The Knights Watchman

It's been a few hours since Rutgers was dismantled by Syracuse up at the dome, 31-13. And I gotta tell ya, it hasn't taken long to get over it, simply because the Scarlet Knights never made a game out of it. This was a baffling loss on many levels, but I could see how it could've happened. Not that it's excusable, but this was the perfect scenario for a letdown. Syracuse looked horrible last week at Louisville in a battle of the Big East bottom feeders. Meanwhile, Rutgers blew up USF , at the time ranked No. 23 in the country. That win caused everyone to take for granted that RU would be 9-2 heading into the game against WVU on December 5. Syracuse, on the other hand, was itching for its first Big East win and this game was basically their season, their bowl game. Rutgers has become the Orange's No. 1 rival because the rise of Rutgers has very much coincided with, and come at the expense of Syracuse. Still, the Rutgers defense needs to be held to task for coming o...

Rutgers is ranked No. 25 in this weeks AP Poll . This is the first time the Scarlet Knights have been officially ranked since the end of the 2007 season. RU also moved up among the "Teams Receiving Votes" ranks of the Coaches Poll, receiving 74 votes and placing at what amounts to No. 29.

Last night's 31-0 thrashing of the South Florida Bulls by the Scarlet Knights was a huge win for the program . With South Florida having recently defeated West Virginia and sitting pretty with a No. 23 ranking, Rutgers can make a case that it's the third best team in the Big East. Of course, RU will have to prove that over the next three weeks. Here's my breakdown of some of the things on game night as I saw it: The Atmosphere It was bone chillingly cold in the upper level where I sit. I think many fans elected to stay in the parking lot and drink or keep the grill going to stay warm. I can't say I completely blame them. Many people sitting around me left at halftime because they simply couldn't take it anymore. I bought a pair of what appear to be women's gloves from the merchandise trailer on my way in just to keep warm, looking manly be damned. Sure there should have been more fans there and more fans should have stayed. But the weather report and the way the...

The Rutgers/Syracuse game on Nov. 21 has been scheduled for 3:30 p.m. according to this article from scarletknights.com Unfortunately, ESPN 360 has decided to broadcast the game live via the Internet so there will be no available TV coverage. Someday I will rant on that ridiculous situation.

This Asbury Park Press article talks about Sayreville High School standout Dave Milewski's commitment to Rutgers. Early conjecture is that Milewski will likely play linebacker when he gets to the banks. I've been reading his clippings in some of the local papers and it seems to me that he is a game changer, so I'm excited about this commit in the sense that I think this is a kid with a tremendous upside who thus far has eluded most of the big programs.

The title of this entry links to an article written by Tom Luicci of the Newark Star-Ledger who states his case as to why it will be a hollow 10-2 even if Rutgers runs the table and finishes at 10-2. I agree with a lot of Tom says with a couple of minor exceptions... First of all, I'm still of the mindset that in relation to where the program was just five years ago, 10 wins is something that makes fans downright giddy. If you told me while I was attending Rutgers from 92 to 96 that we would have a 10-win season I would have plotzed . With the exception of my freshman year, when the team went 7-4 under Doug Graber , the other football seasons were pretty much god awful. Naturally, I want the team to take the next step and win the conference or play in a more meaningful bowl, but more importantly, I want the team to win its home games. As a season ticket holder, I leave happy when the team wins regardless of the opposition. So, if I'm witnessing 2 more home wins this year aga...

Just watched the video of Coach Schiano's weekly press conference, and admittedly I didn't get much from it. Bye week press conferences are always short on information simply because the team usually does a lot of cleaning up on fundamentals rather than closely preparing for the upcoming opponent. The main thing that came out is that safety Zaire Kitchen is very questionable for Thursday's game. Kitchen has had a lot of tough luck in his career and I hope he can make it for the USF game and the rest of the season. Apart from being a talented player, his determination to constantly work his way back from injury and back into the lineup is inspirational. A tougher man would be tough to find.

The above title contains a link to an excellent article written by Allen Barra for the Wall Street Journal giving a brief history of the first-ever college football game played this week 140 years ago on the Rutgers campus. He explains that although the game differed immensely from college football as we know it, there is still definitive proof that the game that day morphed into what we have now.

Well, the Scarlet Knights saw their faint conference championship hopes get washed out with the rain on Friday night at Rutgers Stadium. Having had a few days to digest the loss, there are few things that concern me as we head into the second half of the season. In his postgame press conference, Coach Schiano mentioned that the staff made a conscious decision to ask Tom Savage to throw the ball between 35 and 40 times in the Pittsburgh game. In retrospect, it's easy to say this was a bad decision, but I was personally baffled by Rutgers' first two offensive series. The lucky bounce on the punt aside, they were more or less dreadful. Last year, RU beat Pitt throwing the ball. But last year we had a senior quarterback and two receivers who are currently on NFL rosters. I'm not taking anything away from Savage in regard to where he is in his development, but perhaps taking a more balanced approach would have made more sense. Two years ago, we beat Pitt using little more tha...

A day later has shed some perspective on RU's 42-zip victory against the overmatched Texas Southern team. Really, the game went pretty much as it should. A team from the lower division comes in as a tune up to fill a home game. The expectation is at least a 30-point blowout, and that's what we got. The Scarlet Knight defense was on the top of its game and Texas Southern just didn't have the horses to get the job done. That's really all there is to it. Jonathan Freeny was crazy good on the D-line and David Rowe and Khasam Greene were excellent in the secondary. On offense, the RU was just too big and strong for the Texas Southern defense. It seemed that with the exception of two or three good stops, all of Rutgers' backs ran for huge chunks. DeAntwan Willimas looks like a stud, but I still like the idea of using Martinek as the feature back for now. He seems to have the best balance of speed and power and has the benefit of a year of experience. I have my concerns a...

This weekend, Rutgers will be gunning for the 600th win in the history of the football program. In addition, they will be collecting dry goods at each entrance and at various other locations. With the winter months right around the corner, I know I'll be pitching in whatever I can, and I encourage you to do the same.

Rutgers Athletics has updated its official Web site. I like the new look, although for some reason the video section took awhile to load on my machine, so they may still be working out some kinks. But it's been many years since the site got some sprucing up so I think the response to it will be good.

After watching Coach Schiano's press conference on scarletknights.com, I have to admit that it didn't really break new ground. It seemed that he feels Tom Savage has a decent chance of playing. George Johnson, however, is still on crutches and seemingly is unlikely to play. No one else that got bumped around in the FIU game appears to be out. Schiano seemed to stress the number of BCS transfers on the Texas Southern roster. Yet they've lost games to Louisiana-Monroe and Texas State by well over thirty points. So, I think that if RU wins by any less than 30 it would have to be considered a disappointment. Granted, I always feel a win is a win, but sometimes you need some style points to impress voters and recruits. We can't have another Nicholls State situation where a championship subdivision team hangs around for three quarters in front of visiting recruits. But otherwise the game should be a chance for the team to continue to work on fundamentals and hopefully for som...

Thoughts on the Maryland game: Only saw the highlights on this one since the revolution was not televised and I was at my niece's third birthday party, but here goes...(I caught the radio trans.) A little revenge was had on the part of Rutgers after the spanking Maryland gave us at home two years ago. So, to all the Terps fans (I.L. especially) we're even! A crushing performance by the defense. I only hope that George Johnson is back in action soon because he's a big part of what RU does up front. Fortunately, the d-line is one of the deepest parts of the team this year, because that has been a focus of recruiting in recent years. Joe Lefeged played an impressive game from the highlights and all accounts. If he doesn't end up on the all Big East team by the end of the year it means he either will get hurt or rooked. Joe Martinek's 147 gave him the first back-to-back 100-yard games at RU since Rice was cooking on the banks. Martinek is a back that doesn't daz...

Here a re my thoughts on RU's 23-15 win over FIU yesterday: Atmosphere I got to the game early and did a little gaitin ' as I call it. Gorgeous early fall day for a football game. I know technically it was not yet autumn, but by the end of the night there was a nip to the air. From my standpoint, the stadium appeared to be 1/3 empty, but supposedly over 45,000 people were there. And that's not bad considering it was a game against a fairly unknown nonconference opponent. The Touchdown Club is pack selling the 50/50s rather than the cheerleaders. Although it was nice to see the girls out there in uniform, it makes sense that they would be warming up for the game. Getting back to the fans...the fans who were there, particularly the students, were truly into the game. That is, until everyone thought the game was in the bag with 12:00 minutes to go. Those of us who stuck around found out otherwise. The Defense Up until the last two series, this was an outstanding defensive p...

Found this article in USA Today about the many impressive freshman QBs at schools around the country. A nice rub for Tom Savage, as he's mentioned in the very first paragraph. Nice bit of exposure in a national publication/ Web site.

Things have been hectic for me since the start of the season. As a result, I haven't been posting. But I'm hoping to change all that. I was at the Cincy game, but that's ancient history now, and we all know what happened there, so I'm just going to chip in a few things I noticed. The enhancements to the stadium: Aside from the new bleachers looking a little brighter than the rest of them, the enclosed south endzone looks as if it has always been there. If anything, by moving the students to the south endzone , it's now easier for me to get in and out of the stadium since I enter by the recruiting tent. The atmosphere: In his postgame press conference, Coach Schiano talked about a home game needing to be an event that can compete with the myriad choices for a person's entertainment dollar. And the atmosphere at the stadium prior to the game was great. I also thought it was a nice touch to have the cheerleaders, rather than the Touchdown Club, selling the 50/5...

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2009/07/rutgers_announces_partial_seas.html First reported by the Bergen Record, the Star-Ledger has posted the above article about Rutgers now selling the partial season ticket package due to slower than expected ticket sales. I was among the supporters of the stadium expansion due to the number of names on the season ticket waiting list. However, the past year has made a huge difference in the economy and disposable income of most people in the state. I think as of yesterday, the state unemployment was at 9.2 percent according to a graphic on News 12 New Jersey. So, I'm not surprised thousands of people decided that discretion was the better part of valor when it came to taking the plunge on the season tickets. If the new seats are only 35 percent filled, I'm all for selling partial plans, especially the Knight Pack, which is all of the Big East home games. The odds that even the season ticket holders are going to show up for some ...

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1247543940114240.xml&coll=1 According to The Star-Ledger, private donors have come forth to fund a 5 million dollar recruiting lounge for Rutgers athletics. Originally part of the stadium expansion, the lounge was cut in a cost-saving measure once the building costs spiraled. The private funding should silence most of the critics, although it's mentioned that one of the benefactors is remaining anonymous. From my standpoint, the lounge could be the difference in making a solid first impression on a recruit. I've never been in the canopy recruiting tent that's park outside of Rutgers Stadium each game, but it does give off a bit of an amateurish vibe. Having a state-of-the art lounge will go a long way in creating a wow factor that will let recruits know that Rutgers is playing with the big boys now.

Click on the title above to read an in-depth article about former Rutgers tight end Kevin Brock and how he's trying to stick with the Carolina Panthers. Brock's size and athletic ability give him the chance to make the Panthers roster. What he needed to work on was his route running and being more surehanded. As mentioned in the article, Brock took awhile to develop physically and is probably yet to peak. The Panthers have a chance to develop a solid player at a bargain.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090707/SPORTS01/307079958/-1/SPORTS A local Watertown , New York, newspaper has posted this article about this years Leonard Camp, hosted by...you guessed it, Brian Leonard. It's a nice article about Leonard, who emphasizes that at his camp he actually shows up and interacts with and teaches the kids. I'm really pulling for Leonard this year and I believe the move to the Bengals will be good for him. Carson Palmer is healthy, and he seems like the type of quarterback who would love a tailback/fullback like Leonard catching passes out of the backfield.

Rutgers has announced it'll be playing a home and home series against the UCLA Bruins starting in 2016. That seems like forever and a day, but in reality, this is how far in advance most big-time college football programs are booked. I've been impressed with Tim Pernetti's ability to bring in significant future opponents. It will benefit the Rutgers football progam, the Big East Conference, and most of all, the fans in the long run. He knows that there will come a time when in serves no purpose to beat up on a midlevel Championship Subdivision School.

Nice to see that former RU QB Corey Valentine is moving up the coaching ranks, taking the head job at Globe Institute of Technology. A once highly-touted recruit, Valentine never found a good opportunity at the Division I level. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/high_school/2009/06/29/2009-06-29_former_lincoln_qb_corey_valentine.html?page=0

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090630/SPORTS0203/906300383/1361/Penn-State-ranked-No.-2-for-worst-non-conference-football-schedule The above article from The Detroit News picks apart arguably the ten worst non-conference schedules in the country among BCS teams for the upcoming 2009 season. They've penciled in Rutgers as having the third softest schedule in the country behind Mississippi and Penn State. Sadly, I have to agree, seeing that Maryland is the only significant opponent on the list. Fortunately, RU is the only Big East school in the article's rankings. The key will be for Rutgers to both win the conference and hope that its conference foes beat some quality opponents. Otherwise, Rutgers will run the risk of having a high winning percentage but still finding itself in a very low-profile bowl.

So, former Rutgers QB Ryan Hart has followed in the cleat divots of former QB Brian Fortay and has filed a seemingly unwinnable lawsuit against EA Sports for using his likeness without permission. Joining Hart is former Jets QB and University of Cal alum Troy Taylor. It seems to me that EA Sports and their competitors would have gone to great lengths to ensure they were within their legal right to portray these characters as they have. Also, I find it strange that after producing games depicting college athletes for over a decade, this is the first I've heard of any type of lawsuit against one of the gaming companies. In Hart's defense, it always seemed a little strange to me that the video game companies were able to circumvent likeness laws simply because they don't actually print the players names. It also seems a little shameless that the NCAA would allow its athletes to be portrayed in such a way without compensation . To me, that's actually the larger issue. Unp...

There's actually been a considerable amount of news this week coming out of the Sonny Werbelin rec center at good ole Rutgers. First, Greg Schiano addressed some of the holes on his staff. Bob Fraser and Ed Pinkham have been named co-defensive coordinators, while Kiar Ciarocca and Kyle Flood were named co-offensive coordinators. As far as the de-co spot goes, I'm happy that Schiano feels that he is in a good enough place to relinquish the coordinator duties. It will give him more time to focus on other aspects of a continuously expanding program, as well as give him the opportunity to focus more on the task at hand during possession changes and things of that nature. Having two offensive coordinators is a little strange, but can work if both guys have fully bought into Schiano's philosophy, which to me seems to be to have a varied offensive attack to get the lead and then run out the clock to keep the lead. So, it could be as simple has having Coach Ciarocca call the passes...

Check out the link in the title. One espn reporter has already put Rutgers football in his pre-preseason top 25. Obviously premature, but still good press.

A few days ago, Rutgers football announced that safety Courteney Greene and WRs Kenny Britt and Tiquan Underwood had been selected to compete at the NFL Scouting combine. It’s a great honor to be selected to go, as it can definitely enhance a player’s draft status and opportunity to be signed to a deal at the next level. But there were are a couple other players who I felt should have been given an invite. Certainly, Jamaal Westerman would have been another invite had he not elected to have season-ending surgery after the last Big East game of the year. He put up extremely impressive sack totals in a league with a number of mobile quarterbacks. The other is QB Mike Teel. Regardless of his rough start to the season and career interception total, I feel Teel deserved the nod over Hunter Cantwell of Louisville. Anyone who watched the RU/Louisville game will tell you that Teel grossly outplayed Cantwell in every facet of the game and it’s clear who the better player is. I also find it surp...

Regardless of which recruiting service you subscribe to, it seems clear that this is the top recruiting class in Rutgers history. The list of who they got is well-chronicled, with the usual excellent write-up of reach recruit on this page at scarletknights.com. My thoughts on the specific positions are as follows: I agree with coach that it would have been nice to get a third offensive lineman, particularly a center to replace the kid from Immaculata who decommitted, especially because at the moment there is only one true center on the roster. However, a number of the linemen in the program are agile enough to make the switch should it be necessary. Plus, I believe a backup center is one of those things that can be found in the Juco ranks if it’s absolutely necessary. There are no specialists in the class this year, and that’s fine with me. The kickers and punters on the roster each have a number of years of eligibility remaining. And those are positions not worth spending a commitmen...

The Asbury Park Press has posted a long article about Jersey and Rutgers product Darnell Stapleton, discussing his past, and preparation for tonight's Super Bowl. You can read the article here . Stapleton is just one of the reasons I'll be rooting for the Steelers tonight. This is a great story of a young man who stuck it out, worked hard, and continued to believe in himself to get to where he is today.

Check out this article to read about four Rutgers players who recentlyh transferred to meet up with former coach Darren Rizzi up in Rhode Island. The two biggest names of the four are QB Chris Paul-Etienne and Papajohns.com Bowl hero Rob Cervini. I actually think it makes sense for all four to go, since none were likely to get to the top of the depth chart, but I hate losing the depth that they provided. Chris Paul-Etienne in particular could have completed for the backup QB position, but I think with Lovelace and Natale coming back with more playing experience he saw the writing on the wall and wanted to go somewhere that it's possible to make an impact. I've been reading alot of mixed bag about the 2009 RU football recruiting class. The team has lost a handful of recruits over the past few months but also seems to have picked up a couple of quality guys and is in the running for some more top-ranked recruits.

Tom Luicci of The Star-Ledger has posted an interview with Rutgers' Dean Kirschner, the interim athletic director. Check out the post here . Dean Kirschner seems to have a good handle on what needs to be done as he aids in the search for a fulltime replacement for Bob Mulcahy. It's good to see that Dean Kirschner believes that the new AD should have some understanding of the Rutgers "context," though I'm not sure what that means. Does the person need to have intimate knowledge of Rutgers, or just have experience at an institution with a similar history and future outlook? Of course, having both would be best, but I'd settle for the latter. One thing I will say is that I hope that the new AD will reinstate at least some of the varsity sports that were recently eliminated, particularly the varsity status of the crew team. It seems assinine to me that the oldest varsity sport at the school was cut, especially when the school's fight song directly references t...

Just read an informative interview with Courtney Greene by Kevin Devaney, Jr. It lets you in on Greene's approach in preparing for the NFL draft. It seems Greene is working hard and focusing on all the right things. Check out the article here

The above link will take you to the Rutgers football news article regarding Kenny Britt's decision to forgo his senior season and enter the NFL draft. Scarletknights .com also has video of the press conference where Britt announced his decision. My opinion on this is that Britt certainly made the right decision. There is little left for him to accomplish as far as personal goals at the collegiate level. In addition, Rutgers will be breaking in a new starting QB next season which means it's likely that there would've been a drop in his numbers. Nothing against the current crop of RU QBs , but it's unlikely that the team will throw as much with a new QB when there are 4 running backs on the roster capable of having a 100-yard game. Also, physically, Britt has shown the maturity and make-up necessary to be successful at the next level. His performance over the past 6 games, including a few games on national TV, has put his stock at an all-time high, and that type of oppor...

The Papajohns .com bowl was the culmination of what turned out to be a feel-good story for Rutgers football. Ending the season with a quality win against a quality opponent from another big conference, was to me, a much greater victory than last year’s blowout of Ball State in the International Bowl. NC State quarterback Russell Wilson is a phenomenal talent, and I’ ve agreed with the nay- sayers who’ ve said that had Wilson been able to play the second half, Rutgers may not have one. However, the reality is that he got knocked out of the game after taking a few clean hits in succession. Also, Rutgers seemed to gain confidence on both sides of the ball as the game wore on, and there’s no saying that even with Wilson in the game, that Rutgers wouldn ’t still have made the adjustments to outscore the Wolfpack in the second half. Mike Teel played a spectacular game in his last college experience. I was among the fans who questioned the decision to continue to start him at the beginni...