"Pandemonium in Piscataway"

The Scarlet Knights put together the most important win in the history of the program last night, defeating #3 Louisville, 28-25, in Piscataway. You have probably heard about this by now. With Gentleman Farmer "at the end of an undersized soda straw" bandwidth-wise, I've been charged with bringing you today's post-game gloating, chest-thumping, and delusional BCS forecasting.

But first, let's hear what GF has to say on the matter:

Teel is really a freshman, and now has still lost only one game since he started for his high school team. Every week, the opposition concentrates on Rice & Leonard, and dare Teel to win the game. Before last night, opposing defenses weren't entirely successful. Last night Teel, Rice & Leonard won the game, with Rutgers able to put Louisville in the unenvieable position of having to guess which one of them would come at them at any particular time. Teel's stats were better than those of the much-touted (now) whathisname [Brohm] from Louisville.

Let's see about that:
Teel: 8-21, 189 yds, 1 TD, 1 INT. Brohm: 13-27, 163 yds, 1 TD, 1 INT.

Okay, neither guy really lit it up. But the key stat here, I'd say, is sacks - including the game-ending takedown of Brohm that preceded the field getting rushed, the RU defense sacked Brohm 5 times, resulting in combined losses of 29 yards. Indeed, it was the Rutgers defense (unsurprisingly, if you've been following these guys all year) that was the key to victory on Thursday. RU held the Cardinals to 303 yards of offense, the fewest UL has had since 2003.

Rutgers is now 9-0, and 4-0 in the Big East, with games left against Cincinnati, Syracuse, and #10 West Virginia (Dec. 2). Win out, and they've got themselves a BCS berth. A National Championship Game invitation ain't out of the question, but it requires the Wolverines to play like kittens at Ohio State (Nov. 18), and some fancy footwork by the one-loss teams in between RU and OSU.

No question, this is the best season Rutgers has ever had. Ray Rice for Heisman.

By the way, Stanford extended its perfect season to 0-9, and their winless streak to 11 games, with a 42-0 loss at home to USC last Saturday. Only 3 more games to go for them too!