Rutgers, yes Rutgers, bowling for first time since '78
The Rutgers football team will end a 27-year drought when they play post-season college football this year after a 7-4 regular season campaign. The Scarlet Knights accepted an invitation this week to play in the Insight Bowl on Dec. 27 in Phoenix.By Dave Caldwell
The New York Times
PISCATAWAY, N.J., Nov. 28 -- Rutgers accepted an invitation Monday to play in its first bowl game in 27 years - and its first outside New Jersey - but Coach Greg Schiano did not seem interested in pausing to admire the accomplishment.
Jamal Westerman, right, and Rutgers will play Arizona State in the Insight Bowl on Dec. 27 in Phoenix. (Tim Larsen/Associated Press)"It's a stop along the way," Schiano said at a news conference.
The Scarlet Knights (7-4) will play Arizona State (6-5) on Dec. 27 in the Insight Bowl at Chase Field in Phoenix. It will be Rutgers's first bowl appearance since Dec. 15, 1978, when it lost to Arizona State, 34-18, in the Garden State Bowl at Giants Stadium.
That was Rutgers's first, and only, bowl appearance.
Rutgers, which finished third in the Big East Conference, will receive $1.3 million for playing in the game, and the Scarlet Knights' season will be extended a month - which, according to Schiano, gives him a chance to season his younger players. Apparently, he does not think Rutgers has peaked.
"I'll still get laughed at, but we are here to build a program to win national championships," he said.
Schiano said he thought Rutgers was capable of earning a bowl invitation in 2004. A season-ending five-game losing streak - three defensive backs were injured in an automobile accident before the streak - ended that hope.
The Scarlet Knights, who lost two consecutive games before defeating Cincinnati, 44-9, in their regular-season finale Saturday, have their first winning season since 1992. Three years ago, Rutgers was 1-11.
"I definitely feel this program is in the right direction," the senior defensive end Ryan Neill said. "That's the way I wanted to leave it - going in the right direction."
Insight Bowl officials attended the Scarlet Knights' game Saturday and said they were impressed, but they delayed extending an invitation until Big East officials met Monday to discuss how they would fill the conference's four bowl slots.
If Notre Dame had lost to Stanford on Saturday night, the Fighting Irish might have fallen out of contention for a Bowl Championship Series berth and into one of the four Big East bowl slots, jeopardizing Rutgers's bowl bid.
Notre Dame rallied to win, 38-31.
Robert E. Mulcahy III, the Scarlet Knights' athletic director, received the Insight Bowl invitation at 11:30 a.m. on Monday.
Schiano told the players at a 4 p.m. meeting.
"It's a long time coming, and everyone deserves it," the senior quarterback Ryan Hart said. "I'm just glad I can play one more football game."
Mulcahy said Rutgers would receive 10,500 tickets to the game at Chase Field, a domed baseball stadium - formerly called Bank One Ballpark - that is the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Information on how to get tickets will be available at scarletknights.com.
Story Produced by: Nick Weidenmiller
