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.

Full House

I hope this crowd looked as good on television as it did from the stands at the beginning of the 4th quarter (with the Irish only leading by 3).

Football Weather at R House North

The Beat Visitor Bowl Poll

Please vote in the sidebar poll I've just added to the right, and which will be live until December 28th.

I have a strong feeling about this question, but I'd love to see how some of the Scarlet Knights' other fans feel about the importance of the Pinstripe Bowl to their final evaluation of this strange gap year in the Double-A C conference.

Will a win over Notre Dame in the Bronx make the 2013 Rutgers football season a total success, a partial success, or something much less?

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Post-Game Update 12/29/13:
Well, we didn't beat the golden domers in Yankee Stadium yesterday, but here's a snapshot of the results of the (now meaningless) poll before I remove it from the sidebar:

Have you ordered your tickets for December 28th yet?

Why the Huskies need to massacre the Leprechauns on Saturday

In his most recent prediction of the 34 2009-2010 bowl matchups, Stewart Mandel presents the possibility of this outrage, a mediocre Notre Dame stealing the 2nd Big East bowl slot in the Gator Bowl on New Year's Day. The "other" Big East teams are allocated to the following bowls:

• Pittsburgh as Big East champs in the Sugar Bowl against Florida.
• Cincinnati as the "3rd place" Big East team in the Muffler Repair Shop Bowl against North Carolina.
• West Virginia in the Pizza Bowl of Birmingham against South Carolina.
• Rutgers in the St. Petersburg Bowl against Southern Miss.
• USF in the International Bowl against Temple.
• UConn in the Pizza Bowl of Detroit against Central Michigan (because the Big Ten won't have enough bowl-eligible teams for all their bowl slots).

As much fun as it would be to see Notre Dame lose to Virginia Tech by five touchdowns in the Gator Bowl, I'd much rather see that bowl slot go to a worthier Big East team, and see the Dames blown out by the University of Connecticut this weekend. I hope the Huskies' football players get a cathartic release of every bit of frustration they have felt in this season's close losses to Pitt, UNC, Rutgers, and Cincinnati.

The BlogPoll Ballot of Beat Visitor dot com is up for your comments

I don't have much to say about my ballot this week. Rutgers wasn't playing, so did anyone actually watch a college football game this past weekend??

All I can say is that I'm sorry to any readers who may have been offended by my addition of Notre Dame to the ballot last week. I'm sorry. They are gone for good now after having been beaten by the team that was beaten by the Temple Owls last week. Hoot. Hoot.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Florida
3	Texas
4	Cincinnati
5	TCU
6	Boise State	1
7	Georgia Tech	3
8	Pittsburgh	3
9	Iowa	3
10	LSU	1
11	Ohio State	3
12	Oregon	4
13	Southern Cal
14	Houston	1
15	Arizona	1
16	Utah	1
17	Miami (Florida)	1
18	Penn State	6
19	Oklahoma State	1
20	Virginia Tech	4
21	Wisconsin
22	South Florida
23	Rutgers
24	Brigham Young
25	Temple
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: California (#19), Notre Dame (#21).

The Paper of Record attacks the "Fighting" Irish

Wow!

I thought I was tough on the Dames a few days ago when I asked the road to rise up and hit them in their drunken faces. I had nothing on Harvey Araton in tomorrow's New York Times, "Notre Dame Plays Holier Than Thou With Rutgers":

For self-importance on the grandest of delusional scales, there is no entity in sports quite like Notre Dame football, winner of three games last season, routinely whacked like a piñata in recent bowl games and not a national championship to its name in 20 years, or since the Gipper was about to hand off the presidency of the United States to George H.W. Bush.

And that's just the opening paragraph.
Not only does the attack on Notre Dame's arrogance continue in that grain throughout, but the praise of Rutgers not only includes respect for RU's standing up to ND on the recent scheduling question, but it ends by mentioning our favorite football program's stellar Academic Progress Report last week...

... as one of six Bowl Subdivision colleges to be rated in the top 10 percent of the study’s four-year cycle. The other ones, all private, were Duke, Stanford, Rice, Air Force and Navy.
“Good company,” Mulcahy said.
Notre Dame excluded.

Read the whole thing, you'll love it.

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Rutgers Football and Bob Mulcahy are getting respect from around the web for standing up to Notre Dame's bullying tactics. Here's another example from BlackAthlete.net, but there are many more.

No Battles Between Scarlet Knights & Prancing Leprechauns in 2010

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish, being afraid to play in R (expanded) House in Piscataway, or maybe just afraid to play against a Scarlet Knights team then led by Tom Savage or D.C. Jefferson, have scuttled negotiations for the two teams to play starting in 2010. The breakdown supposedly came because of the Dame's insistence on playing the Rutgers "home" games at that 80,000-seat NFL stadium in East Rutherford which they could half-fill with a sea of green.
Here's the full statement from Bob Mulcahy:

"Rutgers entered discussions about a possible long-term series with Notre Dame, but at the end of the day both schools could not agree about the site of the games. We feel Rutgers' home games should be played on-campus in Rutgers Stadium."

Good for you Bob!
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Is there any other football team that would, or could, demand that their away games be played at a neutral site? I guess we should be glad that the Irish were willing to let Rutgers play home games in our own state; they want the University of Connecticut Huskies to play their "home" games in the pro stadiums of Massachusetts and New Jersey.

May, as they say in the old country, the road rise up to meet your faces as you fall down drunk on the way to mass with Touchdown Jesus. (I'm a little vague on my homespun Irish sayings, but I think I got that one right.) Oh, and keep losing. It makes the entire country happy.

Rumor Control: It is not true that Charlie Weis and Ralph Friedgen are quitting coaching . . .

... to join the sumo circuit full time.

It's purely a hobby for both of them.

Bring on that Prancing Leprechaun!

Click here to see who is on Rutgers' football schedule from 2010 through 2016 (at least).

I find it hard to imagine how big the Scarlet Knights/Fighting Irish rivalry could become. Even in their current diminished state, the Dames still have millions of followers in the New York/New Jersey area. It remains a lot easier to find someone wearing the ND than the block R around here, but it's changing fast. With a couple of more Rutgers bowl wins between now and 2010, Notre Dame fans might even find themselves outnumbered in a few (non-Irish) New Jersey bars.

I'm certainly not going to give up my season tickets for Rutgers Stadium (not that I was considering it anyway).


Bring on that prancing leprechaun!!