rutgers football

South Florida quarterback Matt Grothe carried his comrades on his back Thursday night in New Jersey, but the Rutgers ― fortified with the weighty armor of trick plays that Les Miles would have been proud of ― would take no Bull from Tampa's toughest team.

Rutgers' narrow victory over South Florida typified the entire 2007 college football season: zany, herky-jerky, substantially sloppy, and just plain unpredictable. At the end of this emotion-teasing, sanity-destroying roller-coaster ride in Piscataway, only four things were clear: The No. 2 team in the United States had fallen for the third straight week; Thursday night football games bring joy to the Rutgers community; Greg Schiano displayed a ton of guts; and Matt Grothe is a supreme spiritual warrior of the gridiron.
This game taught the nation very little about either one of these football clubs. Similarly, it's virtually impossible to truly gauge the level of quality in the Big East.

Schiano's trick-play masterpice aside (with special recognition to the throw of Rutgers holder Andrew DePaola on the game's defining touchdown play in the third quarter), it's hard to give Rutgers too much credit in victory ― or South Florida too much criticism in defeat.

Yes, Rutgers earned this triumph, and frankly, the Scarlet Knights should have been able to breathe a lot easier down the stretch. (The Scarlet Knights were robbed by the officials when a phantom holding penalty on offensive lineman Pedro Sosa gave the Bulls a second chance they didn't deserve. It took a make-up call ― an offensive pass interference ruling on a third-and-22 on South Florida's final drive ― to seal Rutgers' messy but justly earned win.)








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But when you look at this game in a larger context, the stacks of mistakes made by players and coaches alike served to place yet another cloud over a Big East Conference that isn't enjoying a very distinguished season. The effort level in this game proved to be phenomenal, but the level of execution ― to put it charitably ― left a lot to be desired.


Thursday night's "Rumble on the Raritan" is hard to assess because Rutgers' last Thursday night conquest ― a come-from-behind classic against Louisville in 2006 ― represented a transcendent sports event. When the Scarlet Knights stormed the No. 3 Cardinals last November ― and Rutgers students stormed the field after another win over a top 10 team ― the moment possessed a soaring and epic quality befitting an occasion that endures forever in the public memory. When Rutgers' roster of Rudys pulled off the palace coup against a high-flying bunch of Redbirds 11 months ago, the nation stood spellbound in the face of the magic woven by Schiano, Brian Leonard, and the rest of a team that put Rutgers football on the map. It provided the state of New Jersey with one of its all-time great sports moments.

This year's Thursday football feast became a joyride for Rutgers, but against South Florida, the Scarlet Knights didn't display the excellence they brought against Louisville last season. The same Thursday celebration erupted on the same field, led by the same jubilant head coach and the same ecstatic student body, but the way Rutgers gained the winner's circle was markedly different from last year's comeback against Brian Brohm, Bobby Petrino, and Co.

Against Louisville in 2006, Rutgers didn't make a single misstep in the second half. Against South Florida, the Scarlet Knights muffed a punt, fumbled the ball with just over four minutes left in regulation, and took a delay of game penalty on a punt with 1:41 left in their own red zone. Instead of keeping South Florida's defense off balance with occasional play action passes, Rutgers' offense went into a shell, trying to drain clock midway through the fourth quarter in an apparent attempt to play not to lose.

It nearly cost them.

Three turnovers, a blocked field goal, an extremely shaky passing game, and the inability of Ray Rice to do anything in the red zone produced a Rutgers effort that, against better teams, would have led to a third home loss for the Scarlet Knights. But South Florida ― far from the No. 2 team in the country ― wasn't good enough to take advantage. This contest was ultimately decided by the Bulls' inability to punish Rutgers for its boatload of miscues.

The reason why this contest suffered ― not just in comparison to last year's Thursday spectacular, but as a showcase for Big East football ― is that it presented two teams who tried their best to give the game away. Rutgers' mistakes were followed by even more crippling blunders from the Bulls.

South Florida started the second half by gift-wrapping a Rutgers touchdown. Tiquan Underwood dodged botched tackles as USF hand-delivered (quite literally) six points to the Scarlet Knights, who gained the lead for good just one minute after halftime.

Later, a muffed Rutgers punt (the second one of the game) led to zero points, as the Bulls ― almost wanting to keep pace with their opponents when it came to special teams mistakes ― allowed a blocked field goal. After Ray Rice's shocking fumble at the 4:11 mark of regulation, South Florida's offense turned in an ugly three-play sequence that lost 5 yards and forced the Bulls to give up the ball.

The mistakes and failures were numerous, but the craziness was just beginning. The game's final few minutes offered enough errors in judgment to last a full season.


Matt Grothe and the Bulls didn't deserve to a win a sloppy outing with Rutgers. (Jeff Zelevansky / Getty Images)

With Rutgers in possession with 3:11 to go and South Florida having two timeouts, the smart money suggested that the Bulls and coach Jim Leavitt would call their first timeout after a first down in order to force Schiano to consider a pass play on second down.

Leavitt declined to make this move, and when Schiano ran the ball on second down, Leavitt called his first timeout around the 2:30 mark. On third-and-eight, Rutgers passed and gained a first down, only for that aforementioned phantom holding call to give South Florida new life. But even as the Bulls gained a reprieve, Leavitt hurt their chances with one of the more bizarre timeouts in a crucial late-game situation.

The holding penalty stopped the clock with 2:26 left, but for some reason Leavitt decided to call his team's third and final timeout anyway. Rutgers was facing a third-and-18 from its own 12, so with a timeout in his pocket, Leavitt could have stopped the clock if Rutgers and Schiano had chosen to run the ball. The timeout would have likely led Rutgers to attempt a pass, which if incomplete would have given the Bulls the ball with roughly 2:15 left in the game.

It was then that Leavitt ― so good for so much of this season ― simply lost focus. He called timeout before Rutgers' third-down snap, and this made it easy for Schiano to run the ball and drain the clock down to the 1:41 mark. Leavitt got the ball back, but he left Matt Grothe without a single timeout. Coaches, not just players, were losing it in crunch time.

Schiano also fell victim to the heat after his team's third-down play ended. Given South Florida's lack of timeouts, Schiano was correct to let the clock run, but he forgot one remotely important fact: With three timeouts left, he needed to use one of them to avoid a 5-yard penalty before Jeremy Ito's punt. Someway and somehow, Schiano had a brainfart and South Florida gained 5 more yards of field position. After the punt exchange was complete, South Florida stood at midfield with 1:33 left. The Bulls had a ton of time and didn't have to rush their ensuing offensive sequence.

But the running of the Bulls ― more like the panicking of them ― ensued.


After a first-down sack, Grothe ― who single-handedly carried South Florida on a night when few of his teammates showed up ― made his only real mistake of the night. After 58 and a half minutes of scrambling and mental toughness in a daunting nighttime road environment, the QB wilted in the game's final 90 seconds.

The normally fearless signal caller spiked the ball on second-and-22 with 1:11 remaining. Instead of gathering his offense and calling a second-down play, Grothe wasted a down. Leavitt did indeed waste his final timeout, but Grothe still should have known that with 1:11 left, his team was hardly in an impossible situation. The value of saving five or six seconds paled in comparison to the value of having a full allotment of chances to gain a first down and, eventually, a tying field goal.

But when Grothe spiked the ball on second down, the odds against a South Florida comeback grew markedly. When a 4th-and-22 pop-fly completion was nullified due to that iffy pass interference call (it happened at the end of the Stanford-USC game, for what it's worth, but officials generally don't call that kind of play), the game was essentially over, and when a fourth-and-37 heave missed the mark, the deed was officially done ... along with South Florida's national title aspirations.

And so, another Big East primetime showcase offered tremendous effort, but precious little precision. West Virginia and Louisville battled in their ballyhooed contest a year ago on Thursday night, and earlier this season South Florida and West Virginia combined for 10 turnovers.

But Thursday in New Jersey, South Florida and Rutgers traded special teams blunders, clock-management mistakes, and missed tackles. The combination of marvelous intensity and painfully bad execution makes it hard to determine the quality of the Big East. Are these teams too nervous when they play each other, but mentally liberated when they play out of conference? Does the Big East need to play SEC teams in order for its member schools to max out on the football field?

In the wake of this pigskin puzzler, one has to ask a number of questions: Is Rutgers a great team that has stumbled twice this year but rebounded against the second-ranked Bulls, or is Rutgers a team that surprised everyone last season and has come down to earth a bit in 2007? Is South Florida good enough to compete with anyone in the country (with Grothe, the kind of player who refuses to let his teammates give anything less than their best, that seems hard to deny), or are the Bulls weak enough that, against formidable non-conference opposition, they'd crumble in a heartbeat?





Is Rutgers a heavyweight team that lost its mojo but has now regained it? Is South Florida a heavyweight team that lost but is still destined for an 11-win season? Are these two teams lightweights who will peter out, or are they thoroughbreds who will go the distance?

Given the mixture of mistakes and moxie witnessed in New Jersey on a thrilling yet grubby Thursday of failure-filled football, it's hard to give clear answers to football's most pressing queries.

No. 2 bit the dust yet again, and Rutgers threw another party on another wild Thursday night on the banks of the old Raritan. Those are uncontestable facts. Everything else about Rutgers' crazy win over South Florida is up for debate and subject to interpretation. The end of this game is only the beginning of a mysterious search for answers in a college football season that only continues to baffle.

There's nothing like a good debate - so we asked Star-Ledger staff writers Alex Delanian and Jenny Vrentas to compare Rutgers to the University of Southern California and Penn State University.
No, not on the field, where - quite frankly, they are all about even this season. We're talking off the field: In the stands and the parking lot.

Alex, as many of you know, is a 2007 USC grad. Jenny is a 2006 Penn State grad - but you can consider her a lifer as she grew up in Happy Valley.




1. For starters, how does the Game Day experience at Rutgers compare to the experience at Penn State and USC?

PENN STATE (JENNY VRENTAS): Three years ago, Penn State did a really smart thing. The football program hired a guy, Guido D'Elia as the Director of Communications and Branding, but his job was really to pimp the program (I believe the correct way to say that in Jersey is that he made Beaver Stadium boss). He changed a lot of things: made the end zone logos sleeker, mixed in hip-hop music to the gameday mix at the suggestion of the captains, produced goosebump-inducing highlights videos and bumped the eerie Zombie Nation at critical junctures in the game. Each Game Day was a grand production, and conservative ol' Penn State suddenly became fly. Rutgers does a lot of things in the mold of Penn State, and that would be a smart next step as the program grows. Because, as we've seen this season, the "first down" and "R-U" chants aren't enough to sustain a crowd for four quarters.


SOUTHERN CAL (ALEX DELANIAN): The biggest complaint I've had about Rutgers -- and schools structured in the same way -- is how spread out the campuses are. If you can't walk from one end to the other without a water break, you might want to rethink the blueprint. Some people park miles away for the game and need to take trams to the stadium. The people lucky enough to park nearby help partially with creating an exciting environment, but the whole notion of busing people in for a college football game seems wrong. So it's hard to know whether the USC tailgate and pregame experience is better, but it feels more appropriate when you're surrounded by more people. It feels like you've all gathered there for one thing: a common memory.


2. The crowd: Is it older or younger than at Penn State and USC?

PSU: Well, perhaps if we spent the rest of the season taking a crowd census, we'd know for sure (note to bosses: that was not a serious suggestion). But, given Penn State's football tradition -- and the age of its head coach -- it's fair to say that there are a lot more lifers at Penn State games, i.e. people who were students when Joe first arrived. They remember the back-to-back perfect seasons in '68 and '69 and can tell you about the NFL success of the eighth-string tailback's dad. In my parking-lot excursions at Rutgers, I've found their kind to be far more sparse.


USC: Both ends of the age spectrum are addressed out west, and it can fluctuates between "nice to see" and "borderline creepy." There are aging alumni who show up, passionate as ever, draped in school colors. They always make for great conversation and have interesting stories, but when they start to toss the football around and organize a scrimmage that ends up with someone accidentally burning his hand on a grill, then it might be time to retire the jersey. It's similarly cute to see elementary school kids rattling off the depth chart and wondering if the team should play more zone defenses, but when the pageant moms dress their daughters up like song girls, cute turns into scary.


3. The food: Compare the tailgating spreads you've seen at each stadium.

PSU: As I was reminded by an Australian friend, who tailgated for last week's Jets-Eagles game in celebration of the two Aussie punters, you can never go wrong with burgers, dogs and beer ... lots of beer. And there's certainly no scarcity of funnels and grills at both Penn State and Rutgers. But I think Piscataway is sorely missing out on Happy Valley's Grilled Stickies. Gooey rectangular chunks of dough, with cinnamon and sugar, they're supposedly world famous (they even have a Wikipedia entry!). And they're especially perfect as breakfast for noon kickoffs.


USC: Unfortunately, I'm going by sight and smell alone in terms of Rutgers spreads, but those senses did leave me tempted to throw on a Brian Leonard jersey and sneak into someone's party. It's more bare bones -- beer, burgers and football -- which I like, but Rutgers may not match some of the extravagance of USC. Caviar? Champagne? When did tailgating turn into a Hilton dinner party?


4. The stadium: Rutgers' stadium is much smaller than both Penn State's and USC's. Does that make it more intimate or louder?

PSU: Is an intimate stadium a good thing? When Kanye West refers to "stadium status," I doubt he has intimate in mind. In any case, I'd like to preface this answer by noting that I'm not a Penn State slappy. But I really do think, having been to a decent amount of football stadiums, that Beaver Stadium is one of the most intense and raucous constructs in which the game is played. Case in point: The stadium staff had to limit the number of times Zombie Nation was played because, when the fans jumped up and down, the structure was literally shaking. Of course, as the question noted, Penn State has a lot more to work with -- 2.5 times the number of fans, to be specific. For a memorable atmosphere, give Rutgers a few more decks.


USC: Definitely not louder than USC, and the intimacy trickles out because of the stadium's open spaces. To briefly enter another school in the debate, Oregon's Autzen Stadium is both frenzied and intimate because the structure of the stadium points the fans at the field and each other. At Rutgers Stadium, there's a lot of sky. It makes for a nice visual but it's hard to create a top-notch home atmosphere as a result. I've seen groups do their best to rile up their section, but it's usually a no-go -- unless there's a service academy involved.


5. Do you find Rutgers fans as knowledgeable or as involved as fans at PSU and USC?

PSU: For the past few weeks, I've have been doing NJ.com's fan-of-the-week surveys, and I have to say, I've been pretty impressed. Most Rutgers fans seem to be very up on the team, and the Big East conference, and a bunch even know the names of the offensive linemen. That's a good thing, because any school with scarlet as one of its colors should realize its fan potential -- few other hues, not even white, make a crowd stand out more.


USC: The ones that do know what they're talking about come across as much more passionate. There's a sense of superiority, warranted or not, among students at USC. In victory, this come across as snobby and elitist. In a loss, like against Texas in the national championship game, people will mope around for days like a relative died. Rutgers fans seem to fluctuate less emotionally, more intent on trying to figure out what went wrong and fix it rather than mope about it. This passion does not necessarily translate into logic, which makes the fans at both Rutgers and USC equally ridiculous when they're blinded by rage. So, hey, something to bond over.


6. Against Cincinnati, the stadium was 25% empty by the end of the game. Do people leave early at PSU and USC?

PSU: A wise person once told me -- actually, it was probably one of my parents -- that one of the most universal human missions is to beat traffic after an event. Of course they leave early at Penn State, too! I remember a game against Iowa in 2002, when Penn State was down 35-13 at the end of the third quarter, and fans steadily streamed out of Beaver Stadium -- before the Nittany Lions staged a 22-point fourth-quarter comeback to send the game into overtime. Penn State wound up losing anyway, but the bailers still missed a heck of a game. So, nope, there's no hope of that changing at Rutgers (notice my restraint in avoiding the easy rib at Jersey traffic).


USC: Of course they do. Football is great and all, but you don't want a late start cutting into your time when you need to hit up the trendy new club. Linger too long at the stadium and your two-hour wait to have the bouncer judge whether you're allowed inside may turn into three! Not that I'm bitter. The South Florida Bulls are college football's version of a boy band: The program is 11 years old, suddenly it's outrageously popular and, since ascending to the No. 2 ranking in the Bowl Championship Series, the Bulls are being forced down America's throat.

Swooning over the Jonas Brothers? No. University of South Florida football fans. (Chris O'Meara/Associated Press)There they were in USA Today featured in a nice story by Kelly Whiteside, and there they were again in a long feature in Sports Illustrated this week. Even the Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel was asked about the Bulls at his press conference in Columbus this week. ("They're good," he said. "That's what I think about them.")
Can the Bulls stand up to the glare of another marquee game when they play at Rutgers tonight?
South Florida Coach Jim Leavitt said in USA Today today that he feels like the outcome of last year's two-point loss in Tampa would have been different if he hadn't lost his voice. (That's not as bad as what the Syracuse Coach Greg Robinson said before the Orange's game against Rutgers last week.)

South Florida Coach Jim Leavitt losing his voice on the sideline last week. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)For the quick and dirty on the game, which kicks off tonight at 7:30 p.m. Easter time on ESPN, here are links to Brett McMurphy's always thorough South Florida blog on the Tampa Tribune's Web site and the Rutgers blog from our friends at the Star Ledger. (Be sure to check out the multi-talented Steve Politi, who shines in the video breakdown of tonight's game.)
And, yes, dear reader, your feedback is wanted. If they drop their third game this season, will the Scarlet Knights be regarded as a one-year wonder like Greg Robinson suggested? Are the Bulls destined for New Orleans? And have we figured out just how good the Big East really is?
Feel free to post your thoughts below and enjoy tuning in to see if the Bulls Boy Band keeps rocking. Ed Cunningham was one of the people who found it easy to root for the Rutgers football team last year.

"They were new. They were a fresh face. And they'd never really won before," said Cunningham, a color analyst for college football broadcasts on ABC-TV and ESPN. "Whether they liked it or not, they were put up as the darlings of college football."

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The warm and fuzzy feelings from last year's 11-2 record have all but vanished.

This year, opposing coaches claim Rutgers coach Greg Schiano has done everything from run up the score to put an unsportsmanlike team on the field.

Tomorrow night, Rutgers -- with a 4-2 record -- will play host to No. 2-ranked South Florida in a nationally televised game that will help determine the Big East championship. It's the type of game for which Rutgers built its program for decades, spending millions of dollars along the way.

And yet that success has been besmirched by complaints from other football programs about how Rutgers goes about its business.

Consider what has happened since the season began:


Two coaches, Norfolk State's Pete Adrian and Navy's Paul Johnson, were miffed at Schiano for tacking on late scores in games that already were decided.


Two others, Maryland's Ralph Friedgen and Syracuse's Greg Robinson, have accused Rutgers safety Joe Lefeged of dirty hits on their quarterbacks.


Rutgers president Richard McCormick had to apologize to the Naval Academy for the behavior of some Scarlet Knights fans during the Sept. 7 game between the teams.