Proud to be from New Jersey

So in my lifetime I’ve only seen Rutgers University have two winning seasons, but last night they continued to make college football history as they defeated the #3 ranked team in the nation Louisville, or as southerners say Louville.

What an amazing scene is was last night to see some 45,000 fans try and bum rush the stadium.

Now jersey not only has Bruce, Bon Jovi and the Jersey Shore, we know have football as well


Here’s a great fan story from today's Bergen Record.


The biggest game in Rutgers' long football history produced what surely was the biggest celebration the school has ever seen.

A large portion of the record crowd of 44,111 wound up on the field in a wild scene following the No. 15 Scarlet Knights' 28-25 win over No. 3 Louisville Thursday night.

Fans streamed onto the field from all sides, including the temporary bleachers in the south end zone that had been erected specifically for this game. They covered the field as music blared and a cannon perched on a hill outside one corner of the stadium boomed.

A primary target of their affection was Jeremy Ito, the junior kicker who converted a 28-yard field goal with 13 seconds left for the decisive points. They pummeled him and eventually raised him off the ground and sent him bobbing along above the heads of crowd members screaming his name.

Several famous Rutgers alumni watched the game from the sidelines, including New York Giants center Shaun O'Hara and Philadelphia Eagles tight end L.J. Smith.

* * *
HOW RUTGERS DID IT

The good

Besides the crowd, the fervor and the recruiting benefits, the Scarlet Knights didn't say die, battling back from a 25-7 deficit early that had memories of last year's 56-5 surfacing at Rutgers Stadium. Never having a home-field advantage quite like this, Rutgers seemed to grow under the constant din.

The bad

Stopping the Cardinals' passing game was a must -- and the first play from scrimmage for Louisville was a 45-yard connection from Brian Brohm to Harry Douglas.

The ugly

Rutgers' game-tying score in the first quarter and the accompanying momentum shift was negated when JaJuan Spillman returned the kickoff 100 yards without being touched.

Turning point

Down 11 points in the third quarter, facing a third-and-6 on their own 22-yard line, the Scarlet Knights connected for a pass from Teel to Britt that brought the ball all the way to the 4-yard line. One play later, they scored and after a two-point conversion, were right back in the game.

"This is amazing," said O'Hara, who played on Rutgers teams that won nine games in four years - the same number Rutgers has won this season.

When asked if watching his alma mater win a historic game made him want to return to school, O'Hara laughed and said, "Return to play, yes. Maybe not the school part."

Representatives of several bowl games were watching, and now the wait begins to see where the Scarlet Knights will be ranked this Sunday.

"I would hope we would move up in the rankings," said running back Ray Rice, who ran for 131 yards and two touchdowns. "We're 9-0 and there aren't too many undefeated teams out there, and we're one of them. We just beat the No. 3 team in the nation."

An hour after the game ended, New Brunswick police reported large crowds of noisy students in the streets around the campus, but no property damage or arrests.

"Happy, but orderly," a police spokesman said shortly after midnight.

Among the casualties of Thursday night's nationally televised game, however, was education, at least for about one-third of the school's 35,000 undergraduates.

"I'm enrolled in a class that's meeting right now," Kian Barry, a junior from East Brunswick, said without a trace of conscience as he stood in line three hours before the game, his face painted in red and white. "I think the students basically canceled classes today."

Barry was one of thousands of students who camped out Monday night to get one of a special allotment of tickets. Normally at Rutgers games, as many students as feel like coming out are seated on a first-come, first-served basis, but athletic officials decided to cap the number at 10,5000 for Thursday's game.

Outside the stadium, tickets priced at $28 were being sold for $100 for a game that was being called the most significant in the school's history.

Some students spent the entire day waiting in line for a chance to rush down the stadium steps and get seats near the field. Jason Majano, a junior from Union City, said he arrived at 7:45 a.m., nearly 12 hours before kickoff.

Majano and girlfriend Jessica Suarez, a senior from Manalapan, are not recent passengers on the Scarlet Knights bandwagon. That means they witnessed more than a few losing games as the program suffered through a dry spell that included a 25-game Big East losing streak.

As the season has gained momentum, there has been a seismic shift in school spirit.

"It's so exciting," Majano said. "It's like being a kid with a new toy."

Some of that spirit was evident hours before the game when the Rutgers players disembarked from two buses and made their traditional pre-game walk past a statue commemorating the first college football game played here in 1869.

They were surrounded by thousands of fans, spotlights and a blaring pep band as they marched into the locker room.

Rutgers' unprecedented success this season - the Scarlet Knights finished 11-0 in 1976 but against a much weaker schedule than this year's - has been a shot in the arm for New Jersey, a state whose best high school players have traditionally shunned the state's university for more successful programs.

New Jerseyans have always been long on attitude, as WFAN radio host Chris Russo discovered during the station's broadcast from outside the stadium.

After Russo used the word "hinterlands" when describing Rutgers' location, one fan yelled out, "Hey Chris, we have running water down here."

The setting could not have been more picturesque: a clear, unseasonably warm night that offered a view of a blazing sunset over the Raritan River beyond the south end zone. The view may soon be sacrificed to add more seats to the 41,500-seat stadium, a prospect that was unthinkable even two years ago.

"Everybody thought Rutgers would be successful," Big East associate commissioner John Paquette said as he looked out on the scene from high up in the press box. "But I don't know if anybody envisioned a night like this."