Rutgers is headed to it's 5th straight bowl....

Rutgers is headed to it's 5th consecutive bowl game, but for the Knights, that's about all the good news there is.  Despite the rumors that the Meineke Car Care Bowl was extremely interested in Rutgers, the Charlotte-based bowl passed on Rutgers in favor and Pitt, and the Scarlet Knights have been relegated to the St. Petersburg Bowl at Tropicana Field.  The Scarlet Knights will look to win their 4th consecutive bowl game by defeating the University of Central Florida, a member of Conference USA.

Rutgers fans aren't the only people who are disappointed in the bowl bid.  In a rare occurence, Schiano could not hide his disappointment.   The bowl game, which will be played on Saturday, December 19th will provide relatively no additional practice time for the team (the biggest benefit of making a bowl game), compared with games like the International Bowl and PapaJohns.com bowl which will be played on January 2nd.  The game will also be played right around the time of final exams for Rutgers, which makes for an overall unique and difficult situation:

"It is, quite frankly, very disappointing," Schiano told reporters on Sunday evening. "I cherish that time with the underclassmen to really bring them along. This date doesn't work very well for that." 
                                           

 Obviously it is disappointing for Rutgers, but they have no one to blame but themselves.  We can complain all we want about how the Big East bowl tie-ins suck, and how Rutgers gets screwed every year, but the fact of the matter remains:  if this team had beat West Virginia they would be playing in Charlotte.  Rutgers isn't owed anything after an 8-4 season in which their best wins were against 7-5 USF and UConn.  Rutgers, especially the seniors should enjoy their trip to Florida and reflect on their 4/5 years of success.  The freshmen and younger players on the other hand should treat this game as business.  A chance to get themselves off to a good start for next season, and to show everyone that this Rutgers team will be a team to contend with for 2010.