5
Thoughts ... 2008
PapaJohns.com Bowl
Rutgers 29 ... North Carolina State 23
GAME
REVIEW: Rutgers comes through late
- 2008 CFN
PapaJohns.com Bowl Preview
-
2008
PapaJohns.com
Bowl
Player Profiles, Histories, & More
 |
1. Don’t look
now, but here comes the Big
East. Just when everyone thinks
it has the conference pegged as
a BCS fraud, it gets hot in the
second season. Again. Sure, the
competition hasn’t been scary,
but 3-0 is 3-0. Connecticut is a
safe bet to pick up win No. 4
over Buffalo in the
International Bowl, which would
leave Pittsburgh versus Oregon
State in the Sun Bowl and
Cincinnati versus Virginia Tech
in the Orange Bowl. Even a split
gives the league an impressive
5-1 mark two years after going
5-0 in the postseason. Hey, no
one is silly enough to compare
the Big East to the SEC or Big
12, but as long as it keeps
cranking out victories in
December and January, everyone
should tone down the rhetoric
about someday yanking its
automatic BCS bowl bid.
-
Richard Cirminiello
2.
It's not fair to assume that NC
State would've won the game had
QB Russell Wilson not sprained
his knee, but the injury
certainly will leave the
Wolfpack wondering about what
might have been. Yes, the
Wolfpack might have lost the
game, but NC State fans, be
proud, and not just because your
team put up a good fight. Be
proud that Wilson didn't play in
the second half. The uber-competitive
freshman was lobbying and
politicking to get back into the
game, especially when things
were starting to go south, but
head coach Tom O'Brien wouldn't
let it happen. It would've been
awfully easy to have stuck
Wilson back out there in the
name of the bullspit macho
football code, but no. The team
doctor told O'Brien that Wilson
shouldn't play, and that was the
end of that for O'Brien. He
might be a disciplinarian and he
might be as dry as white toast
compared to former head coach
Chuck Amato, but O'Brien showed
class and restraint when other
coaches would've put Wilson out
there with some rational about
having eight months to heal. No,
NC State didn't win on the
scoreboard, and O'Brien was the
first to not let the Wilson
injury be used as an excuse, but
the program's integrity
certainly came through a winner.
-
Pete
Fiutak
3. Russell Wilson was this
game's best and most dominant
player, but the real MVP was
Rutgers fullback Jack Corcoran.
Lost in the shadow of
better-known skill players (Mike
Teel, Tiquan Underwood, and
Kenny Britt), Corcoran made some
superb catches and gave variety
to the Rutgers attack in the
second half, enabling the
Scarlet Knights to develop a
rushing game with running back
Joe Martinek. Corcoran is the
kind of "glue guy" that reminds
me a lot of Brian Leonard, a
Rutgers legend who set the
standard for all of his
successors in Piscataway. With
today's terrific effort in
Birmingham, Corcoran--a
junior--has a chance to produce
an outstanding senior season in
2009.
-
Matthew
Zemek
4. Regardless of
your rooting interest, it’s hard
not to feel good for Rutgers QB
Mike Teel, who capped a rocky
career in Piscataway with a
torrid finish and an MVP trophy
in the PapaJohns.com Bowl. The
same Teel who bottomed out after
taking an on-field swipe at
teammate Glen Lee in September
was a microcosm for the Knights’
second-half push to the
postseason. Virtually
unstoppable in November, he
rallied Rutgers one last time on
Monday, bringing the program
back from a 17-6 halftime
deficit and finishing the game
22-of-37 for 320 yards, two
touchdowns and a pick. While
maddeningly inconsistent, he
wound up being a picture of
perseverance, and those three
straight bowl wins as the
starter are the only three in RU
history. That alone puts him in
a special place in school lore,
which no errant pass can erase.
-
Richard Cirminiello
5. This bowl game presented the
participating head coaches with
several challenges, and all
things considered, N.C. State's
Tom O'Brien and Rutgers's Greg
Schiano performed well under
fire. Neither coach was perfect,
but O'Brien and Schiano hit the
target more often than not.
O'Brien smartly saved his
injured stud, Russell Wilson,
for 2009, and then had the
wisdom to pull Harrison Beck and
insert Daniel Evans in the
fourth quarter. Yes, O'Brien had
no business chasing a relatively
meaningless point (after a
touchdown) when up 23-19 with
9:21 left in regulation, but on
a larger level, the Wolfpack
remained competitive because
their coach came prepared.
O'Brien lost this bowl game, but
there's a reason why the former
Marine won bowls in seven
consecutive seasons at Boston
College.
Schiano, for his part, treated a
bowl game the right way. He and
offensive coordinator John
McNulty left no plays in the
grab bag, a generally
appropriate approach for
a one-shot postseason
contest against an unfamiliar
opponent. Yeah, there were times
when billy-basic
plays would have been good
enough for the Scarlet Knights,
but one still has to admire the
aggressiveness demonstrated by
Schiano and his staff. College
football prospers when
coaches treat bowls as a big
deal. The people associated with
these games witness an
attractive product (which this
game was) as a result. Even more
important, fans acquire a fair
bit of bang for the hard-earned
dollars they spend on air fare,
hotel rooms, and game tickets.
In terms of getting his team to
the finish line first, Schiano's
best move came when he ran the
ball on a third-and-goal from
the Wolfpack 3 with just
under 1:40 left in regulation,
and his team nursing a 26-23
lead. The use of roughly 50
extra seconds limited N.C.
State's ability to mount
a comeback. Schiano wisely
concluded that it was more
important to drain clock than to
try a pass at a time when NCSU
had been drained of its
timeouts. While Schiano's
subsequent decision to kick a
field goal on fourth down left
something to be desired--the
move would have made a lot more
sense if Rutgers led by only one
or two points, and not three, at
the time--it still remains
that RU's head coach increased
his team's chances of winning in
the endgame phase of this
contest.
Rutgers' football program
received a measure of off-field
healing on Monday with the
appointment of interim athletic
director Carl Kirshner. Thanks
to Greg Schiano's decision
making, the Scarlet Knights
gained a dose of on-field pain
relief as well. -
Matthew
Zemek