Here's a story to kill time on the way to the game
This feature originally appeared in CBS SportsLine’s 2007 College Football Preview. Click here to order your copy today!
This is how it started, really started, at Rutgers.
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| The scarlet fever afflicting Jersey in '06 reached epidemic proportions during Louisville's visit. (Getty Images) |
No, no, no.
It really began with a wrong turn on the New Jersey Turnpike one Thursday afternoon last November. A Midwest yokel (me) started to understand what Rutgers had done. The genius at the wheel gave himself plenty of time to get to the biggest game in school history. Four hours.
Piece of cake, right? Not exactly. This must be what Frodo Baggins felt like on his odyssey -- excited, scared, baffled and, yeah, a little hairy in the wrong places.
You can ride shotgun on this recollection highway if you want. No potty stops, though. It's the turnpike and we're heading straight into history, or as much history as a $3 toll will buy you.
Nov. 9, 3:30 p.m.
You decided to come, good.
Is it me or does traffic seem a bit thick for 3:30 in the afternoon?
Anyway, the running joke is that tonight's game is the biggest in 137 years. That's because Rutgers played Princeton in college football's first game back in 1869 and hasn't done much since.
Not much at all.
What's the big deal tonight? Louisville, but that's getting ahead of the story. Put it this way: If you'd tried to hawk Rutgers-Louisville tickets a couple of years ago, they'd laugh you out of the Bada Bing.
This week the city is lit up for Rutgers. And by city, we're talking New York. The Empire State Building has been bathed in scarlet. Signs that usually warn of traffic delays on the turnpike were blinking "Go Rutgers." Brian Leonard, the fullback, has a highlight reel running in Times Square. Turn on the radio, and Mike and the Mad Dog is doing an on-campus remote.
On WFAN? It is the voice of the people, and the people of New York are all about the area's nine pro sports teams. New York is not a college football town. It has its Notre Dame loyalists, but what city doesn't? Hauling the mikes of New York's blowtorch to a college campus for football? That was unheard of -- until tonight.
"We knew they were improving," The Fan's Mike Francesa said. "We really thought there was a chance Louisville would be undefeated and Rutgers would play the spoiler. Little did we know what would unfold."
4:12 p.m.
Are we headed in the right direction? Damn tractor trailers. Can't see around them. So you decided to tag along. Great. Here's some bottled water but remember what I said about potty stops.
What? No. You can't know about the game until you know about the program.
The coach's name is Greg Schiano. In 2001, he wanted a head-coaching job, so he left Miami -- yes, Miami of Florida! -- as defensive coordinator and came to Rutgers.
He's too much of a gentleman to tell you how bad it really was at Rutgers back then. Maybe he didn't know or didn't want to know. He left a dynasty for a disaster. The previous year the Rutgers defense had given up a touchdown an average of once every 16 snaps. That first year Rutgers scored 119 points and was shut out three times. Schiano's second game was a 61-0 loss to his former team.
That first year the defense stiffened on West Virginia's first possession and forced a punt. The Mountaineers scored the next nine times they had the ball and won 80-7.
It was the program's worst loss since Princeton -- them again! -- squeezed out an 80-0 decision in 1888.
It was so bad that the passing leader in 2002 was one Ted Trump, with 740 yards. And no, Ted is no relation. You think The Donald would have allowed this to happen?
It was so bad that Schiano started 3-20, 0-14 in the Big East.
It was so bad that the strength coach was once asked about the team's ability in the weight room. Weaker, he said, than the weakest Ivy League team.
When the Big East banished weakling Temple from the league after Schiano's first season, the question was: Why not Rutgers?
It was so bad that in a 50-3 loss to Syracuse on national television in 1997, Paul Pasqualoni had more pity than sympathy. He had his quarterback take a knee. Four times. From inside the 10. Midway through the fourth quarter.
Then-Rutgers AD Fred Gruninger resigned the next week. The people you will meet tonight don't want to talk about any of that.
Just remember to shake every hand, friend, and say "Congratulations" a lot.
4:33 P.M.
Hey, did I just miss an exit? Are we headed the wrong way? Never mind. We've still got plenty of time.
It's a family, really. Schiano, AD Bob Mulcahy, even the hotshot TV star who prowls the sidelines. Tony Soprano, it turns out, went to Rutgers when he was still James Gandolfini.
They're all people like Chris Carlin, the play-by-play guy. They've been around Rutgers for years. They have this humbleness about them. Carlin used to do sports for Imus in the Morning and, yes, they cracked on Rutgers when cracking on Rutgers was more civil.
"Everybody kind of wondered what it would be like," Carlin said. "The moment every Rutgers game would be appreciated more than anything else."
Schiano is a Jersey guy, lives 45 minutes from the shore. Loves Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny. That makes him sound like some sort of East Coast cartoon character. Then he took the Rutgers job -- and began losing. Cartoon turned to horror flick.
First, Schiano began recruiting ... New Jersey. What a concept. For years the state had been picked over by the likes of Nebraska, Notre Dame, Penn State, pretty much any school that sniffed a five-star prospect within the Jersey borders. Those prospects sure as hell weren't going to Rutgers. A New Jersey high school coach said at the time that if you got 15 of the state's best players and played Notre Dame and Texas back-to-back you'd kick their butt.
The guy had a point. Schiano knew that. Do Mike Rozier, Irving Fryar, Ron Dayne, Joe Theismann and Franco Harris ring a bell?
Schiano immediately created something called "The State of Rutgers." New York, New Jersey, Philly, eastern Pennsylvania. He didn't have much to sell except the Big East and playing time. The thing was, Schiano began selling it down in South Florida too.
What was there to lose, except talent? That's where he had come from. He knew the territory. The school bought billboards in and around Miami selling "The State of Rutgers."
It was a curiosity. Value added. Fodder for sportswriters' notebooks. Who cared about Rutgers?
None of it really made a difference, but the family plodded on. A former Rutgers tight end does the color on radio. A former player on the radio is not an oddity except that Tim Pernetti moonlights as director of programming for CSTV. The big shot TV executive works in the city, makes big deals during the week, but every Saturday he cuts open his chest, lays his heart on the slab of desk in the booth and calls Scarlet Knights games.
"Having been in college sports my entire career, I work with a lot of people," Pernetti said. "I won't lie to you. I was the brunt of a lot of jokes. All these guys, they went to the big schools with the big teams. The week of the Louisville game I never had so many friends."
Louisville? If you must know, all the Cardinals can do tonight is essentially wrap up a berth in the BCS championship game. It's no secret the Cardinals have been building toward this moment. Howard Schnellenberger coached there and once said the program was going to win a national title. The only variable was time.
The time is tonight. The Cardinals are 8-0, ranked third. Win tonight and they have only South Florida, Pittsburgh and Connecticut to go.
5:03 p.m.
Don't worry, we'll find an exit any minute and turn around. Hey, by the way, you got any change for the tolls?
OK, so this Schiano guy lost to Louisville 56-5 in 2005. Still, the season was a net win since Rutgers went to its first bowl game in 27 years, the second in history. The only other postseason game was something called the Garden State Bowl, played up the turnpike at Giants Stadium. Rutgers didn't kill it, but the game did die after four seasons.
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| On the verge of getting fired four years ago, Greg Schiano has built Rutgers into a contender. (US Presswire) |
Some kid named Ramel Meekins, a former high school wrestler, wanted to walk on. Who was Schiano to say no? Meekins became the Knights' defensive MVP, tearing up offensive lines as a 5-foot-10, 284-pound tackle.
Leonard, though, is the poster boy. He does everything -- blocks, catches, runs. The kid could have parachuted into the NFL after the 2005 season but came back as a senior out of a sense of loyalty.
"I wanted to make history," he said. "I didn't want to be part of a team that already had success. I didn't want to go to Penn State where you know you're supposed to win every game and go to a bowl game every year. I wanted to go to a school where it was (a surprise) to go to a bowl and turn that program around."
You'll see Leonard tonight. You'll also see the guy he blocks for. Ray Rice was committed to Syracuse until Pasqualoni was fired after the 2004 season. The kid from New Rochelle, N.Y., ran for 1,120 yards as a freshman, then started destroying people. He's on pace for 1,800 yards and there's Heisman talk. Rice doesn't look intimidating. Schiano saw something in that 5-9, 195-pound frame. Something like 225 yards against Pittsburgh -- 117 of them in the fourth quarter with Rutgers down by 10. The kid lowers his shoulder and defenders move.
6:15 p.m.
What? Sorry, you're going to have to hold it now. We're trapped in traffic but we're close. The exit for Piscataway is up ahead here somewhere.
Sorry, dude, I never expected this. We can see the stadium, smell the barbecue but it seems like a million miles away. The state troopers don't have a clue. They keep sending us in circles. It's obvious they've never had to deal with a crowd like this. That must be why we're parking in an open field full of mud.
Wow, does everyone here have a can of beer in their hands?
7:30 p.m.
Shut up, don't get on me about going the wrong way on the turnpike. We're here. Game time is on time. Besides, look at this place. It seems like every big timer in the country is squeezed into this press box.
There's Tom Luicci from the Newark Star-Ledger. If Rutgers wins tonight, he'll be the one asking the tough questions. He always has. It's easy when you've covered these guys all these years.
For once, Dick Weiss of the New York Daily News has a national college football game in his backyard. The Boston Globe has sent Mark Blaudschun, the cynical bulldog. If his place didn't send him here, he wouldn't have paid his way. It would have been too late, after he strangled his editor.
This is an event in a muddy, beer-filled, carnival-like way. It's nights like these that remind you there is still purity -- even fun -- left in major college sports. The sportswriters, they're not giddy like the fans bouncing around the stadium, they're amazed that the biggest game in the country would come down a Thursday night in Piscataway.
But six minutes before halftime, nothing is new. Rutgers Stadium is as quiet as a 137-year-old corpse could be. The school, the fans, the media are used to that.
Louisville is ahead 25-7.
11:05 p.m.
So why are we trapped in this scrum of students who have bum-rushed the field? What just happened?
They rallied. That's what happened. Fell behind by 18 then came back on the arm of the nation's 83rd-ranked passer, Mike Teel. The sophomore, Rice, ran for 131 yards, 81 in the second half.
The kicker, Jeremy Ito, there he goes being carried off the field. Thirteen seconds left, and Ito kicked the game-winning field goal. From the first college football game to the first time anyone outside Piscataway cared.
"It was almost as if New York and New Jersey came together as one and said, 'This is going to be our team,'" Rice said.
Rice realized later he had goose bumps while speaking to the media. Ito had phone numbers stuffed into his pockets as he walked down College Avenue that night. Schiano didn't make it to the podium until well past midnight. You can bet Luicci was mad. Deadlines don't wait, even for the biggest game in school history.
On that night, the Scarlet Knights were one of only four undefeated major teams left in the country. They didn't end that way. They finished 11-2, a hiccup away from a BCS bowl and, for a brief moment, in the national championship chase. That's how it started at Rutgers. The Knights were not champions, but they weren't chumps anymore either. And far from spoilers.
"It wasn't Cinderella, as much as it was, 'Here we are. We represent New Jersey and we're not going to be pushed around anymore,'" Carlin said.
You got a problem with that?
The offseason
Less than a month after that Louisville game, a table full of Rutgers revelers quite conspicuously cheered their way through the annual National Football Foundation dinner in New York. At least, every time someone mentioned their school.
Schiano, the pride of Wyckoff, N.J., flew to Phoenix in January to accept the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year award. He was the last coach to get the honor while the Grambling legend was still alive.
Rutgers suddenly finds itself in a league when, in any given year, it can go to a BCS bowl or even play in a national championship game. As long as Schiano stays, and it looks like he is. The man who was crazy to leave Miami for Rutgers in 2001 turned down Miami to stay at Rutgers through 2016.
It's all humming now. Schiano says 18 of his 22 starters will be from either New York or New Jersey. Five-star offensive lineman Anthony Davis from Piscataway Township signed in February, turning down Notre Dame, Ohio State, Southern California ... and Miami.
That might be the biggest upset of all, why it really started at Rutgers. The Roziers are now staying home.
What? Oh, first door on the right. Down the hall. Hurry up, the '07 season is about to kick off.
And we finally know the way to Rutgers.
