Rutgers football gameday!

To see how big an effort RU put in last week vs then #4 Michigan State look to Ann Arbor around 6:45pm. After MSU beat Oregon they got hype. Then Oregon got crushed by Utah who had already beaten Michigan's Wolverines. Suddenly the perception was MSU's win over Oregon wasn't so big after all. Then Sparty had some winning if not winning really ugly games in back to back weeks. A real bad win vs Purdue raised eyebrows around the country. So as far as perception goes, did the Scarlet Knights tussle to the bitter end in Piscataway vs a top flight team or an average team playing a road game. Again, if MSU wins today RU's effort looks bigger than life. If not, well, maybe too much is being read into the Knight's progress.

Perceptions aside, Rutgers plays a must win game today at John Cougar Mellencamp Stadium in Bloomington Indiana. Today is homecoming in Bloomington which means the time honored tradition at IU where every fan on their way in is given a locally grown turnip. Ah, good times in the midwest.

But Johnny digresses...

Must win game yes. Playing Indiana means points are going to be scored. IU scores a lot and gives up even more. First thought, RU can't let this game be played in the 40's. High 20's to mid-30's is plenty of points and gives Rutgers a better chance of winning. The defense slowed down MSU last week and did a very nice job of disrupting first down runs and were great in coverage (and the game was won by MSU receivers holding onto highly contested balls). RU is gonna have to have that same effort for all 60 minutes again today. We think they can. The Hoosiers are last in the B1G at getting their QB sacked which means those close calls vs Connor Cook last week might get home this week. The schemes were good and the players carried them out last week. Just keep doing it.

Offensively the Scarlet Knights did a great job vs Sparty. Leonte Caroo must have another game of his life and give the defense time to catch their breath. Big pickups on third down are needed. RU needs to kill clock so by committee at RB the magic number is 120. Run for 120 and beat IU in time of possession and good things are quite possible.

The coach is back and the team is playing hard right now, unless Bobby Knight shows up and throws a chair and trips an RU running back on his way to the end zone we see an upset.

Fearless Forecast
Rutgers 30
Indiana 27

Rutgers has been shamed into getting a new Scarlet Knight mascot

Just three days into their Big Ten experience, Rutgers is having to change how their mascot looks. Here he is in all his current, well, awfulness:


That may well play in the Big East or whatever no-count conference Rutgers spent last year in but in the Big Ten where one of the most beloved college mascots of all-time resides, which already looks the role of Ser Gregor Clegane, you must step up your effort from John Kerry with a JEEP grill on his head:

So Rutgers has indeed announced "A New Knight" to be unveiled on August 8. A Sparty-like body with Chris Christie's head? Will the New Knight have a Snooki Knight sidekick? Guess we'll just have to wait. 

Oh, and to any Rutgers fans that Johnny will no doubt be offending as a long-time MSU fan, you wanted into the conference, take your hazing like a knight.

This Rutgers football season is starting to fee like a throwaway

We know it's not but everything being talked about Rutgers these days is about next season. Next season they start in the Big Ten. Next season they'll play with bigger audiences. Next season they'll get a much bigger slice of cash. We're getting the distinct impression from reading the media around these parts that if the Scarlet Knights season starts going south nobody's going to be all that invested in it to worry aloud too much.

Hey, here's a primer on the Big Ten and some of the many traditions Rutgers fans will be introduced to....next year.

Sounds like the new Rutgers Athletic Director did a lot of the same things that got Mike Rice fired

Comedian Phil Silvers once sang that 'Nobody Ever Died for Dear Old Rutgers,' that is until the story broke about the new Rutgers AD Julie Hermann saying a lot of the things that recently-fired Mike Rice said to his basketball team to her University of Tennessee women's volleyball team from back in 1996. At the time all 15 members of the Lady Vols volleyball team signed a letter to the Athletic Director saying:

The players say everyone, including the athletic director, had been brought together by a letter all 15 players on the team had submitted. In it, the players said, their coach had ruled through humiliation, fear and emotional abuse.

"The mental cruelty that we as a team have suffered is unbearable," the players wrote. Specifically, they said the coach had called them "whores, alcoholics and learning disabled."

Hermann says this never happened. She told Craig Wolff with the Star-Ledger she didn't remember the letter being signed by all 15 of her players. Mmmmm hmmmmm, suuuuure you don't.

Let us ask you readers a question if we may. At some point you may have been asked to be a bridesmaid or a groomsman. Perhaps more than once. Here's the question, do you remember all the weddings you stood up in? If you were fuzzy and were then shown VHS talkie movies of yourself at the event you'd probably remember it well in fact, yes? Not if you're Julie Hermann who during her intro presser at Rutgers was asked about comments she made on a tape at the wedding that led to Tennessee losing a $150K lawsuit over a ham-handed firing of one of Hermann's assistants who committed the crime of becoming pregnant.

"There's a video? I'm sorry, did you say there's a video? There's no video, trust me."

You know what happens next.

Remarks Hermann made at the wedding were caught on tape by the wedding videographer and would become central to the discrimination lawsuit against the university in 1997 that ended with the jury siding with Hineline.

"I hope it's good tonight," she says into the camera. "Because I know you've been waiting for a while, but I hope it's not too good, because I don't want you to come back February with any surprises, you know, the office and all, and it would be hard to have a baby in there."

Oh, and this wedding she's fuzzy on, she caught the bouquet.

Zero credibility this one. In our opinion these women have nothing to gain by sticking to their stories when being interviewed by the Star-Ledger. Read the article, it tells of a coach acting like Mike Rice who was just put in charge of making sure Rutgers never sees another Mike Rice.

Sounds like somebody found the old Michigan playbook on hiring Rich Rodriguez in a trash can...