Does anyone know where Rutgers went?

Oh. My. Gosh. I just have one question: From which planet did Rutgers recruit this year’s football players?

I just finished watching the Rutgers/Louisville game, which was, without a doubt, not only one of the best college football games I’ve seen in recent years, but also THE best Rutgers game I’ve EVER seen. Now, granted, I haven’t actually watched too many Rutgers games, mostly because in the past, Rutgers has made use of mostly terrestrial players, who were clearly stymied and dumbfounded by the game of football. In fact, before this year, I can really only remember watching one Rutgers game – a Rutgers/Notre Dame game – and I was only watching it because I knew Eric and Faisal were there. (You know how it is – when someone you know is at a game, you have to watch. Just in CASE the camera happens to pan in their direction and you catch a glimpse of them in the stands…) And it was a truly horrible game – Rutgers didn’t score ONCE, and I found myself continually frustrated by their refusal to just go for it on fourth downs. (I mean, they were obviously gonna lose no matter what – why not just ATTEMPT to put a number on the scoreboard?)

But this year’s Rutgers football team is a completely different team. This year, they actually know how to play football. This year, their crazy-insane-unsmiling coach is able to motivate the team, they have great defense, and they have a running back who can really... well, run. And, even after tonight’s game against number-3-in the-country Louisville, they’re still undefeated.

What made the end of the game so great was that Rutgers was losing 25-7 in the first half. By halftime, it was 25-14, but I wasn’t holding my breath for a positive outcome. I have to admit that I’d already accepted Rutgers’ defeat before the game even started. Too many years of Rutgers losing had conditioned me to expect a loss. But then the defense started working overtime to hold Louisville, and Rutgers snuck in another touchdown, a two-point conversion, and a field goal – tying the game in the fourth quarter. With about four minutes left and the clock running down fast, Rutgers had the ball and I realized they HAD to score if they wanted to win. They played it smart and stopped passing (the quarterback had already thrown an interception earlier in the game), and let Ray Rice take care of running the ball. They accomplished their goal – which was not, necessarily, to score another touchdown, but merely to make sure they were in field goal range.

So with about 20 seconds left, Rutgers brought out kicker Jeremy Ito. I always feel bad for the kicker when a game is so close like that – he can either become an instant hero, or an instant outcast, depending on how well he does his job. So the pressure was on for poor Jeremy… the clock was running, the ball was snapped, Jeremy kicked – and it was no good. It flew beyond the goalpost. It was very bad. But wait – a flag had been thrown before the kick. And wonder of wonders, it was against Louisville. Offsides. In fact, when I watched the replay, I wondered if the kicker had noticed the Louisville player moving toward him and had gotten flustered.

So Rutgers got a second chance, and this time it panned out. The kick was right down the middle – perfect. Louisville did what they could with their final 13 seconds, but it wasn’t enough. And when the clock hit zero, an aerial shot of the field displayed a sea of red humanity converging on the Rutgers team. I couldn’t help but think that a few years ago, half the seats in that stadium would’ve been empty throughout the entire game. But tonight, none of them were empty until the game was over.

I can’t wait until the new polls come out next week – it’ll be interesting to see where Rutgers is ranked. And who knows? Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll get to see a Rutgers/Texas game some time in the near future…