And beats the No. 2 team in the country:
PISCATAWAY, N.J., Oct. 18 — Once again, it was a football Thursday night at Rutgers Stadium, with a sellout crowd and a national television audience watching. Facing one of the country’s highest-ranked teams, Rutgers longed for an upset victory to give definition to its season and serve notice to the rest of the country that big-time college football is still played in New Jersey.
Rutgers, which had been stumbling through a shoddy, imperfect season, did not disappoint on this familiar midweek stage. With trickery and the spectacular, slashing running of Ray Rice, who had 181 rushing yards, Rutgers defeated South Florida, the nation’s second-ranked team, 30-27.
“The thing about Thursday nights here is that this is like our Monday night football,” Rice said. “The guys seized the opportunity on the big stage.”
The upset stalled the national championship hopes for South Florida (6-1). For Rutgers (5-2), the victory kept alive its major bowl game aspirations. And just like last season, when the Scarlet Knights stunned third-ranked Louisville in a similar, dramatic Thursday night game on the Rutgers campus, students stormed the field at the game’s conclusion.
This will definitely get the Scarlet Knights back in the Top 25 and back into the major bowl hunt.
The season is far from over, of course. Next week, the West Virginia Mountaineers roll into Piscataway.
