The Knights Watchman

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...

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...

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...