It's been too long since a B1G win

It was finally fun to update the schedule on the Beat Visitor sidebar today.

And it wasn't that close.

Days I'll Be Busy Between Now And 2018

No one I'm related to is allowed to schedule a wedding or a funeral on any of the following dates:

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.

Scarlet Knights Never Stop Choppin'

Even on bye weeks...

The Dates On Which You'll Be Busy in 2016 and 2017

After years and years of certain schedule uncertainty in the Big East, it's hard to get used to the fact that the full Rutgers football schedule for 2014 is already set, let alone 2015, but now we also have the conference games for 2016 and 2017 scheduled:

2016 Rutgers Big Ten Games
October 1                    at Ohio State
October 8                    Michigan
October 15                  Illinois
October 22                  at Minnesota
October 29                  Iowa
November 5                Indiana
November 12              at Michigan State
November 19              Penn State
November 26              at Maryland

2017 Rutgers Big Ten Games
September 23             at Nebraska
September 30             Ohio State
October 7                    Idle
October 14                  at Illinois
October 21                  Purdue
October 28                  at Michigan
November 4                Maryland
November 11              at Penn State
November 18              at Indiana
November 25              Michigan State

Can we just skip straight to twenty fourteen now?

The Big Ten schedules for 2014 have been announced and here is the Scarlet Knights':

2014 Rutgers Football Schedule
Saturday, August 30 TBA ***** Saturday, September 6 Howard ***** Saturday, September 13 Penn State ****** Saturday, September 20 at Navy ***** Saturday, September 27 Tulane ***** Saturday, October 4 Michigan ****** Saturday, October 11 Idle ***** Saturday, October 18 at Ohio State ****** Saturday, October 25 at Nebraska ****** Saturday, November 1 Wisconsin ****** Saturday, November 8 Idle ***** Saturday, November 15 Indiana ***** Saturday, November 22 at Michigan State ****** Saturday, November 29 at Maryland ******

NO THURSDAYS?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SCHEDULE UPDATE 6/20/13:  The "TBA" on August 30, 2014 to open the season has now been replaced by "WSU" on August 29.  The home-and-home series with the Washington State University Cougars completes the Scarlet Knights' schedule for both 2014 and 2015!  That's a great change from many recent years when Rutgers was unsure of that last non-Big-East opponent until the last moment.

Lots of unusual names on the 2013 Rutgers football schedule (luckily we won't have to remember them for long)

Click on the image to enlarge it to a readable size.

This Morning's(?!) Game Against Louisville

This is the first year since 2006 that I haven't received a package full of Rutgers football tickets in late August, so I didn't know until about half an hour ago that the 11/26 game against Louisville was an eleven A.M. start (that's 8 AM for those alumni and students who may live on the West Coast), on a Friday when all of the students are off and at home for the Thansgiving break. Has there ever been a more badly scheduled game? Not only are the students not in New Brunswick (or in the student section in Piscataway), but a large percentage of them aren't even awake yet. Has there ever been a more badly-scheduled Senior Day? It's now noon as I write this and the score is 28-0 Louisville with 8:25 left in the first half. If ESPN2 loses interest in broadcasting Rutgers games, can we go back to playing on Saturday afternoons?
I may say a few things over at http://twitter.com/BeatVisitor as this game continues, but probably not too enthusiastically.
FINAL UPDATE: It ended up 40-13 in Piscataway today, and West Virginia is well on its way to defeating the Pitt Panthers in Ketchup Stadium. So it's now official that Rutgers will not have the opportunity to go to a third-rank bowl game this year and it's almost official that Pitt will not be going to the Big East's BCS bowl. So here's the question. Which would be more satisfying for a Rutgers football fan: Appearing in a "Beef'O'Brady's Bowl" or beating the Mountaineers in West Virginia next weekend? Is it even really a question?

The Twenty Ten Rutgers Football Schedule Has Been Posted

The times of most games are still to be posted, but in 2009 and 2008 it took until the middle of April to get this basic information about the names of the teams on Rutgers' football schedule.

2010 Rutgers Football Schedule (with games at R House in Bold)

• Thursday, September 2 Norfolk State
• Saturday, September 11 at Florida International
• Saturday, September 25 North Carolina
• Saturday, October 2 Tulane
• Friday, October 8 Connecticut (ESPN, 7:30 p.m.)
• Saturday, October 16 Army (New Meadowlands)
• Saturday, October 23 at Pittsburgh
• Wednesday, November 3 at USF (ESPN2, 7 p.m.)
• Saturday, November 13 Syracuse
• Saturday, November 20 at Cincinnati
• Friday, November 26 Louisville (National TV)
• Saturday, December 4 at West Virginia (National TV)

Though we'll miss the exciting Texas Southern rivalry, it's nice to see that there is only one second division football team on the schedule this year, and it's great to see that the Green Wave team that will be visiting us at Rutgers Stadium on October 2nd will be visiting from New Orleans, and not driving west on Route 18 from Long Branch High School.

Finally, thanks to The Bard, we know who wrote the 2009 Rutgers football schedule

Thus the whirligig of time brings in his FIU Panther.

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

Get your own quotes:

The FINAL(?) Final 2009 Schedule for Rutgers Football

The Texas Southern game has been moved from October 3 to October 10, so here's an image of the updated (I hesitate to call any game's scheduled time "final" until it's actually played) schedule.

There are more details available at ScarletKnights.com by clicking here.

The 2009 Rutgers Football Schedule Has Been Finalized (TBA is now TSU)

Exactly like last year, it took until April 16th to finalize this fall's lineup of fall guys, and here they are (games at R House are in Red):

Mon September 7 vs. CINCINNATI

Sat September 12 vs. HOWARD
Sat September 19 vs. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL
Sat September 26 AT Maryland
Sat October 3 vs. TEXAS SOUTHERN
Fri October 16 vs. PITTSBURGH
Fri October 23 AT Army
Sat October 31 AT Connecticut
Thu November 12 vs. USF
Sat November 21 AT Syracuse
Fri November 27 AT Louisville
Sat December 5 vs. WEST VIRGINIA

You can read more details about the addition of Texas Southern to the schedule by clicking here on today's news release at ScarletKnights.com. More exciting than the late addition of Football Championship Subdivision Texas Southern to this year's schedule, the news release also contains details about upcoming dates with Penn State, Miami, and Tulane in the second decade of the 21st Century.

You can get more information about the TSU Tigers by clicking here.

The 2009 Rutgers Football Schedule is (almost) Set

With some eerie echoes of last year, there's still one TBA on the calendar, and there's still a date with Howard on the calendar, so I'm taking all of the non-conference schedule with a grain or two of salt until it's absolutely final, but here's the list of games that appeared on ScarletKnights.com earlier today:

Sat., Sept. 5th (or 6th or 7th) - Cincinnati

Sat., Sept. 12th - Howard

Sat., Sept. 19th - Florida International

Sat., Sept. 26th at Maryland

Sat., Oct. 10th - TBA

Fri., Oct. 16th (8pm) - Pittsburgh

Fri., Oct. 23rd at Army

Sat., Oct. 31st at Connecticut

Thurs., Nov. 12th (7:30pm) - USF

Sat., Nov. 21st at Syracuse

Sat., Nov. 28th at Louisville

Sat., Dec. 5th West Virginia

That last game of the season against the Mountaineers is going to be broadcast on "ABC/ESPN/ESPN2". It would be great if that game has meaning. But even if it doesn't, it always feels like the start of something new when the fall schedule is first announced.

30 minutes closer to the season kickoff!

The kickoff time for the Rutgers / Fresno State game has been moved from 4:30 to 4:00 on Labor Day, September 1, so I've adjusted the countdown clock that appears in the sidebar.

Get this widget!

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.

--------------------------

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!
~~~~~~~~

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.

TBA has been replaced by the Morgan State Bears on September 27

The Rutgers Scarlet Knights finally have 12 teams on the 2008 schedule with the addition of the Morgan State Bears (and the Morgan State Magnificent Marching Machine!) coming up from Baltimore on September 27.
Replacing Howard University with Fresno State meant that we would be missing a repeat of the best halftime show ever performed at Rutgers Stadium, but I'm sure the Morgan State band will try to reach that same high level, blowing (with all due respect to "The Pride of New Jersey") the Marching Scarlet Knights off the field as easily as the folks from Norfolk State did last year.

SCHEDULE UPROAR. Howard out! Fresno State in! September 27 still TBA!

Now the Rutgers football season is opening on Labor Day, with a game at R House against Fresno State (after they were dropped by Kansas State) at 4:30 on a Monday afternoon. This will begin a home-and-home series between the two schools, so the Scarlet Knights will travel to California in 2012. Here's the Fresno State Bulldogs article and a Fresno Bee article about this schedule change.

The game against Howard on August 30th has been removed from the schedule (I'll miss Howard's band!). September 27th is still a question mark, but with Howard off the schedule, it seems likely that 9/27 may see another team from the Football Championship Subdivision visiting the Banks of the Raritan in their place.

Here's the current schedule, with home games highlighted in, of course, Scarlet:

• Monday, September 1 - FRESNO STATE
  Thursday, September 11 -NORTH CAROLINA
  Saturday, September 20 at Navy
  Saturday, September 27 - TBA
  Saturday, October 4 at West Virginia
  Saturday, October 11 at Cincinnati
  Saturday, October 18 - CONNECTICUT
  Saturday, October 25 at Pittsburgh
  Saturday, November 8 - SYRACUSE
  Saturday, November 15 at South Florida
  Saturday, November 22 - ARMY
  Thursday, December 4 - LOUISVILLE
  

(Oh, and the Gridiron Bash with FallOut Boy for April 18th has been canceled too -- and moved to an undisclosed date in the fall. This does not affect the Scarlet-White Game on April 19th.)

the North Dakota State University Bisons get away!

According to this article, "TBA" was close to being replaced by "NDSU" on the Rutgers football schedule for September 27:

North Dakota State athletic director Gene Taylor said he was looking at scheduling a football game at Rutgers (N.J.) when he got a call “from out of the blue.”
The University of Wyoming offered a lot of green – $275,000 guarantee – for the Bison to come to Laramie next fall. It didn’t take long for the two parties to agree on a Sept. 13 date.

I've asked a couple of times already, but is there ANYONE left for the Scarlet Knights to play on September 27th, or will we be treated to a second Scarlet-White game on that date?
It's getting desperate, because I keep getting emails from the Rutgers Division of Intercollegiate Athletics asking me to renew my season tickets by March 28th. Are we going to have seven home games as advertised? Or only six?

TBA on September 27 won't be a MAC team either

The MAC schedules have been published and everyone's busy on Saturday, September 27th:

• Kent State at Ball State
• Buffalo at Central Michigan
• Northern Illinois at Eastern Michigan
• FIU at Toledo
• Western Michigan at Temple
• Cincinnati at Akron
• Bowling Green at Wyoming
• VMI at Ohio

I had a gut feeling that the cherry and white of Temple might make a reappearance at Rutgers Stadium in late September, but I guess that's out of the question.
Does anyone know how to find out which teams might still have an open date on September 27 to fill the hole in Rutgers' schedule?
Is there anyone left with an open date to match with Rutgers at this late date?