Chas has put together a nice post with some news and links in it in anticipation of tomorrow’s match against Rutgers, “The USC of the East” according to some of their fans.

First off let’s get this out of the way.  Rutgers’s football team has had some of the strangest nicknames of any team I’m familiar with.  My two favorites are “The Queensmen” and later on their mascot was Chanticleer or “The Fighting Rooster”.  This last led to a great quote from their football coach Harvey Harman, “You can call it the Chanticleer, you can call it a fighting cock, you can call it any damn thing you want, but everybody knows it’s a chicken.”  He had his sexes mixed up a little there but you get his drift. 

Harman later is said to have bought the first “Scarlet Knight” mascot costume for the 1955 season, which was to be his final season as football coach at Rutgers.  Interesting, the first guy who actually does something to take the gayety out of the RU football program gets fired.  They should have just compromised and called themselves “The Fighting Queens” or “The Queens Cocks”, both of which would fit perfectly today also.  Oh, and Ozzie Nelson of Ozzie and Harriett TV fame was QB for the Fighting Cocks from 1924-26.  Anyway, we should kick their asses based on the above alone.

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I just know that between some other weirdness in expansiopocolypse, family and parent duties, oh, and that whole work thing; this will be the last chance to get a post about the Rutgers game before the liveblog tomorrow. So, I should make it count.

Rutgers running game has, well, sucked. The optimism of the presently starting running back would have you believe they are close. Real close. See if you can detect the doubt from the beat writer?

“I’m really starting to feel it’s going to happen,” Jamison, the Scarlet Knights’ leading rusher, said of the running game ranked 117th nationally and averaging 84 inches per carry. “We’ve been working hard at it and everything seems to be coming together.”

Against Syracuse, Jamison had 24 runs for 1728 inches. Breaking out may be a relative term.

In case you haven’t heard, and trust me tomorrow you will probably hear plenty, Rutgers linebacker Khaseem Greene and Pitt RB Ray Graham are half-brothers and close to each other. Puffery, family bonds and minor trash talking all come standard.

Against USF, Pitt’s tempo clearly had an effect on the USF defense. Players with hands on their hips. Looking gassed. Jesse Palmer excitedly pointing it out because even Craig James could notice that. We know that Rutgers is blitz-heavy, attacking defense. They also substitute players a lot, so this could effect a lot of things if Pitt executes like it did last week.

And for a Rutgers team that substitutes liberally on the defensive line — the Scarlet Knights used 10 players there last week against Syracuse — and in the secondary with a variety of nickel and dime packages, it poses an even bigger challenge than usual.

How does a team consistently make substitutions when its opponent is running a play every 16 to 18 seconds?

“It’s hard,” said Rutgers coach Greg Schiano. “It’s hard to do. You see what we’re doing. You’ve never seen me coach on the sidelines in practice. I’ve been on the sidelines the whole week (to simulate the game substitution patterns). My signal-callers have been on the sidelines the whole week.

“That isn’t what we like to do but we’re doing it. I don’t know if you can simulate it. I know you can’t simulate it with the scout team. We’re trying our best. It’s two sets of people and running (on and off the field) as fast as we can. But it creates issues.”

There’s something encouraging about seeing a coach like Schiano out of his comfort zone in the week leading up to the game. Keeping Rutgers off-balance and unable to substitute as freely will be vital in keeping Sunseri upright against Rutgers.

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Why couldn’t all of this conference stuff happened in June and July when I was scraping for content? I just cannot get over how much this stuff is dominating all week, after week, after week. Do you realize the Big East Media Day for basketball is in less than 2 weeks?

Time to clear some tabs just to make the room for the final push before the Rutgers game. A bit of emphasis on the ACC.

A little history from the 2003 ACC raid on the Big East. How close Syracuse was to going, but for the lawsuit that gave VT time to get the lobbying effort in full swing.

According to ACC bylaws, seven of nine schools needed to vote yes to admit another school. Duke and North Carolina were traditionally opposed to any expansion. Virginia and [UVa President] Casteen, in essence, were that seventh swing vote. But one thing is clear: The suit had some effect.

It gave [Virginia Governor Mark] Warner time.

“I do remember that we thought we were out (of luck) a number of times,” Leighty said. “But there was additional time, and I guess the lawsuit was why that happened.”

Eight times, Leighty recalls, he and Warner thought it was over. Eight times, the prospects of Syracuse joining the ACC would have been better had they given up.

ACC officials had visited the Syracuse campus on June 4, and the deal was all but official. Then the Connecticut Attorney General filed the lawsuit, ultimately joined by other Big East schools. That put things in flux and was the time that Virginia politicians and the University of Virginia’s president needed to get VT into the ACC. If you want to know why I don’t believe the Hokies would go to the ACC, just read this story to get an idea of how much political capitol, favors and support from UVa was expended to get VT to the ACC. Too many favors are owed by VT to bolt the ACC and UVa now.

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