On a beautiful thursday in the month of October my father and I set out to see Rutgers welcome the No.2 ranked team to Scarlet nation. On our way down we reminesced about what we witnessed last year on Novemember 9th, Rutgers upset then No.3 Louisville. I came to the unerstanding that this was not going to be as much of an upset as last year, besides the National Ranking. Mostly because Louisville came in as a juggernaut, we all know they had a big offense and scored quick and played good defense under Petrino. Now with USF all I've witnessed on tv was a win over WVU, which they negate their speed with their own speed. So with WVU being almost practically one dimensional with running read options and throwing short passes which is basically like a long pitch, it was hard to observe USF's talents.

 We arrived at the stadium around 6 pm, it isn't a bad ride for us we live in between Quakertown and Philly. Now upon getting there we scalped tickets. It's truly not bad my dad payed 50 bucks for 2 tickets last year and just 60 for two this year. Now upon getting tickets we entered the stadium around 630 or so and watched warmups. We laughed as we watched the student section chant "Overrated" over and over in rythmic pattern. I could relate since they're around my ripe old age of 21 lol.

 Now it's 740 pm and its game time baby!! Everybody is all hyped up for the game and the atmosphere is great. Rutgers gets the ball first and they are stopped temporarily. Schiano took a shot and faked a punt and got them inside the 5. Fromt there though they where able only to muster a fg. On the ensuing drive USF scored on a fg. Then they held Rutgers to a stop and proceeded to follow up with a Grothe scramble left for an 18 yd score. I must say the observation I read on Grothe was to the point, he wont amaze you or wow you but he does what it takes to move the chains. He was great at distictive running the read option, he would get his pads down search for a hole and do a good job at splitting between two defenders. He would somehow freeze the two defenders before attempting to split them. I must say it was truly a treat watching him run the read option and also he is an underrated passer. Now the 2nd quarter it went back and forth a bit. Rutgers scored after a long drive to put 7 on the board and USF answered with a fg, then Ito punched one through for RU. Going into the half it was 17-10 and truly the game looked wide open. Now the 2nd half Rutgers stepped it up a bit. They stopped USF on their opening drive then scored on a 69 yd td strike to Underwood, it was a short pass and he bounced out wide and took it to the house. On their 2nd scoring drive of the half Rutgers pulle dout some more trickery, they scored 15 yds out on a fake field goal. Nearing the end of the 3rd quarter USF mustered a fg. For the 4th quarter RU only got a fg up, but USF scored with 9 minutes left to make the score 27-30. I give Rutgers defense tremendous credit though, Rice had a rare fumble on thier own 40 and they stopped USF dead in its tracks with 4 minutes to go. The game ended 27-30 as you all know by now but I wish the refs would have left them play on that 4th and 22 play. That was sad, the team converts a 4th and 22 with 30 something seconds left on the road and you call a penalty, keep your flag in your pocket man. They pulled that last year when the kid from Louisville jumped over then back. I'm not discreding RU for playing good games, I just wish refs would stay out of things.

 So the verdict is in, USF was the typical No.2 team in the country this year and therefore was upset. It isn't much of an upset as it looked though, Rutgers matched up well against them. USF also did not take a few advantages they could have had. They did a great job running the read option in the 1st half with Grothe. The 2nd half though Rutgers defensive line created pressure on the pocket forcing Grothe to stay in and when he did flush they caught him behind the line or for a short gain. This was a pivotal part of the win. Grothe is listed at 6 ft even but reality is he is prolly 5'11 maybe even 5'10. Now height plays a part because he would have a hard time seeing over that line when forced in the pocket, BINGO Rutgers makes a great adjustment. Now as I sit here and watch these 1st couple of USF series I am waiting for them to make their adjustment to this. Yes they keep Grothe in the pocket, flsuhed him when they wanted to not when he wanted to but Rutgers was leaving a wide open middle of the field. I was waited for Leavitt or his Offensive Coordinator to make the adjustment. They would come out in 5 wide and rutgers would rush 6. Now with the middle of the field open I was waiting to see them distinguish a hot read and tell him to flash to the middle right? Nope never happened, which interested me greatly because in the first half RU was man to man and they scored off of a short slant over the middle. The man converage gave their WRs the ability to make a play, hence break a tackle and take it to the house like Hester did for his 2nd qtr score. I am not discrediting Rutgers they played a good game, I'm just curious how things would have turned out if they did make that change.

 I feel the intangibles of this game relate back to last year a bit. The most obvious one is letting RU hang around and not taking care of business. They let them Linger around on a spotlight game on Thursday night at home, do your really think they would play flat all game?? I believe not. Now in this game dropped passes hurt them. I mean Grothe is truly an underrated passer, people only go on about his running ability but I seen him place some balls where only his guys could get it. It was impressive to see him operate the passing game as well as he did because all I heard was run this and that. It's the same thing that happened to them last year they jsut couldn't catch the ball against RU. Also they got flat out embarassed on National TV, to have 3 fake special team plays fool you is unbelievable for a No.2 team to let happen.

 From observations it seems that the Big East is just that type of conference where everyone has everyone's number. I mean it's not like the SEC where its just a downright nasty tough confernece and you can lose almost any given saturday. I mean in the last 2 years Cincy beats Rutgers, Rutgers beats USF and USF beats West Virginia. It is intriguing to see this, it's basically a conference that's always up for grabs till the very end. Nw does it make for good suspense, sure it's fun to watch but I dont think we'll see a BCS championship team from this conference for a while.

 Now this BCS thing truly has got to go. I'm fed up with them, they only want teams like the OSU's, Florida's, LSU's, Oklahoma's, Teaxas's and USC's in the National Championship game because obviously they generate the most money for them. The way college football is it's so up and down and a upset can go down any given week. They know if they formed a 16 team playoff system, taking the conference winners as automatic bids and then a select few maybe based on rankings, quality wins, and etc. that they would have to live with who makes it their and not push OSU in for beating no one like they do every year. Yes USF didn't play the best game at all and they deserved to lose but when are we the fans of college football going to realize this BCS is nothing more than a who's who of College Football. Now watch what happens to USF this week, they lost to RU which is a respectable program and let's see where they drop in the rankings high 20's if not out right? Now The USC Trojans lose to STANFORD with their 2nd string QB and they went from 2nd to 10th? Why is that? That loss should have meritted a possible drop out because honest to god they have no quality wins proior to that. My pont exactly, they hope USC can win out and they can throw an average USC team into the BCS title game and if The Overrated Substantionally every year University wins out there you go. They have the game they want. It's ashame because Boise State which I believed Oklahoma would be to pwoerful proved to us that upests are allowed to happen. It was an amazing game and to me that is what the game is about, the best team winning on that any given saturday not the most known team.

Now you are probably wondering why is a PSU fan attending rutgers games? Maybe not? Well my father would get credentials to games and shoot RU and Temple games( I know Temple lol) so as a young kid I would go along. He could always get me and my brother in, When Miami would come up here and kill Rutgers you could always see NFL talent and almost for free back then. Now I believe the best player I've seen right on the sideline had to be Michael Vick at Temple, yes he isn't to smart but anyways it was absoulutely crazy to see him making these moves right in front of you and being said field level is always alot of fun to watch a game. Ok well I witnessed history as the RU faithful say twice in a row. I'm looking forward to seeing West Virginia roll into town next week to take on the Scarlet Knights, once again I will be in attendance. Hopefully I will have pictures, my phone for a all that it cost doesn't get great pictures. So my dad will probably bring his digital cam and a lens with it so he can get pictures. Ok time to go socut some Suburban One hs talent ha ha, and wait for the Blue and White to play Indiana.