Keep Calm and Chop Michigan State

 

This is the one game at Rutgers Stadium in 2021 that my seat companion and I can't make this year, so I hope the Scarlet Knights make us regret our competing engagements by making Saturday's game against Sparty one to remember.

If you are there, make the noise that we would have made.

Keep Chopping

Keep Calm and Remember 2004

September 4, 2004 was one of the more enjoyable days I've spent at Rutgers Stadium, especially as I was in a visitors' section next to the cannon in which the majority of fans were chanting "Go Green" and "Go White" at each other and expecting an easy victory.

Rutgers and Michigan State are currently 3-3 against each other lifetime. There's no reason this Saturday's rubber game should be a surprise if it goes to the Scarlet Knights. We have beaten top ten teams in R House before, and we can do it again.

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:

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>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

BeatVisitor Dot Com Cleans House and Prepares for the B1G Time

On this day after the Pinstripe Bowl loss to the team with the most obnoxious drunken fans in college football (some Golden Dome supporters in section 322 provided a strong argument against ever serving beer at R House), I decided to refresh the BeatVisitor dot com sidebar to your right (if you're viewing this on a non-mobile device). I've removed the links to the USFs and UConns and Temples and replaced them with links to the Ohio States and Penn States and Michigan States on our football schedule for the foreseeable future. If you know of any strong or humorous Big Ten blogs that I haven't included in this first pass, please suggest them in the comments.

I was thinking of mentioning the interim conference we're leaving, which I've never mentioned by name here in this blog, to complain about their bad officiating and petty money grubbing, but I won't bother naming them now; they're in our past. Rutgers should post a picture when their ugly logo is removed and the B1G logo is painted on our field. That will be a day to celebrate.

I've also placed the 2014 schedule high on the sidebar. 2013 is over. Life begins again in Seattle on August 28th. Keep Calm and Chop Cougars.

Rutgers Loses a Loyal Son, James Gandolfini (B.A., 1983)

I just heard the sad news that James Gandolfini has passed away suddenly at the young age of 51 while on vacation in Italy.


We'll all remember him as Tony Soprano, of course, but I'll always remember him as one of the Scarlet Knights' most important supporters when very few people had jumped on our bandwagon.  There was the video he did in support of Rutgers football right after Greg Schiano was hired (but which I can't find right now on YouTube or anywhere else), but there are three Rutgers football moments that stand out in my mind on this sad night.  Here they are in reverse chronological order.
I remember seeing him at a spring Scarlet and White game in '08 or '09 with a young child on his shoulders walking around the field with all the other fans and players and while everyone was asking the players for their autographs, the families on the field left this family man and fellow fan alone even though we all recognized him.
I also remember seeing him on the sideline during a very cold and wet night at Michie Stadium in November 2007 as Jabu Lovelace and Ray Rice and the rest of the Scarlet Knights ran all over the Black Knights. Tony Soprano, dressed in Scarlet, was spending a lot of time on the home team's sideline in the soaking rain and wet snow talking to every West Point cadet who wanted to spend a few moments with him.
Finally, I remember September 4, 2004 when Rutgers beat Michigan State in the season opener, long before even the most wild-eyed Knights fans had any thoughts of joining the Big Ten.  It was an important upset win in the Schiano era and students immediately started flooding the field as the game ended.  My son, turning 15 that month, asked if he could hop the wall and join the students and I said yes. I watched from the seats as he wandered around in the end zone at the open end of the field with a smile on his face.  I noticed that the star of The Sopranos was standing about 10 feet from him, so I called my son's cell phone and asked him to turn around.  I watched as he walked right up to James Gandolfini and shook his hand. As we walked back to the car I asked him what he had said to the star of his favorite show.
My son had said, "Mr. Gandolfini, I love your show."
"You're too young to watch my show," Mr. Gandolfini had said.

More than any line from The Sopranos or any of his movies, that's the one quote I'll always remember when I think of this larger-than-life loyal son of Rutgers.

Rest in Peace.

Wii are the Scarlet Knights!

Every day between now and March 14th, you can go over to http://www.easports.com/ncaa09/ and point your virtual Wii controller at the picure of the Scarlet Knight. Fan votes will help determine which mascot ends up on the cover of EA Sports' NCAA Football '09 Nintendo Wii -- the first Wii college football game. So tell all your Rutgers friends (but hide this link from all friends of Cincinnati's Bearcat and Syracuse's round orange thing).


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UPDATE 3/26/08: And the winner was not the Scarlet Knight, but the Green Knight -- not Sir Gawain's famous nemesis, but "Sparty" the Michigan State Spartan (last seen slinking out of Rutgers Stadium on September 4, 2004 after a 19-14 loss).