"The Birthplace of College Football" Removed?

According to this article on NJ.com this afternoon, the letters spelling out "The Birthplace of College Football" have been removed from the field-level wall on the south end of Rutgers Stadium.
According to the statement in the article from Jason Baum, Rutgers' senior associate athletic director for communications, a new spot for the letters hasn't been decided yet, but I have a suggestion. Put them back on top of the scoreboard (photo below from the December 5, 2009 West Virginia game) where they were before the sponsorship deal that removed them and replaced them with the commercial name we have never used (and will never use) when referring to Rutgers Stadium or R House or The Birthplace of College Football.

And put the letters back on the south wall too.

A Pet Peeve

I hate the way that televised football games have come to look more and more like video games and less and less like the game that we see from the stands.  Here's a photo I took from the screen with 40 seconds left in the first half of today's Rutgers / West Virginia game:

Rutgers Stadium on ABC TV, October 29, 2011

It's bad enough when they add the yellow lines and the arrows and the team logos and other crap to our green fields, but black lines on snow?  The fact that Rutgers is dressed in all black today makes it even more visually distracting, but if you look closely you will see that the black lines on the 20 and the 25 aren't even lined up with the white lines, which are still visible under the light snow.  Tell ESPN and ABC that the experiment failed!

Time for the second half to start with Rutgers still up by a score of 31 to 21.  As I said over on Twitter, I won't relax unless they have a 30 point lead with 30 seconds left.  I'm signing off here, so look for me over at @BeatVisitor.

AND GO RU!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE at 7pm:
Same old story. West Virginia scored 20 unanswered points in the second half and the final was 41-31 in favor of the Mountaineers.  I wasn't sorry that I was watching on television today.  I've been in attendance at Rutgers Stadium for too many of the 16 straight losses, many of which seemed to be in bad weather (or maybe that was simply my post-game mood).  I'm not sorry to see this team moving to the Big 12.

Versus West Virginia in the Snow

I'm over on Twitter today at @BeatVisitor

I'm a traditionalist. Enron Field will always be Enron Field ...

... and The Birthplace of College Football will always be Rutgers Stadium --or maybe "R House"-- in this blog (if I ever get back to football blogging here), but it will never be known by the name of a company I never heard of before this event . But then I'm a traditionalist. I still refer to "Busch Campus" as University Heights and that flat skyscraper above Grand Central as The Pan Am Building, no matter which insurance company paid for the current naming rights and for Snoopy's image.


As an independent blogger, I don't have to bow to any corporate interests by repeating the name of any company that pays to put their name on a stadium or bowl game or "kick-off classic", but why do the TV and radio networks bend over backwards to repeat the names of these corporate sponsors as often as possible. How much did that repetition contribute to the general feeling that Enron might have been something other than a simple criminal enterprise? Is it in the broadcasters' contracts to repeat these names without editorial comment? With all the dead air time in yesterday afternoon's and last night's lightning-delayed and -shortened "Friends of Coal Bowl" between West Virginia and Marshall, you would have thought there would be time to mention that if the corporate "Friends of Coal" sponsoring the game have their way, the West Virginia Mountaineers won't have any mountains left in their state

one more time in twenty ten -- Beat the Mountaineers!

I'll be opening up http://twitter.com/beatvisitor in a few minutes and turning my television on to ABC to watch the Scarlet Knights play the Mountaineers in West Virginia. I have no predictions, but I can say for sure that if the Knights win today, it will be one of the most memorable games in the college careers of those young men wearing Scarlet -- Go Knights!

HALFTIME UPDATE: It's West Virginia 14 and Rutgers 7 at the half, but the Scarlet Knights get the ball to start the second half and they ended the first with momentum, having scored the last touchdown and then prevented the Mountaineers from scoring what looked to be their sure third touchdown with a sack by Antonio Lowery, a broken up pass in the endzone by Joe Lefeged, and a blocked field goal attempt by Charlie Noonan. The Mountaineers also had two possessions ended with fumbles, so it could easily be 35-7 rather than 14-7. The Scarlet Knights are still in this important game.

IT'S FINAL: The college football season of 2010 is over, ending with a 35-14 loss to the Mountaineers. As a longtime Rutgers fan, that 0-17 record in Morgantown is a lot more painful than the fact that the Scarlet Knights won't be going to a sixth straight bowl game this year.

The Football Season is FAR from Over

This will be the first year since 2005 that the Scarlet Knights aren't going to a bowl game, but they still have one game remaining, a game more important than ANY bowl game other than a BCS bowl. If the Scarlet Knights can win next week and end their twenty ten campaign by starting to make up for the-game-that-must-not-be-named and for approximately 500 years of futility in Morgantown, then this season with its young players and its many injuries, will be at least a partial success and the mood will be much better going in twenty eleven.

I don't know what to say . . .

Another year's worth of used tickets . . .

I'm finally dry enough, almost 24 hours after the event, to write a few words about yesterday's 24-21 loss to the Mountaineers of West Virginia University on the last day of the year at Rutgers Stadium. Though I haven't read anything online since leaving the parking lot yesterday afternoon, I imagine that there have been a lot of words written about the number of dropped passes, a key missed field goal, underthrown passes, the defense's early porousness, the inexplicable coaching decisions at the very end of the first half, and the effect of the cold, rain and snow on all of the above.

I'll comment on something I know more about, the effect of the cold, rain and snow on the fans around me. The people who stayed until the end of the game (or at least until West Virginia's last first down with less than a minute left) in Section 123 were loud and standing throughout (as if it were possible to sit on cold wet aluminum for one second more as the wet snowflakes fell) and there was even good-natured shouting at those in blue and gold (and a little late-game pushing and shoving), but the number of no-shows, and large number of people who left during the second quarter, and at halftime, was inexcusable. If you buy tickets next year, consider yourself obligated to at least make it to the beginning of the fourth quarter. This wasn't a blowout like the loss to the Mountaineers the last time they visited in atrocious weather; this was a THREE-POINT loss. There's no honor in a close loss to these hicks for the umpteenth straight year, but this game was close, and I put the loss squarely on the shoulders of my fellow season ticket holders and students who didn't show up or left early. If you had stayed and screamed in that final quarter, it would have carried our boys to victory. Period.
Those of you who sought warmth and shelter probably aren't enough of a Rutgers football fan to read Rutgers football blogs either, but if you can't show up for a WESTFUCKINGVIRGINIA game, you probably shouldn't bother to show up at all. Wait until the BCS game is over and then transfer your fair-weather loyalties to the Crimson Tide or those beef cattle with the deformed horns from Texas.
~~~
Video Addendum: I got at least one response on Twitter pointing out that the fan exodus wasn't quite as bad as I had painted it up above.
Though the following scan of Rutgers Stadium shot during the Lil Jovi interlude isn't the best video in the world, it does show how many empty seats there were at this sold-out game at the beginning of the fourth quarter (except, of course, in that pie slice next to the student section filled with Mountaineer supporters):

This is my only piece of advice for the Scarlet Knights going into tomorrow's game.

I only have one piece of advice for the Scarlet Knights for tomorrow's game, the biggest of the year. Don't wear the black uniforms that made their only appearance in the rain at the last infamous visit of the Mountaineers to R House in 2007. I swear. I don't think I'll be able to restrain myself from booing if I see these things on our home field again.

The Fakest of the @FakeBigEastCoaches

@SteveKragthorpe and @Kragthorpe have been given their walking papers by the University of Louisville today after their Cardinals were kragthorped by the Scarlet Knights for the second year in a row yesterday, so the question becomes: Who is now the funniest fake Twitter football coach in the Big East? This tweet from the person who takes the identity of Mountaineer Coach Bill Stewart earlier today may just show who is the funniest imposter of all.Sorry @FakeGregSchiano, @CoachBrianKelly, and @NotDougMarrone, but the fragmented fake folksiness dreamed up by the Twitter team behind @CoachStewart seems sometimes, like today, to have been drafted by the same comedy writers posing as the former Alaskan sports reporter known as @SarahPalinUSA.
But by quoting (without attribution) the Maréchal of France Ferdinand Foch: "Mon centre cède, ma droite recule, situation excellente, j'attaque," is he (are they) trying to compare our Scarlet Knights to Foch's German enemies? Is he calling us Krauts?? Them's fightin' words (as they say in the few mountains and hollers of West Virginia that haven't yet been leveled to yield piles of combustible coal and poisonous sludge)!

It's not really a question, is it?

"Which means more to you as a Rutgers fan, winning a fourth straight bowl game or beating West Virginia?"
It's not really a question is it? If you're a true follower of the Scarlet Knights, beating the Mountaineers has to mean more to you than beating an ACC or C-USA or MAC team, but maybe I'll add it to the sidebar as my question of the week anyway just to see if I'm wrong.Yesterday I was out of state for the holidays and didn't catch a single second of Rutgers sports news on Thursday or Friday. So what happened over those two days?

• The football team beat Louisville 34-14 and put the final nail into Steve Kragthorpe's coffin on Friday morning and afternoon.
  
• The men's basketball team beat UMass yesterday 83-75.
  
• The women's basketball team beat Southern Cal by 66-51 on Thursday and Mississippi State by 62-54 yesterday.
  

So, should I continue to help the success of the Scarlet Knights by ignoring them? Should I keep my eyes closed while sitting on my bench at the Stadium next Saturday at noon?

West Virginia looks like it will be sold out soon

Out of curiosity, I just went to see what kind of tickets were still available for the last home game against the Mountaineers. I went online at http://tickets.scarletknights.com and clicked "Best Available" and was offered two in section 214, the last section of the upper deck. So buy them quickly if you don't have them already.

And here's hoping that everyone who buys a ticket shows up at noon on the last Saturday of the season. I hope weather.com doesn't predict rain again like they did (incorrectly) for the South Florida game, scaring away all those fair-weather Scarlet Knight fans who are prone to melting in water.

Here's something you don't see every day: An argument for kissing your sister.

Here's an interesting defense of the tie in college football from The Unbalanced Line.
If you haven't read it, The Unbalanced Line is an Army Football blog with a very strong sense of history. Check it out. It even has links to very old Rutgers yearbooks.
I'm not a big fan of overtime myself. For one thing, the Scarlet Knights' record against a certain team from West Virginia would look a little better if overtime had never been invented. If I'm reading the all-time record correctly, I only find 4 Rutgers games that have gone to overtime since 1997: a loss to Pitt, a win against Syracuse, and two losses to West Virginia. I agree with The Unbalanced Line. Bring back the tie. 2006 would have looked better with an 11-1-1 line than 11-2.

Which Big East teams to root for in Week Seven

There are four games this week that will involve Big East teams. If you're a fan of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights who is unsure of how to root in any of these contests, we'll be glad to give you guidance.

~~Thursday, October 15, 7:30pm
The 5-0 (1-0) Cincinnati Bearcats will be visiting the 5-0 (1-0) South Florida Bulls for the marquee Big East matchup of the weekend. One of them will leave Raymond James Stadium with their first loss and the other will be the favorite to win the Big East's BCS Bowl bid. So, for whom should we Friends of Rutgers root? It's easy. As annoying as they are, we need to root hard for USF (aka, South Florida, Ponce de Leon University, Flamerica University, Sunshine State University, Citrus State University, etc.). There are two reasons for this. 1) Cincinnati will need to lose twice if Rutgers is to have any chance of winning the Big East, and 2) the higher USF is ranked when they visit Rutgers Stadium in November, the more of a bump it will give to the Scarlet Knights' national ranking and recognition when the Knights win that game on November 12th.

~~Friday, October 16, 8pm
The ferocious 5-1 (2-0) Pittsburgh Panthers (see illustration to the left for identification purposes) head to Piscataway, New Jersey to take on the 4-1 (0-1) Scarlet Knights of Rutgers. If you have any doubt as to which way you're rooting in this one, then you are reading the wrong blog. One of these two teams will be ranked by many poll voters at the end of the night. If you are lucky enough to have tickets for the game and you feel that you are not willing to stand and yell loudly enough to damage to your vocal cords whenever the Knights are on defense, then you should stay at home, watch on ESPN, and give your tickets to someone louder and more rambunctious. The only words that should not be allowed on Friday night? That's easy: "Down in Front!"

~~Saturday, October 17, 12pm
The 2-3 (0-1) Louisville Cardinals will be visiting the 3-2 (0-1) University of Connecticut Huskies. This is a pick'em in which Beat Visitor dot com is taking no formal position. As long as the Scarlet Knights beat both teams later this year, you can root based on which of your personal hatreds is greater.

~~Saturday, October 17, 3:30pm
The 4-2 Marshall Thundering Herd will be thundering into Morgantown to meet the 4-1 (1-0) West Virginia Mountaineers. This one is easy not only for Rutgers fans, but for all fans of Big East teams. Let's Go Mountaineers! The Big East should not be dropping any games to non-conference foes as long as sportswriters and fans of other conferences are questioning our conference's legitimacy and ownership of an automatic BCS Bowl bid.

Syracuse is the only Big East team to have the coming week off. There will be no Crying Child next weekend.

Rutgers Fans appear in a very idiosyncratic top ten list

And the real question is, for which college football team does the compiler of this strange video list root?

The strangest thing about the list is that you have no idea, from the video itself as embedded here, what the hell it's counting down. You would only know from the title on YouTube: "Top 10 Worst College Football Fanbases". The videographer's #1 choice makes me think he might be a Michigan fan, but that doesn't explain any of the other selections (a Wolverine would have placed #8 Notre Dame in the 2 or 3 slot, and would definitely have included the Michigan State Spartans on the list, and put them in the top three as well).

"Hello Cruel World!"

After making what looked like a permanent departure from West Virgina sports blogging last September, I was glad to see the always entertaining Mountainlair showing new content when I ambled over there this morning. They're back in the sidebar list of Big East blogs (which is taking on a very Mountaineerish tint).

Please Participate in Beat Visitor's Summer Sidebar Poll

In the most recent ESPN preseason rankings from May 9th, the Fresno State Bulldogs are listed at #21. The only Big East teams on Mark Schlabach's post-Spring rankings are West Virginia (#9) and Pittsburgh (#19). The Knights do not make an appearance on his (or many other) preseason prognostications.
So far, the only preseason ranking on which both the Bulldogs and our Scarlet Knights have simultaneously appeared is the AthlonSports.com top 25, in which the Dogs are #25 and the Knights are #22.
Losing Ray Rice to the Baltimore Ravens has obviously introduced a question mark into the minds of many football writers, so I really have no idea at this point about whether our team will find enough support to be listed in the preseason coaches and AP polls.
That widespread uncertainty leads directly to my question in the new sidebar poll, "Who Will Be in the AP Preseason Top 25? a) Rutgers, b) Fresno State, c) Both, or d) Neither." It will be interesting to see what visitors to this blog say between now and mid-August. Please add your vote (even if you, like me, are unsure).
Here's my one firm prediction. No matter which of these teams appears on the preseason poll, the winner of their September 1st meeting will definitely appear on the first regular-season listing.

WVU is playing against the men in stripes as well as the Sooners

Between 6-8 points were simply given to the Sooners by the refs so far tonight (or maybe sold to the Oklahomans by an otherwise underpaid officiating staff). The first field goal attempt was the product of a bullshit 30-yard late hit/unsportsmanlike penalty, and their third field-goal attempt was only possible because the refs would not or could not see a hold on Dingle that was called by every fan in the stands and every pro-Oklahoma man in the broadcast booth. That was immediately followed by the safety that turned into a touchback for the Okies (and then their first touchdown).

Go Mountaineers! The entire Big East is rooting for you in your quest to beat the 16 or 17 men on the field who are playing against you in the Fiesta Bowl right now (it's great to be an unaffiliated blogger, not only can you call a bullshit call a bullshit call, but you don't have to mention the brand name of the pseudo-Mexican obesity-inducing corn chips that are part of the Fiesta Bowl's official name). As I write this, Noel Devine just made it 27-15 (but really 27-9 at the most). Show no mercy. Go for the jugular! Go Mountaineers! Go Big East!

Update with 9:21 left: As I was adding the photo, the refs gave the Okies another TD with a 30-yard "pass interference/personal foul" penalty to make it 41-28, and Noel Devine responded with another long (non-referee-assisted) touchdown run to make it 48-28. Even the zebras must be starting to give up hope at this point.

Current Big East Bowl Lines (3 favorites / 2 'dogs)

Here are the current lines (via the Detroit Free Press) for the five bowl games being played this December & January by Big East teams. Remember, we were 5-0 last year.

PoppaJohns (12/22 at Birmingham)
Cincinnati 11 over Southern Miss

Mikey's Car Care (12/29 at Charlotte)
Wake Forest 3 1/2 over UConn

Sun Bowl (12/ 31 at El Paso)
South Florida 6 1/2 over Oregon

Fiesta Bowl (1/2/08 at Glendale)
Oklahoma 6 1/2 over West Virginia

International Bowl (1/5/08 at Toronto)
Rutgers 10 over Ball State

Remember to get your tickets directly from RutgersBowl.com or ScarletKnights.com (or via 1-866-445-GORU), so that you'll be sitting with us scarlet-clad folks, and so the Knights will get credit for all the fans we're bringing to Toronto.

Submit Your Ideas Here.

Play Like Your Couch Is on Fire.com is still soliciting ideas for National Championship game shirts this afternoon:You might want to make that a suggestion for Orange Bowl Fiesta Bowl shirts instead, which is nothing for the Mountaineers to be ashamed of (when the sting of last night's loss disappears in a decade or two). But how did West Virginia lose to two teams that Rutgers beat this year? There's more parity in the Big East than any of us expected at the beginning of September (and next year Pitt's freshmen starters are going to be much better, so the Backyard Brawl will really be wild at the Heinz Ketchup Stadium next year).
Check the silence and cries of disbelief from other West Virginia blogs this morning here:

• West By God Virginia
  
• Bastard Sons of Pinfall Marks
• Let's Go Drink Some Beers
• WVMountaineer Sports
• The Mountainlair
• We Must Ignite This Couch

And the gloating at:

• Pitt Blather

Here's one thing that Rutgers does better than West Virginia (and we're not bragging about our Philosophy Department again)

18 October 2007 (the way one should celebrate beating the #2 team in the country)

In contrast to the happy scenes after major upset wins at Rutgers Stadium in which exuberance is expressed by hopping up and down on the FieldTurf for twenty minutes after the final cannon, West Virginia students are facing threats of pepper spray, dogs, and police in riot gear if they attempt to hop the wall after beating Pittsburgh and clinching a spot in the NationalFuckingChampionship game tomorrow!! After a WVU upset of Virginia Tech in 2003, the police used pepper spray on students who rushed the field. Could the fires set by celebrants later that night outside of the stadium have been part of the reaction against those overzealous lawmen? Why not just let the party go on inside the Stadium?

Go get those Panthers and win the National Championship and don't sit on any 18-point leads! We'll understand if you burn some couches.

(Thanks to Let's Go Drink Some Beers for pointing out this outrage)