teel or Jabu Lovelace, but a lot to say about the joys of booing and the fact that Washington state is considering a ban on booing (offensive chants, homemade signs, and more) at scholastic sporting events. And if this takes off on the high school level, what's next? The RU student section won't be able to yell "SUCKS!" after each opposing student-athlete's name is announced over the PA?

...it is clear that the movement is fast infiltrating the zeitgeist. First, no booing high school teams. Then no booing the Fighting Irish. Before you know it, Mets fans will be getting ejected from their own stadium for booing the Yankees. And if Mets fans can’t boo the despicable Yankees, why go on living?

Personally, I'm not a big fan of booing amateur players (I prefer making my point with sarcastic cheering and enthusiastic applause for their dropped passes and missed extra points), but well-paid opposing coaches and anyone in a striped shirt who makes an unfavorable holding call needs to be prepared for the inevitable chorus of boos and worse (and, being, like Joe Queenan, a fellow native of the City of Brotherly Love, I'd like to ask that they please keep Santa Claus out of R house; I might not be able to control myself).

(And the Rutgers Women play #1 Duke in less than an hour in their Sweet Sixteen game. If they win, will they be on their way to becoming the first Rutgers team to win an NCAA Championship?)