The Game Ten Preview: Indiana Hoosiers vs. Rutgers Scarlet Knights

Who, When, Where: The Hoosiers travel to Piscataway, New Jersey for their first ever meeting with the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. Kickoff is at 3:30pm on BTN, with Eric Collins and Chuck Long in the booth, and Tina Cervasio on the sidelines.

Tevin Watch: The 100 yards rushing per game streak broke at 10 against Penn State last week. Tevin is still on pace to set the IU single season rushing record, but will need 435 yards or more in the last three games of the season to set the mark. He is still 235 yards behind Courtney Snyder for 7th on the Hoosiers' all time rushing leaderboard.

Thoughts about Rutgers: Usually, this would come from OTE's representative writer, but Ray Ransom was a bit too busy with work and travel to tag in on this, so the Rutgers piece will instead come from our resident Penn State writer Aaron Yorke. I'm sure nothing bad will happen. Here's Aaron's contribution, left unedited for your amusement (all links his):

Well I am from New Jersey, so...

After three straight games against three of the conference's best teams, the Knights spent last week licking their wounds and obsessing over TTFP. Now with the bye week behind them, Rutgers looks to finish the season strong, and that begins with defeating an Indiana team that has yet to win a Big Ten game this season. Although Wisconsin and the like were able to expose the Rutgers run defense, the Knights can focus fully on Tevin Coleman at least until Zander Diamont manages to scare someone with his arm. On offense, Gary Nova is probably to play (knee) and unless Indiana can replicate their defensive effort from last week against TTFP, he should have a big day. Look for a well-rested Rutgers squad to get back into the win column with a comfortable victory over the Hoosiers. If they don't, it's going to be tough to imagine anyone but Maryland running away with the first ever Eastern Bloc Trophy.

Other Rutgers Miscellany: The full, official name of Rutgers is "Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey." Thanks to sprawling beyond Piscataway, the Rutgers bus system is the second largest bus service in New Jersey. Rutgers' notable achievement in the game of basketball is their 4th place finish in the 1976 NCAA Tournament, which makes them retroactively the third best Big Ten school in the tournament that year, trailing only undefeated Indiana and second place Michigan.

Notable Rutgers Alumni: Marc Ecko (fashion designer); Mario Batali (chef, TV personality); Jon Finkel (Professional Magic: the Gathering player); James Gandolfini (actor, The Sopranos); Dan Green (voice actor, Yu-Gi-Oh); Eddie Jordan (current Rutgers Men's Basketball head coach); Jim Valvano (former NCAA men's basketball coach); Gary Brackett (former Indianapolis Colt); Mohamed Sanu (current Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver); Alexi Lalas (former US National Team soccer player, ESPN personality); Bill Rasmussen (co-founder of ESPN)

Prediction: With luck, we'll show up, make this game somewhat close, and no one will be severely injured. That said, I'd place our chances of winning somewhere around 5% barring Rutgers utterly failing to show up for the game. My prediction: Rutgers 42 - Indiana 14.

Next Week: We travel to Ohio State to get ROFLstomped.