Northeast Football Dominates Opening Day

I grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey as a fan of the traditional New York pro teams and college teams from the Northeast. I was very aware of the stunning lack of respect given these teams, at least until Big East basketball became dominant. Just look at Penn State football in the late 60s and early 70s to see just how hard it was to command respect. And so I enjoy nights like the last one when Rutgers triumphed over Washington State 41-38 and Temple routed Vanderbilt 37-7. Did they beat top 25 teams? No. But considering that both squads were being treated as the Little Sisters of the Poor and both went on the road to beat bowl teams from 2013 it was a nice start to the season for these programs and the always-ignored Northeast. Rutgers did what they could not do last year when they went to the West Coast and lost narrowly to Fresno State to open the season. This year they ran down the Cougars' throats, as Paul James rushed for 173 yards, to offset WSU QB Connor Halliday's 532 yards passing with five touchdowns. The Scarlet Knights showed mettle by winning the fourth quarter 17-7. Temple, meanwhile, had to wait out lightning storms to throttle Vandy. The Owls forced seven turnovers--after picking up only 13 all of last year--and scored 27 points off of them while not allowing the home team to score an offensive point. The team already has as many interceptions this season, 3, as they did in 2013. Sophomore QB P.J. Walker led the offense with 207 yards passing with two TDs.