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...

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.

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...

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...

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...

It seems Schiano's salary and the perceived shiftiness by the RU athletic department and administration has made front page news in New Jersey and mention in sports sections nationwide. I wish the naysayers would give it a rest. When you make a commitment to have a competitive Division I football team you need to retain a top-flight coach, and that costs money. Bob Mulcahy came up with a creative way to supplement Schiano's base salary, which quite possibly could have been the difference between Schiano staying or bolting for Miami or Michigan in each of the past two years. By having that marketing company pay his salary, the money was at no extra cost to NJ taxpayers or the students who currently attend Rutgers. The bottom line is this: after reading the article in the Star-Ledger my boss passed me in the hallway and said, "You're a Rutgers football guy. How come the coach makes 3 million a year and you don't?" My response, "because I don't fil...