By David KalanThe Daily Northwestern
The main problem I have with journalism is it’s far too easy for your work to become dated.
Take, for example, such literary classics as “The Canterbury Tales,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” or “Fritz The Cat.” These great Western tomes will never get old.
Unfortunately for me, I wanted to write this week about my hometown Rutgers Scarlet Knights, but it was likely their huge match up with No. 3 Louisville would come before this column went to press.
What’s more, I found about a dozen stories online about college football owing its existence to Rutgers and how the New Jersey Devil has come to collect its due.
Still, silly things like “deadlines” haven’t stopped me before, so why start now?
I should admit I call Rutgers my hometown team somewhat facetiously. I’m from Millburn, N.J., not New Brunswick or Piscataway. Truth be told I never really cared for the Knights, having seen them lose by 512 points a week throughout my childhood.
In fact, I find their recent success more amusing than exciting.
It wasn’t long ago that the best thing at Rutgers was the “fat sandwiches” you could buy at the landmark “grease trucks.” If you’ve never had cheesesteak, mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers, french fries and marinara sauce in one bun, you ought to try it.
But now things are different. After 27 years of staying home in December, Rutgers reached its first bowl game in more than a quarter century last year.
This year the Scarlet Knights suddenly are 9-0 after a thrilling 28-25 comeback upset win over the Cardinals, and are sure to improve on that spiffy No. 13 ranking in the BCS. In fact, this win might keep Rutgers on track to appear in (dare I say) the BCS National Championship Game.
Two years ago that seemed as unlikely as, say, if the Democrats were to take back Congress.
But, if you delve deeper, Rutgers actually has a long-running gridiron tradition, having played well more than 1,000 games, with 1,000 a victory against Northwestern, of all teams.
Rutgers has called itself on more than one occasion “The Birthplace of College Football.” The Scarlet Knights did, in fact, host the first-ever intercollegiate football game in history, a 6-4 whuppin’ of Princeton.
Sure, at the time the game more closely resembled English football than American football. As well, there have been a few minor rule changes such as having 11 players instead of 25, and some miniscule caveat historians refer to as “the forward pass.”
But the unavoidable truth of the matter is that on November 6, 1869, Rutgers reigned supreme.
It is also the last time Rutgers was the No. 1 college football team in America, but, come on, it’s not like much has happened in the last 137 years anyway.
Now, just a shade under 14 decades later, the Knights finally have a chance to reclaim their rightful perch atop the rankings.
As one of four teams in the Top 25 with a perfect record, Rutgers has the inside track to the Big East Championship, a BCS berth and maybe, just maybe, a shot to wind up in Glendale, Ariz., on January 8, 2007.
But regardless of how this season winds up for The State University of New Jersey, coach Greg Schiano has the foundation to keep Rutgers a solid contender for the foreseeable future. And with Heisman candidate Ray Rice returning for at least one more season, the future may not be so far off.
We can’t jump the gun too quickly. This is a team that only beat perennial doormat Temple in 1986 because the Owls had to forfeit due to an ineligible player. Still, we can’t disregard that they might be at the forefront of a new era of college football.
And if they aren’t, at least they can still buy a heart attack on a bun after practice.
Assistant sports editor David Kalan is a Weinberg Senior. He can be reached at [email protected].
