As of 4:00 this afternoon, it's official. We're Toronto bound!

Please be sure to practice these two songs before your trip (and mine) on January 5th:

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

and, of course:

R-U, Rah, Rah;
R-U, Rah, Rah,
Whoo-Rah, Whoo-Rah;
Rutgers Rah
Up Stream Red Team
Red Team Up Stream
Rah, Rah, Rutgers Rah!

Here's the official announcement that just appeared on ScarletKnights.com:

Remember to please order your International Bowl tickets only through Rutgers (ScarletKnights.com, RutgersBowl.com, or 1-866-445-GORU) so that you'll be sitting with the sea of people wearing red, and so that the people who decide bowl invitations in the future see how well we support our team in the postseason.

Go Knights!

Scarlet Knights Aren't Afraid of the Dark

The University of Louisville is officially encouraging their fans to wear black tonight to "Papa John's Cardinals Stadium" (I'd like my pizza with a pepperoni and cardinal, thanks) and they're naming the event, "Black Out the Scarlet Knights".





They might want to know that the same official appeal for a blackout was made to fans of another opponent on November 9th of this year. That game ended with the Scarlet Knights beating the Black Knights of West Point 41-6 (it wasn't that close).

Rutgers vs. Louisville (the 2006 version), in case you've forgotten

Click this photo (or any other photo in the Beat Visitor blog) for a large version.

9 Nov 2006: (15) Rutgers 28, (3) Louisville 25

Who would have thought when we looked at the schedules in the summer of 2007, that tonight's game would be any less important than last year's battle of the unbeatens on the Banks of the Raritan? Who would have thought that Connecticut(?!) would have had a chance at the Big East title until being blown out by the Mountaineers last weekend? Or that the Louisville Cardinals would be ending the season bowlless after having won the Orange Bowl only eleven months ago?

11 Nov 2005: (nr) Rutgers 5, (23) Louisville 56

That being said, Louisville certainly remembers the one blot on their otherwise perfect season in Piscataway one year ago, and Rutgers certainly remembers their sole loss to the Cardinals at the stadium named after a pizza chain in Louisville two years ago. That game was lost by a score of 56-5 (supposedly because the Knights jumped up and down on the cardinal head at midfield before the game), but it did include the Leonard Leap pictured here, and also available on video at YouTube.

International Bowl, here we come!

This afternoon the Cincinnati Bearcats accepted an invitation to play Southern Miss in the Papajohns.com Bowl in Birmingham, so our Knights in Scarlet Armor will almost definitely be playing in the bowl game with a miraculously non-commercial name that takes place at noon on Saturday, January 5th just north of the border.
See you there!

It'll be a great game, eh?

"If we were going strictly on travel, we probably would have taken Rutgers. Outside of West Virginia, they're probably the second-best traveling team in the Big East..."
-- Will Webb, executive director of the Meineke Car Care Bowl, quoted in this morning's Cincinnati Post.

Let's prove what great bowl travellers we are once again.

The formal invitations aren't out to the PapaJohns.com Pizza Bowl in Birmingham or the International Bowl in Toronto, but it's time to start planning a January trip to the Great White North! The Sun Bowl has formally invited the University of South Florida, the Meineke Muffler Shop Bowl has invited the Huskies of the Yukon (talk about a team that's custom built for a game north of the border), and it seems clear that the game in Alabama will choose the Bearcats and we'll be heading north to play either Bowling Green or Ball State -- no matter what the results of tomorrow night's game against the Louisville Cardinals.

We'll have better beer, we'll be able to visit the Hockey Hall of Fame, we won't have to brave a trip south of the Mason-Dixon line, and we'll have a bowl trophy that doesn't double as an advertisement for a franchise that will be obsolete in 5-10 years.

It looks like we should be getting our passports ready

A consensus seems to be solidifying around the prediction that the Scarlet Knights, and we their fans, will be heading north of the border at the beginning of January to take part in the International Bowl in Toronto. This is the message in today's update of the SI.com bowl predictions, the Scarlet Scuttlebutt blog, today's Star-Ledger, today's Home News Tribune, CBSSportsline, ESPN.com, etc., etc.

That's not to say that you have to stop putting your own bowl preferences and/or predictions in the sidebar poll. There's always the chance that another bowl will jump at a New York-area team with what that means for TV exposure and fans who travel well (especially if that New York-area team were to massacre a certain school from Kentucky [which isn't Kentucky] on ESPN this Thursday night), but we're just saying that it looks like a passport might be needed for the Knights' last game of the season, so make sure yours is in order.

I don't like the fact that we'll be playing a MAC team like Bowling Green or Miami (not from Florida) if we head north, but I do like the fact that the bowl, like the Texas Bowl last year, is not named after a muffler joint or a corporate pizza chain. And I like the idea that we'll get to sing "O Canada!" before the opening kickoff.

It's not too early to start making this year's bowl predictions

It may have been too early back in mid-August when a certain national magazine (which rhymes with "Warts Illustrated") picked the Scarlet Knights to play the Wolverines in the Rose Bowl.

But with one game left for the Knights against the Louisville Cardinals next Thursday, it's not too early to predict where we'll be travelling in the holiday season this year.

Please vote in the sidebar poll; tell us whether you think we should make our travel reservations for El Paso, Birmingham, Charlotte, Toronto, or somewhere else.

On ESPN.com, Ivan Maisel has the Knights playing Southern Miss in the PapaJohns Bowl and Mark Schlabach has the Knights playing Bowling Green in the International Bowl. CBS Sportsline.com has the Knights playing Florida State in the Meineke Car Care Bowl. And Sports Illustrated seems to be stepping back from their pre-season Rutgers/Michigan matchup, with Stewart Mandel at SI.com also having Rutgers against Florida State in North Carolina.

So, what's your pick?

Breaking News about our next opponent, or why we love coaching chaos in Louisville

So first-year Louisville head coach Steve Kragthorpe held a news conference within the last hour stating unequivocally that "I'm not going anywhere." Wasn't the same thing said less than a year ago by a coach named Petrino who then deserted the team for the pleasure of coaching Michael Vick in Atlanta (ooops!)? It could be that S.K. meant simply that he's not going anywhere after the last game of the regular season (i.e., to a bowl game). But no matter what he meant, it certainly plays into the hands of the Scarlet Knights to be ending the season against a team whose players and fans are freely showing their dissension and depression about this disappointing season and their coaching uncertainty.
If you check in over at Card Chronicle or Inside the Ville later this afternoon, I don't think you'll find the same kind of joy about Kragthorpe's decision to stay that you found in New Jersey about Greg Schiano's decision to tell Miami to shove their job offer last year.
There may have been some people in Rutgers Stadium criticizing Greg Schiano's decisions during last week's squeaker against the Panthers, but I think we all know how lucky we are in the coaching department.

Riding into the Sunset

I couldn't resist running one more picture of Lord Espartero IV travelling off into the sunset with his scarlet rider to mark the end of his decade of service at Rutgers Stadium.
Of course you can tell from the green leaves and the short sleeves that this picture was not taken at 'Tero's last home game against Pittsburgh on November 17. It was actually taken by the front entrance of the Stadium before the first game on August 30, but it seemed appropriate

Vote for Rice for the Doak Walker

Ray Rice has now been named one of the three finalists for the Doak Walker award (along with Mike Hart and Darren McFadden) and you can vote here to give the award for the nation's best running back to your favorite Scarlet Knight.

Meet our friends over at Card Chronicle before the last game of the season

Our friends over at Card Chronicle, in today's weekly roundup of the top performers in the Big East, have Ray Rice's 121 yards against Pittsburgh in week twelve as only the #8 offensive performance of the week, but Ray is leading Pat White, Brian Brohm, Matt Grothe, and the rest with only a couple of games left for the offensive player of the year honors.

There are no Rutgers defensive players in the running for the yearly honors, but last week Kevin Malast was #9 for his 11 tackles and a sack, and Devin McCourty was #3 for his 4 tackles, 1 fumble recovery, and his game-sealing interception.

Rutgers was Team of the Week in this Card Chronicle wrap-up, not for the beauty of last week's win, but because last week's win guarantees a 2007 bowl appearance for the Scarlet Knights.

The Cardinals, especially at home, are still a very scary bunch even after this season's disappointments. I hope the Knights are prepared for Brohm and crew on the 29th.

Is there a better feeling in the world for a Rutgers football fan...

... than watching the team raise helmets and swords after a victory and singing the Alma Mater with the fans and students on a Saturday afternoon in November?

Just asking.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.