Congratulations to the 2009 Kings of the Knights

Now that the Scarlet Knights have won their fourth straight bowl game after having zero previous bowl wins, it's hard to remember what a big deal it was when we sat in Houston and watched Greg Schiano, Brian Leonard, and Ray Rice raise the Texas Bowl trophy above their heads in Reliant Stadium. Congratulations to all the Rutgers football players and coaches for last night's convincing 45-24 victory over the Golden Knights of the University of Central Florida, but especially to the seniors who do not know what it is to not attend a post-season game, and who do not know what it is to lose one (we have to believe that our freshmen, especially Savage and Sanu, will have future years in which we can single them out for special recognition after bowl games).

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We at Beat Visitor dot com would like to point out that we were very restrained in the buildup to last night's game, not even pointing out this very obvious anagrammatic school motto for the UCF Knights pictured to your left. As soon as we saw the the phrase "UCF Knights" in print for the first time, we knew that the first four letters would lead to promising anagrams and it took less than a minute more to come up with the obvious school motto, so obvious that it had to have been as purposeful as French Connection UK and their FCUK shirts. It's a clever play for the University of Central Florida to subliminally attract prospective high school seniors and put their school into the running to take the official #1 party school honor away from West Virginia and Penn State.

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Finally, until the Black Knights of West Point or the Golden Knights of Disney World take it away from us, the Scarlet Knights are the first undisputed Kings of the college football Knights. Where's our crown?

I don't know if I'm more upset about the late bait 'n' switch or the apostrophe abuse in the B'O'B Bowl.

As far as I can tell from my five minutes of arduous internet research, the St. Petersburg Bowl has just officially named itself after a food franchise. I had never heard of this roadside eatery and it doesn't exist in New Jersey or most of the Northeast, but it seems to be extremely popular in the states that are featured in US obesity maps.

The style guide of Beat Visitor dot com assiduously avoids naming any corporate sponsors (e.g., we say Muffler Bowl of Charlotte, Pizza Bowl of Birmingham, etc.), but I feel like I have to mention "Beef 'O' Brady's" by name just this once in order to ask, "What the fuck is going on with the apostrophes and spacing around the O?" If it's the beef restaurant of a man named O'Brady, then there shouldn't be a space after the O'. If it's the slaughtered-cow bistro of a man named Brady and the o' is a contraction of of, then the space between o' and Brady is correct, but I can't think of a single reason (other than illiteracy) for an apostrophe before and after the 'O'. Can someone please enlighten me? (On their website they also use the superfluous plural apostrophe -- "Today there are Beef's [sic] popping up all over the country." -- so I'm going with the initial illiteracy theory until convinced otherwise.)

The full name of this fast-food franchise will never be mentioned again in this blog. Maybe the St. Petersburg Bowl will have to become the B'O'B Bowl, or maybe we can use an anagram of the franchise name and make it the "Obey Bad Refs" Bowl. In any case, it sucks. The only thing that the St. Petersburg Bowl had going for it was that it was not sponsored. To add a cheesy name less than two weeks before the game takes place seems especially sleazy.

Is it too late to switch with USF and go back to the International Bowl?

Is There a Special Award for Becoming King of the Knights?

The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers have already defeated the Black Knights of West Point on the gridiron earlier this fall and now they will have the chance to beat the Golden Knights of University of Central Florida in less than two weeks.
Is this the first time in college football history that a team has had the opportunity to become the undisputed King of the Knights? Is there a special trophy or sword that goes with the honor? Something other than being crowned the football champions of St. Petersburg?
Do they at least have a mounted mascot with whom our Knight can joust on the sidelines?