RUTGERS TO THE GATOR BOWL LOLOLOLOLOL

Oh. My. Heavens. Texas A&M is out of the Gator Bowl, and...

Zuzu: This title is freaking hilarious.

Fast thoughts... this is dumb... can’t wait.

But no, really, this is dumb. With the lack of preparation there’s gonna be a high chance of injury for the players.

Also, Wake Forest is 10-3. They’re very good. Rutgers wasn’t bad this season, but we are literally out of practice and we got smacked by a trashy Maryland team in our last game of the season. The game that determined we did not in fact deserve a bowl game. Then again Wake Forest did barely beat Syracuse...at least we beat Syracuse.

Just happy that this is technically a reward for our team working hard academically.

BoilerUp89: It’s nice for the Rutgers program, players, coaches, and fans that they get to go to a bowl game - even if they did have to back into it. And no Purdue, Minnesota, Maryland and others didn’t get jumped. This was a SEC bowl slot and everyone knows the B1G is better than the SEC so I assume this is the equivalent of B1G bowl slot #14.

Also, because I like to play with fire: with Rutgers attending this game, only two power 5 programs have not been to a bowl game since the start of the 2017 season. Kansas - which at least has beaten Texas a couple of times during this stretch. And our very own Nebraska Cornhuskers. Long live Head Football Coach of Nebraska Scott Frost!

RU in VA: Last I heard was that they boffo-ed taking this bowl game. BUT HERE WE ARE!

MNW: Well that’s what I thought they’d done too, RU in VA, but maybe the outpouring of “Hell yeah we’ll do it!” from other teams/coaches/fans convinced Rutgers they wanted it?

WSR: Is this kinda dumb? Yes, on multiple levels. The Gator Bowl is a pretty good gig, and Rutgers is jumping about 4 B1G teams here. And they’re going to be pulling kids back from all over to race to a game that nobody’s done any prep for. And Wake Forest isn’t too bad of a football team.

But you know what? Fuck it. Giddyup. Let’s go Scarlet Knights. We’re just 2 years removed from this program losing 21 straight games. Now they’ve APR’d their way into a bowl game using a combination of ACTUALLY GETTING TO 5 WINS and not being useless humps in the classroom. So I, for one, would like to congratulate Rutgers on achieving what seemed to be damn near impossible 2 years ago.

Thumpasaurus: well shit, for a second there I thought I was gonna get to an illini bowl game. Fact of the matter is, freak cancellation allowing a 5-7 team to swipe the gator bowl is the only conceivable path Illinois would ever have to a warm weather New Year’s Eve bowl, and we had a billionaire trying to make that happen on our behalf, but instead we get to be haunted by a loss to Rutgers yet again.

If Bert survives long enough to coach the next game against rutger in three years, he’d better have his boys ready to fucking play because he sure as shit didn’t this year.

I can’t believe I actually priced this trip out. Wake is gonna hang 100 on whoever scrambles their team to show up, it’s a terrible situation competitively and Illinois would have been no different. But I’m now actively hoping that happens.

Anyway, I hope all Illini coaches learn from this and Michigan’s stupid basketball title last year that the consequences of losing to Rutgers are fucking dire and it should never be done again. I’m at least glad Paul Mulcahy’s campaign to become a Big Ten Basketball Villain has been stopped in its tracks by how much he sucks ass this year.

Get in that portal, Bert, I’m sick of fucking waiting.

RU in VA: Never count Rutgers out to make the absolute boneheaded decision when faced with it. They’re just a less exclusive, dumber, Tufts.

This is dumb. Incredibly dumb.

It’s a real chance for both the athletic department and Schiano to make a stand for both player safety and program standing. These kids haven’t played in a month and they’re going to take on an ACC Division winner? Well, at least it’s not a B1G team.

My hot take is that this isn’t a reward. It’s a punishment for competence in the classroom. Rutgers is an afterthought and is getting a “reward” because of an SEC schools’ shitty rules re: COVID. Tell the NCAA to F-off and enjoy the offseason. Hop in the Schiano-copter and get some recruiting done.

misdreavus79: If the rules remain the same due to the environment (i.e. teams who won’t have the requisite eligible number of players), which isn’t changing any time soon, 5-7 teams should just hold unofficial practices for the inevitable reality that they get called up to a bowl game. Today, it’s Rutgers’s turn. Tomorrow, it might be Illinois’s.

Also, like, if the coaches and players didn't want to play the game (or couldn’t), they would have declined the bid. So let’s not get too high on our courses, shall we?

Coray Seifert: This is absolutely fantastic with extraordinary upside and almost no downside. I love the fact that in year 2 of rebuilding a Rutgers football team that had cratered out under Flood/Ash, Schiano has - by hook or by crook - brought the program to the most prestigious bowl since we invented the sport a pair of centuries ago.

Okay, let’s slow down. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Injuries could always happen, but by that logic, why play the game? This is a team that has broadly been well conditioned and has taken the offseason training program seriously. A few weeks into the offseason is different than playing a game in say, early spring. There could be a blowout, but nobody is expecting this team to scrap together a cogent product anyway. Just showing up and not getting a 50-0 blowout would count as a moral victory. Other than that, what’s the worst thing that could happen...he said, looking around nervously.

Now lets look at the upside. Rutgers is rolling up to the most prestigious bowl in its history with its highest rated QA recruit in history and most successful coach in history during historically atypical times and all because they got it done in the classroom. If they make it a game, they’ll be the preseason darlings of 2022 and carry immense momentum into recruiting season. And if they win? Holy mother of Greg, the movie rights alone would be worth any potential risk. This would be one of the greatest all-time stories in college football history and would go into the annals of sports trivia for years.

I mean, it’s already worth it for this glorious tweet of perfect perfection: