Tell me you aren't a fan of Rutgers after last night. Go ahead. Try.
What an amazing win for the Scarlet Knights, not only upending a Louisville team that had the inside track to a spot in the BCS Championship game, but overcoming a 25-7 deficit in the process. When the entire field was covered in a postgame mass of celebratory red, you had to smile, whether you were a fan or not. That was awesome.
Not bad for a program that had been at the very bottom of college football since forever. I mean, there are the teams that rarely have winning records and then there are the teams that are even worse than that. Teams like Temple or Northwestern before Gary Barnett turned it around. Rutgers was pretty much in that category.
And now, barring an upset in the next two weeks and provided they beat West Virginia in their season finale, the Knights are looking at going undefeated and being able to gripe about being shutout of the title game.
Because they won't be in the title game no matter how fun their story is. Oh, well.
While he was hardly known except to college football diehards only a few weeks ago (or, really, before last night), Greg Schiano has now surely vaulted to the top of any and all lists of hot coaches. You know he'll pretty much have the pick of any job opening he chooses come the offseason. Here's hoping he stays. One of the Unknown Column's biggest pet peeves is college football and basketball coaches who build up a relatively smaller program and then bolt for the greener pastures of a so-called major program. Often it backfires on them. Often they would have been more wise to stay put and continue to build the good thing they had going. I see no reason why Schiano couldn't continue to build Rutgers up to the point where it's an annual contender on a national scale. Why not? Hell, the Knights are practically there already. Now that they're known they'll get more respect in the polls which, in turn, will help them in the BCS rankings.
And with an Italian last name like Schiano, he's perfect for New Jersey. Tony Soprano is probably donating funds to the Rutgers program as we speak.
By the way, I've always wondered why New Jersey couldn't just be like everyone else and call its state school the University of New Jersey. Does New Jersey think it's special?
