Well, this was unexpected...

Did one single person predict a bowl game for the Scarlet Knights after the season-ending loss to the Terrapins? Let alone the Gator Bowl?

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 (despite today's surprises) and Chop Michigan

I guess we shouldn't have expected the week between Rutgers' 3-0 non-conference season and Saturday's trip to begin running the Big Ten gauntlet at The Big House to be completely uneventful, but who had  "Max Melton and Chris Long will be suspended after an incident incident involving a paintball gun" on their bingo card?  

I'm sure I wasn't the only Scarlet Knights fan wondering about which brother would make the biggest impact during the Wolverines' game, Bo Melton on offense or Max on defense, because both have been stellar so far.

This is a coaching challenge that Greg Schiano did not need during this week, but I hope he's able to fully instill the Keep Calm and Chop Michigan message with the non-suspended members of the team before Saturday at 3:30 in Ann Arbor.

Those Buckeyes Were Just Copying the Scarlet Knights (and not only by copying the color scarlet)

There's a great article by Ryan Dunleavy on NJ.com this morning with the title, "Did Rutgers, not Ohio State, start helmet stickers in college football? Here's proof." Not only is it worth reading this piece about large stars added to the front of Rutgers helmets for interceptions in 1961 in its own right, but the timing is perfect with the Buckeyes coming to town in two days.

See you there.

Scarlet Knights vs Black Knights this Saturday

We should be able to keep calm this week, but ...

The Perfect Rutgers Road Game for 2015

Today, with half a winter and a full spring and summer between us and the resumption of Rutgers football, we just got some great news about the 2015 season. The game between the Scarlet Knights and the Black Knights will be moving from the evil field in the Bronx to one of the best football locations in the nation, Michie Stadium at West Point.

I'll be there with my traveling companion. I hope it's better weather than the cold rain and snow mix we had in 2007. Other than being cold and wet, I remember that game for Ray Rice's 243 rushing yards and watching James Gandolfini mingling with the cadets on the sidelines. There were tons of empty seats in the wet upper deck that year, but let's fill it with scarlet in 2015.

National Championship Winners

The Rutgers women just completed their quest for the 2014 WNIT championship before 12,000 loud UTEP fans in El Paso.

Late-game heroine Tyler Scaife seconds after the final buzzer.

The 2014 WNIT trophy.

Congratulations to C. Vivian Stringer and all the players, all of whom should be back next year to face the Big Ten.

Forget today...Time to Keep Calm and Chop UCF

Here's this week's poster:

Keep Calm (and fire defensive coordinator Dave Cohen and name Chas Dodd the starting quarterback) and Chop UCF.

And the UCF Knights always remind me why I love anagrams:

The Rutgers Football quotes of the month come from Tampa Bay

I'm a little slow catching up with the news from the NFL this month, but it's just recently come to my attention that our favorite Knight Brian Leonard is hooking up with  his college coach Greg Schiano again and moving from the Bengals to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (otherwise known as the Scarlet Knights South in opposition to the Scarlet Knights North playing at Gillette Stadium).

Brian Leonard's last game wearing
the Scarlet's 23 on 12/26/06.

Here are a couple of quotes from the July 10 article in Brian's local Watertown Daily Times:

“We felt Brian could help us win and that’s why we brought him here. Brian Leonard’s a winner. I have a history with him since he was 16 years old. We’ve been through a lot together. This guy is an unselfish guy who will show up big when we need him.” -- Greg Schiano

and

“It’s comfortable going back to a coaching staff I already know and I’ll also be playing with some former teammates from Rutgers. [...] I’m excited. I had a great time in Cincinnati and have some good friends there, and the fans are great. But I needed a change and I think Coach Schiano knows how to use me. Hopefully I’ll progress throughout camp and show my skills, and my role with the team will get bigger and bigger.” -- Brian Leonard

It's hard not to wish them both the best. This is a coach/player combination that trumps any other loyalty I might have to any other NFL team.

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.

It's Official

 Rutgers will be joining the Big Ten as its 14th member, with a target date of 2014.  

Here's the picture that was tweeted by Athletic Director Tim Pernetti right before the official announcement at 2 this afternoon.

Here's the Official Announcement from Rutgers and the Big Ten.

Rutgers in the Polls

On this off week, The 7-1 Scarlet Knights (4-0 Big East) rose back up to 20 in the Coaches Poll and 24 in the AP Poll.

It's also interesting to see that the 8-1 Kent State Golden Flashes (5-0 MAC), the one team to beat the Scarlet Knights, won again and are very close to being ranked in both polls themselves.

The Updated BCS Map

There have been some minor geographic adjustments in the top 25 BCS rankings this week. Texas lost one of its teams, Iowa lost its sole representative on the list and Wisconsin and Michigan have entered the map (Ohio lost one, but gained another.)

The Northeast is still represented in the BCS rankings by only a single team, the #15 Rutgers Scarlet Knights.

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.

Beat Temple!

A Scarlet Knights fan at the Rutgers Temple game
in the open-ended Rutgers Stadium on Halloween 1998.

In ten minutes I'll be over on Twitter at @BeatVisitor and watching this revived rivalry between the Cherry and White Temple Owls and the Scarlet and Black Rutgers Scarlet Knights on SNY.

Go Knights!

```````````
Halftime Update: A very sloppy first half by the Scarlet Knights with penalties, dropped passes, and two turnovers. The Temple Owls are up by 10-0.
Rutgers can't rely on 3rd-quarter magic every week if they intend to stay undefeated.

````````````````
Final Update: With a final score of 35-10 and a complete domination of the second half offensively and defensively (Nova touchdown passes to Wright, Jamison, Harrison, and Jefferson, a fumble return by Greene and even a blocked punt thrown in for a little special team balance), Rutgers' #15 BCS ranking probably won't suffer any damage.

The Scarlet Knight Life for Temple Week

I sense an opening for the Knight who rides the horse and has a sword made from real steel!

The BCS Map at a Glance

Excuse the amateur Etch-a-Sketchy graphics, but I thought it might be interesting to see the density of all 25 BCS-ranked schools represented geographically. It's easy to see at one glance how strong the tilt towards the South and West:

The 25 BCS teams plotted on a map of the United States
(I'll add Alaska and Hawai'i when one of their schools is ranked).

Not to put more pressure on our #15 Scarlet Knights, but they are not only playing for the honor of Dear Old Rutgers, or the Garden State, or the New York Metropolitan Area. The Knights are THE team carrying the hopes of the Northeast in 2012.

It's nature's way of telling you...

When I find the Scarlet and the Orange lining up against each other in my backyard, I know that it's finally really college football season!

Near Woodstock, New York, October 9, 2012

See you Saturday in Piscataway.  I just checked ScarletKnights.com and some tickets are still available to see the 5-0 Scarlet Knights take on their rivals from Syracuse.

I Almost Forgot What This Felt Like

Back in 2006 and 2007, checking the web for the earliest online appearances of the AP and Coaches' Polls was almost an obsession, but it's a pastime that has fallen by the wayside for many fans of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (and certainly for this one).

However, if the Knights beat the Louisville Cardinals and move the 6-1 this Friday night, then be sure to check ESPN and SI on Sunday night, because they might just move onto one, or both, lists. They are currently knocking on the door of the Coaches' top 25 with 31 votes, placing them in 28th, and they have a tougher chance of breaking into the AP, with their 2 votes placing them in 35th.

The Visual State of Beat Visitor dot com on the Fifth of January Twenty Ten

It's obvious from this picture that I need to use the word Rutgers with more regularity. Rutgers. Rutgers. Rutgers. Visit Wordle.net to try one yourself for your own site, or for a website that you visit regularly.
I was surprised by the words that popped up most regularly on my blog. But I'll fix that. Rutgers. Rutgers. Rutgers. Scarlet Knights. Scarlet Kinghts. Scarlet Knights. Football. Football. Football.
This cloud of words was created using the tools at http://www.wordle.net/. Images of Wordles are licensed by a Creative Commons license.