Someone's excited to be coming to Piscataway....

As per my post yesterday, no one should have been surprised today when Rutgers officially announced that they would be adding Texas Southern to their 2009 schedule.  The game will take place on October 3rd at Rutgers Stadium, and will give Rutgers an open date on October 10th.

But Rutgers did throw us an unexpected twist with the Texas Southern news.  Over the next decade Rutgers will play games against Tulane, Miami, and Penn State.  For a team that's had trouble scheduling games over the last few years, this is a huge development.

Rutgers will host Tulane in 2010 and 2014, and will visit the Green Wave in 2012.  The big one in my opinion will be when Penn State visits Piscataway in 2014 with Rutgers returning the favor to Happy Valley the following season.  And in 2018 Rutgers will look to exact some revenge when Miami comes to the banks, and they will make the flight down in 2019.  Obviously the Penn State and Miami series are a long ways off (and lots can happen, especially with college football schedules), but if things hold, these would give Rutgers a significant boost in out-of-conference schedule and perception amongst the nation.  You can't help but wonder if JoePa will still be on the sidelines when PSU comes to RU.

As noted earlier, some other changes were announced including the movement of RU's opener against Cincinnati to Monday, September 7th, and the Louisville game to Friday, Novemeber 27th (during the traditional college football Thanksgiving feast). 

Rutgers claims to have tried to negotiate a game for this season with bigger name teams, but no such deals could be reached:

"We have worked diligently for months to complete our 2009 schedule with a Football Bowl Subdivision team," athletic director Tim Pernetti said in a statement issued by the school. "We were unable to convince any of the institutions with openings to come to Rutgers, including numerous BCS conference opponents. It is vital to our growth, development, and fan experience that we have seven home games in each season."

See what Athletic Director Tim Pernetti had to say about the schedule here., and for Coach Greg Schiano's take click here.

What do you think about Rutgers' schedule for this season?  Do you have season tickets?  Will you be attending every game?  How about our future schedule?  Let us know what you think in the comments section....