Professional Tailgating: All of this for a backup QB

The OTWT Tailgating Crew head to the Linc to take in the Eagles Chiefs game or as it will be know as the Mike Vick game. The Eagles won comfortably but the fun of the day was season debut of Mike Vick, ya the back up quarterback.

A gang of 10 people protested stood outside of the Linc

An OTWT friend posses for a photo with the group

One of the many Vick Eagles jerseys at the Linc

Vick warms up before the game
A new take on a Mike Vick Falcon's jersey
Oh by the way the seats were great and the eagles played really well without McNabb, Westbrook, and Curtis. It was like the 2011 version of the bird with Kolb, DJ and Shady McCoy

And you thought soccer was not growing

On Wednesday the home office of OTWT received a shocking call from Endy in Outfield. At first I could not believe what I was hearing, it sounded like something tragic had happened. After talking to him, I try to figure out what was going on.

Endy called me to let me know that my father, who is 60 and home recovering after being sick for two months, watched the first half of the Barcelona/Racing Santander match on ESPN. I know what people are thinking, so what is the big deal with this, everything is. My dad hated the beautiful game, even going as far as making fun of my brother and I for spending so many hours on the weekend watching, but now maybe that is changing.

So after hearing the astonishing news, I called my father to see how he was doing and all he wanted to do is talking about "the big white guy with the big nose'' or as everyone knows him Zlatan Ibrahimovic (pictured right). He said he really liked him and thought he was fun to watch, he also expressed great love for the slick passing midfield duo of Xavi and Iniesta or as he called them ""the two short guys that look alike.'' Then my dad went on to tell to me about Barcelona and wanted to talk about how entertaining they were. It was almost cool to hear.

Maybe ESPN is the key to making soccer successful in this country, if my father can watch the first half of a game and express interest, who knows what is possible.

It's a home game this weekend

Wow with Rutgers at Maryland this weekend, that can mean only one thing a home game for OTWT. On Saturday, I will spending the day at the home office watching all of the games going on and twittering my thoughts starting tonight with Ole Miss trip to South Carolina. Follow OTWT on Twitter here.

The First 100 are always key

The first 100 of anything are always key, from the first 100 days of a presidency to the first 100 hits of a major league baseball career. The 100 of any thing is a mark to both savor and both grade out someones performance.

On Saturday, Greg Schiano coached his 100 game as the leader of the Scarlet Nation. At the start of his tenure, few thought that he would see this day but now that he has lets grade the leader on his performance of the last nine seasons.

A 100 games in charge, wow after his first four season, in which he won a grand total of 12 game, few people thought that he would make it. The first four years of his career at the State University of New Jersey featured some embarrassing moments including dropping games to Villanova and New Hampshire. But the administration decided to stick with him and good thing they did.

Schiano started to get his recruits in during his fifth season the when the Knights went 7-5 and went to the Insight Bowl and loss 45-40 to Arizona State. But things were starting to look up. The next three season, Knights returned to bowl games.

Aside from the success on the field, Schiano has been a success off the field. After flirting with various jobs around the country, Miami and Michigan, Schiano pushed the administration to add on to Rutgers Stadium.

In addition to the stadium, Schiano has also made Rutgers relevant on the recruiting trail. Take the recruiting of New York defensive end Dominique Easley. Sure Easley selected Penn State, but Rutgers was in it to the end with programs such as Florida and Georgia. Take a look at the top 50 high school players from the region and you will see that Rutgers has been involved with most of them till the end. Under Schiano, Rutgers has been able to make inroads in places that they have never been able to like South Carolina. In the 2010 class Rutgers signed Chas Dodd a quarterback at the famed Byrnes High School in South Carolina. Imagine back about five years, the thought of a player coming to Rutgers from South Carolina was out of the question, now it has become a reality.

While Schiano has a 48-52 record during his tenure and has been a pain to the media, he goes down as the great coach in the history of the school. As for a letter grade, OTWT would have to give him an A, if he would have taken Rutgers to BCS Bowl then he would have gotten the plus. To take a program from where he got to now deserves all of the credit in the world.

This is a NFL City?

This is a photo, which came from a friend on facebook, from the press box Sunday at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, the home of the Jags. A ton of people decided to go to the game dressed as seats as you can tell. The attendance for the game against the NFC Champions Cardinals was 46,520, the stadium holds 67,164 for NFL games and 84,000 for college football games. It looks like all of the Jags home games will be blacked out this year.

This is another reason that the NFL does not work in the south. In the south people care more about the college sports then they do the NFL. Can you image seeing that many empty seats for the Georgia Florida game I think not.

Professional Tailgating: Sometimes it aint easy

So Rutgers did not look that great but in the end they beat Florida International, which brings them to 2-1 on the season. The real story was the tailgating as usual and the OTWT Tailgating crew being introduced to a new drinking game.

Our tailgating neighbors playing Stump, it involved a hammer and nails. So I decided to take a pass on it.

Stump in action

The new section of the stadium features a DJ booth, Rutgers might be the only school in american that has a pregame DJ.

The Wall of Victory, some interesting things on it.

Rutgers takes the fields and keeps choppin'

The hippies even came out to support the team

Rutgers will be on the road for the next couple of weeks and this will allow the OTWT Tailgating Crew to rest up, which is needed. The Knights return home Oct. 10.

The Rise of a Child

""And a child should lead them," that is the famous line. At Rutgers that is the case as, fresh off his first career start, true freshman Tom Savage has become an icon at the school. From people going nuts in the stadium when he entered the game against Cincy to his performance against Howard. Now fans are even going nuts on Facebook over the freshman from Philly.

Rutgers students have created The Savage Nation (The official Tom Savage Facebook Fanclub). All the description says is that "we are all witnesses.'' We are all witnesses to one of the greatest stories in Rutgers football. So far the group has approximately 80 members and will surely grown in the coming weeks.

I know that more groups are going to pop up, but the Savage Nation is the first and should be honored as such. As a season ticket holder, OTWT is endorsing Savage Nation as the only group to join.

Argentina's new hero and he does not play soccer

Around Argentina today, people are celebrating, not soccer, but tennis after Juan Martin del Potro defeated Roger Federer in an epic US Open final last night. For once the front pages of newspapers in Argentina were full of tennis stories and not stories about the miserable World Cup campaign that is ongoing.

Here is how some of the papers in Argentina covered the action from the US Open Final:

La Nacion

El Territorio

Clarin

The Great Gus

Who else could bring the pain like Gus Johnson. Johnson made the ending of the Bronco's Bengals game sound like the greatest thing in the world. Johnson is no stranger to greatness.

In honor of his call, here is some Classic NCAA Tournament Gus (remix).

The Cover Story: NFL Opening Sunday

So the NFL season is here and there were a bunch of stories after the first week. Here are how some of the papers covered the first Sunday of the season.

Green Bay Press Gazette

The Dallas Morning News

The Intelligencer (Pa)

Philadelphia Daily News

Metro (NY)

Minneapolis Star Tribune

The Detroit News

The Baltimore Sun

The Times Picayune (La)

The Indianapolis Star

The Chicago Tribune

The Miami Herald

The Examiner (Washington DC)

The Denver Post

San Francisco Chronicle

Professional Tailgating: It's a Savage Life

So the OTWT Tailgating crew return the scene of the crime, Rutgers, for their game against Howard on yesterday. But the day was about more then the game it was the first career start of true freshman Tom Savage. Here are some of the sights and sounds of the day. Savage played well and Rutgers beat Howard.

Wow there is a difference in the amount of cars in the parking lot from the week before

This little Knight is looking for a name please help him
Last week we did not have time to found the cannon in the new section of the stadium, this week it was a different story, not a big fan of the new location The new TV screen is simply amazing.
This youngster is jumping on the Mohamed Sanu bandwagon really early. I think that I might want to get on the bandwagon. He going to be the next Kenny Britt. Tom Savage warms up before his first career start and he looked great

You never want to see this

I was looking for photos of Stephen Strasburg and came across the above photo of Mark Prior, Strasburg, and Kris Benson all together. I hope this is the last association the three of them have and Strasburg's career is not hit with injuries like the other two.

Please be Patient, Its going to be a fun ride

If there is at all a silver lining the Rutgers' opening day loss to Cincinnati it was the play of true freshman QB Tom Savage. After being build as the biggest recruit in the history of the school, the true freshman from Philly showed the crowd what they have to look forward to for the next four years.

His performance made the coaching staff notice and the gave the reigns to offense for their upcoming game against Howard on Saturday. All fans in the stadium on Monday were asking for the Golden Boy to take the field and we all now have our wish.

While its hard to predict his performance because he is so young, one thing is for certain its going to be bumpy ride. There are going to be times where, as fans, we are going to go nuts about a throw Savage makes or a decision he makes, but there are going to times where fans are going to look around and go "what was he thinking.'' In order to play Savage, us as fans have to realize that he is in no way the finished product and we have to be patients. So as a season ticket holder I'm asking my fellow season tickets holder to please don't boo the Golden Boy, let me develop and lead this program into the future.

Its going to be a fun ride, so everyone please buckle up.

Look out South Africa, The Tree Lions are comings

The field for the World Cup is slowly coming together and the Three Lions booked their place in the event with a 5-1 win over the Croatia yesterday, while in South American the unthinkable could really happy the World Cup could be without mess. Argentina could be on the outside looking next summer.

Here is how some papers covered it

The Times (England)

La Nacion (Argentina)

Professional Tailgating: The Great Disappointment

A revamped stadium, a record crowd, and a terrible game. That is the best way to sum on Labor Day Mondays game between Rutgers and Cincy. The OTWT Tailgating Crew was there to enjoy the event.

Before they started arriving at the RAC, this guy tried to learn how to parallel park and he was terrible

The day did not start well for Endy in the Outfield. He was beaten by a high school sophomore at washers

While the game was not class the food was, filet mignon

Rutgers take the field for the first time in their revamped stadium

The new closed end of the stadium looked great, too bad the team did not

C. Vivan Stringer is honored for being elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, I wonder if Imus was there too.

Despite the loss, the crew will be there again this week for Scarlet Knights game against Howard. Can not wait for the Howard band at half time.

No better person to save your job then your son

In the toughest of times people usually turn to their family for help. With North Texas head coach Todd Dodge that was no different. During his first two years as coach as the Mean Green, Dodge won a grand total of three in his first two years being the head coach.

So before the start of the season Dodge turned to family to help him save his job in Denton. Dodge named his son Riley to be the starting QB and after one game it could not be going better. Riley lead to the Mean Green to a 20-10 win over Ball State on Thursday night. During his first collegiate start Riley threw for 216 yards and also ran for another 76 yards.

Hopefully the Dodge Team will be as successful a team as it was in high school at South Lake Carroll in Dallas. The pair won the 2006 5A state title with a 43-29 win over Austin Westlake in the final. As a junior Riley passed for 4,184 yards and 54 touchdown passes as well as gaining 1,119 yards and 13 TD on the ground. Riley first committed to Texas but soon changed his mind and joined his dad. Riley high school career legendary and its summed up by this performance in the 2006 state title game when he threw up through his face mask.

When times are tough the best people to turn are your family and that is exactly what Todd Dodge did and it may end up saving his job in the end.

DARK KNIGHT

So the stadium looked great, the team in red on the field did not. So its the day after Rutgers dropped the ball against Cincy. Here is how some local New Jersey newspapers covered event.

The Star-Ledger

The Homes News Tribune

The Asbury Park Press

Will be posting photos, video, and commentary of the game and the parking lots in the coming days.

The Chelski Transfer Effect

Fifa ruling against Chelski today could have far reaching economic ramifications on the football world in the coming years.

Chelski are banned from signing any new players until 2011 after they were found guilty of illegally inducing a French youth international to sign in 2007. The ruling from Fifa's Dispute Resolution Chamber also banned the 18-year-old attacking midfielder Gaël Kakuta (pictured above), considered the cream of the club's academy talent, for four months and fined him €780,000 (£681,000).

The ruling will not only make it hard for the Chelski to rebuild their aging squad but it will have a negative impact on the economy of football. By banning Chelski from signing any new players until 2011, it will take one of the footballs real money team out of the equations. Teams like Lens, Blackburn, Wigan, and various other count on teams like Chelski, Real Madrid, and Inter to buy their up and coming players for inflated transfer fees to stay competitive. Since 2003, Chelski has spent approximately 600 million pound on players.

With football continuing to feel the effect of the world's struggling economy taking another one of the big transfer out of the equation might spell doom for some. If you look around the transfer market this year the only large spenders where Real, Manchester City, Barca, and Liverpool. While Chelski might not have spent a ton they are always willing to.

While I'm not saying that they do not deserve to be punished for their action, I have this feeling that FIFA did not do their full home work in looking at the effect that this ruling will have on teams that count on transfer fees from big clubs to stay competitive.

College Football all weekend long

It's finally here and OTWT will be tweeting all weekend on all of the games going on this from tonight's Oregon/Boise State game to the Rutgers vs. Cincy game, which the tailgating crew will be at. So follow us on twitter.

Baby Quarterbacks are taking over

Last years it was the year of the freshman wide receiver with AJ Green, Julio Jones, Michael Floyd, and DeAndrea Brown. This year its shaping up to be the year of the true freshman quarterback with programs such as USC and Michigan turning to the baby quarterbacks.

At USC, the Trojan National has pinned its hopes on the baby face of Matt Barkley. Barkley comes with one of the biggest reputation in the American and hopes to follow in the great line of USC quarterbacks.

While at the mess that is know as Michigan, Rick Rod is turning to two true freshman to run his spread offense: Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson. Last year Michigan used two quarterbacks that had little chance of running the spread offense.

Rutgers and Georgia could also be added to the list of teams that could have baby face quarterbacks under center in Tom Savage at Rutgers and Aaron Murray at Georgia.

Starting true freshman QBs can either be really good or a total mess. For every Matt Stafford there is a Kris Heavner. The chart below from Yahoo shows how some baby faced Qbs did in their first year.
While starting at true freshman can be fun to watch it also can turn into a very stressful experience.