No more need to vote in our latest poll.

We won't take the poll away before Saturday. You can still register your feelings in the Chas Dodd and Tom Savage quarterback question if you want, but the word is out this afternoon that Greg Schiano is not going to keep the Rutgers football fans waiting until game time on Saturday for an announcement.The starter will be Chas Dodd. You can read more at Brian Bennett's ESPN Big East Blog.

Before Everyone Jumps on the Chas Dodd Bandwagon..

... remember the heroics from another freshman quarterback in the final seconds of last year's Scarlet Knights' victory over the Connecticut Huskies (with, of course, an heroic assist from a great senior receiver, Tim Brown):

Greg Schiano and Joe Lefeged on Rutgers' #1 APR (but why does this video only have 18 views?)

Here's a short segment on WNBC news with Bruce Beck talking to Greg Schiano and Joe Lefeged about Rutgers' #1 national ranking in the NCAA's 2010 Academic Progress Rates, and the importance of the student part of the student-athlete mix on the banks of the old Raritan River.

I'm sharing this here not only to show Joe Lefeged's part of the interview (he's more than just a long list of blocked punts, interceptions, forced fumbles and hard hits), but because it deserves MUCH more than the 18 views that it has on YouTube in the last four days since posting. Embedding here at Beat Visitor Dot Com should give it at least 4 or 5 more!

If you were Greg Schiano . . .

... who would you have as your starting quarterback against the Black Knights of Army next Saturday? Chas Dodd or Tom Savage?
Vote in the poll to your right; we're sure that Greg will be reading and taking note of our results.

2010 Began Tonight

How strange to watch true freshmen Chas Dodd and Jeremy Deering come on in 2010 the same way that freshmen Tom Savage and Mohamed Sanu stormed onto the scene in 2009. It's time to forget about the Tarheel and Green Wave disappointments. Rutgers is now 1-0 in Big East play and the year began tonight. Did the Dodd era start too?
It's going to be interesting to see the competition between Savage and Dodd for the starting quarterback position (and the competition between Sanu and Deering for the designated Wild Knight) as Tom Savage's hand heals and the year goes on. It's nice to see a quarterback who seems to love throwing the ball down the field, especially late in the game with the pressure to come from behind, but I don't know if I've ever seen a QB see that the short screen wasn't going to work so he threw for the 52-yard touchdown as his second read. Congrats to Chas Dodd for passing for 322 yards and 2 long TDs in his first start. Twenty Ten started tonight with his come-from-behind 27-24 victory over the UConn Huskies.
Go Knights!

It's Good to Be Back

It wasn't too impressive a first half, but we weren't beginning the season against Cincinnati this year and there was plenty of time to turn things around, so it was fun to listen to the Scarlet Knights come together in the second half and end up dispatching Norfolk State by a respectable score of 31-0.

Because I'm not living within an easy drive of Piscataway this year I didn't renew my tickets. These weeknight games are extremely hard for me to get to, but I do hope to catch a couple of Saturday games at R House (or R New Guest House in the Swamps of East Rutherford) and I hope to be able to write more in a Beat Visitor blog that's been more than a little moribund lately.

Rutgers Professionals

Did anyone else notice that the Rutgers women who play in Madison Square Garden are in the running to win the WNBA championship?

Flipping around last night I caught the last five minutes of the NY Liberty's win against Indiana and 3 of the 5 Libertariennes on the court throughout the end of the game that clinched a spot in the East Finals were Scarlet Knights (there's no such thing as an ex-Scarlet Knight): Cappie Pondexter, Essence Carson, and Kia Vaughn. Coach Stringer was in the stands lending her support. The only thing wrong with the picture was the color of the uniforms.

2010 Begins Tonight

Not that there's been a big clamor for information, but the rumors of the death of the Beat Visitor dot com Rutgers football blog have been exaggerated.
Tonight's game is the first home game at Rutgers Stadium that I've missed since I was traveling for business during the 2007 Navy game. I'm now living outside of the Garden State for the first time since 1981 and my new internet service provider has not reached an agreement with the Evil Friggin' Disney Empire to show ESPN 3 (reduced from 360), so I'm only "watching" tonight's game against Norfolk State on GameTracker and listening to it on WCTC dot com. With the Knights only leading by 3-0 with 7:01 left in the first half (San San Te just missed his 2nd of 3 field goal attempts), I don't think I'm missing a lot by not being down in New Jersey tonight.
But here's the real question for both Rutgers and the Big East (other than why the Scarlet Knights aren't leading by at least three touchdowns): Why schedule a game for a Thursday night if it's not going to be on television?

Video of Yesterday's Upset

This video of the sights and sounds of Georgetown's loss at Rutgers on Valentine's Day was posted by The Hoya Online.
Enjoy.

Rutgers 71 -- (#8) Georgetown 68

Congratulations to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on their victory over the nationally-ranked Georgetown Hoyas in the game that just completed at the RAC, otherwise known as the Louis Brown Athletic Center in Piscataway, NJ.

Despite my doubts voiced last month, it seems that there is a men's team playing the game of basket-ball on the Banks of the Old Raritan.

Congratulations!

Revisiting the 1869 College Football Season

I've mentioned The Unbalanced Line here before because I think it it without a doubt the most historically aware college football blog; this seems appropriate, since the writer's home team is the team that plays its home games at West Point (and, occasionally, Yankees Stadium).
I've been busy with work and other things, but today's unexpected snow day from work has allowed me to slow down and reconnect a little with blogs and Twitter. Wandering around the interweb, I discovered that T.U.L.'s most recent post from yesterday -- "Year by Year: 1869 Season" -- is of special interest to all fans of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.

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.