Sometimes in life, you get second chances.

Five seconds before, Jeremy Ito was on the verge of becoming the biggest goat in his school’s history, having missed a 33 yard field goal that would have won the biggest game in the university’s history. But thanks to an offside penalty, Ito got another shot, this one five yards closer.

When you get a second chance, you’d better make the most of it.

Ito lined up. The snap was down, the hold was good and this time, the kicker drilled it. Five minutes later, the final 28-25, Ito was carried off the field, now the biggest hero in his school’s less than illustrious history.

And in an instant, New York was painted red. Only this time, Derek Jeter wasn’t anywhere to be found. Neither was Mark Messier, Phil Simms, Joe Namath or anyone from the area’s pantheon of championship heroes.

Instead, the characters in this play were named Ito, Rice and a bunch of guys on defense that have made the Rutgers Scarlet Knights contenders to bring a National Championship to the New York Metropolitan Area.

Yes that’s right, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights… and college football title to the New York Metropolitan Area.

Nope it still doesn’t seem right.

Envisioning something like this is beyond what even the most optimistic fan of the Scarlet Knights could have imagined five years ago. College football in this area is in a dead zone. There is little tradition, no history of success. The people who follow the sport root for out of state teams (for example, I’m a fan of the U), while the players all bolt elsewhere. When John, a lifetime New Yorker, was attempting to choose a college team a few years back, he never even considered the Scarlet Knights.

But Thursday night, the lead story on every sports report in NYC was of the victory over Louisville. Hell, one program (I forget which one) closed with a shot of the Empire State Building, illuminated in red in honor of the immense win the Scarlet Knights pulled off.

This is an accomplishment that cannot be put adequately into words. To understand where Rutgers was five years ago, you have to have lived in the New York City area and seen what the respect level was back then.

Check that, respect level? Rutgers and football could not be placed in the same sentence without uncontrollable laughter following. This is a team where losing by forty, at home, was once considered respectable.

So there is no way to really quantify the job Greg Schiano has done with the program. The former Miami coordinator has gone from the depths; leaving a contender when, if he had just stayed for a month longer, he would have been the head coach instead of Larry Coker. The New York media who cared had his head on a chopping block after things did not improve quickly. Before the 2005 season, many felt the coach was on thin ice.

Now just a year in a half later, Schiano will find himself one of the highest paid coaches in college football, if not at Rutgers, then by someone else. Think the University of Miami is wondering if they’d be in a little better shape these days if they had Schaino right now instead of Larry Coker? Figure they are going to make a serious attempt to rectify that situation once the season ends.

But despite being a fan of the Canes, I hope Schiano does stay with Rutgers. The U can find coaches who can recruit and win down there, but Rutgers may not be so lucky. The biggest recruiting draw for that program right now is Schiano and they simply will not be able to get a replacement who can match the prestige he has these days.

Of course, that’s a conversation for the future. The present facts cannot be changed; after upsetting the third ranked Louisville Cardinals, who just a week before beat the then third ranked West Virginia Mountaineers, the Scarlet Knights have positioned themselves for an unlikely run at the title. And it seemed even more remote mid way through the second quarter.

After falling behind 25-7 at home, most people would have left them for dead. But instead the stifling defense of the Scarlet Knights, legitimately one of the best units in the country, stepped forward. They punished Brian Brohm, one of the top five quarterbacks in all of college football, sacking him five times. As a result, they held the Cardinals to zero points in the second half, allowing the offense to make a run.

And speaking of run, sophomore Ray Rice continued to show why he’s one of the best backs in the country. On a bum leg, the Scarlet Knights’ offensive star picked up 131 yards on 22 carries with two touchdowns. Right now, that’s the best performance any Heisman candidate has had in a big game this season.

That set the stage for kicker Jeremy Ito to hit the game winning field goal, even if it took two chances. As they’ll no doubt say for years to come, “it was if it was meant to be.”

And just like that, Rutgers was 9-0, first place in the Big East and a true contender for the National Championship.

In what has to be the most overused line around right now; “I never thought I’d ever see that happen.”

Rutgers still has a big game ahead of them. West Virginia, in Morgantown, is upcoming on December second, with games on the road at Cincinnati and at home against Syracuse on schedule before hand. They are no lock to go undefeated by any stretch of the imagination.

But if they do, they deserve to be in the National Championship game.

Their ranking currently is 15th, virtue of their low ranking when the season started. That should have no bearing on their current place. As I said to Zach, with a 9-0 record, and now a victory over the third ranked team in the country, Rutgers should be in the top five, if not the third ranked team in the nation.

They deserve to be in the game over a one won loss SEC team; they deserve to be in over a one loss USC team and they deserve to be in over the loser of the Ohio State/ Michigan game.

The SEC fans complain how hard their conference is, by virtue of how many of their teams are ranked in the top ten. Of course they never play anyone out of conference, so their teams do nothing but win against one another.

That’s why you get situations like 2005’s Sugar Bowl, where a highly favored Georgia team got its defense embarrassed at home against West Virginia, from the supposedly inferior Big East.

The SEC’s teams’ records are the product from winning against one another and kicking the daylights out of cupcakes. The only contender (one loss team) in the conference that played a quality out of conference opponent was Arkansas and they got destroyed by USC. Had they played a cupcake instead, we’d be looking at them as a legitimate contender because they’ve won in the big bad SEC. Instead no one takes them seriously, because USC showed that the best teams in the SEC aren’t necessarily the best teams in the country. Why would Florida or Auburn (who lost to Arkansas at home) be any different?

None of the other conferences are even worth discussing. The Pac-10 is at best, as strong as the Big East. The Big Ten is better at the top, but their middle of the pack Indiana team got beat at home by UConn, the worst team in the Big East. (Rutgers also trashed the Fighting Illini 33-0) The Big XII is Texas and what else? In fact, that is probably the worst of the big six conferences. At least the ACC has a few decent teams on top, even if their perennials aren’t this season.

Three years ago, people would have laughed at such a boast. But starting when West Virginia pulled that upset over heavily favored Georgia on the road, the signs were out there; the conference was better than people were giving it credit for. Most experts think Brohm is one of the best QBs in the country and a legitimate first round pick in the NFL draft. Pat White and Steve Slaton proved their worth last year by wrecking a great SEC defense. And today Rutgers showed its credentials by beating that talented Louisville team.

That’s why Rutgers is the perfect symbol for the new Big East.

In a conference populated by good schools that don’t have the reputation of other programs and by new upstarts trying to make a name for themselves, Rutgers is a school that should have history, just by the fact it was involved in the first ever intercollegiate football game. And yet, until tonight, it hadn’t had a moment to be proud of in about 50 years.

The road will still be long and hard. Things only get tougher from here. Even if everything breaks right, Rutgers might still be playing for a chance to get destroyed by Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl.

Maybe.

Or maybe Jeremy Ito’s second chance will be the moment New York and the college football world look back on as the point in time when Rutgers and the new Big East emerged as a force to be reckoned with.

It sounds far fetched. But if I’d have told you just two months ago that Rutgers would be 9-0 this late in the college football season, you’d have said I was crazy. And you know what?
I’d have agreed with you, too.

However, that’s why the pre-season 119 isn’t how the bowl picture is decided. The weekly rankings give the coaches, media and computers a second, third, fourth and so on chances to figure out who the best teams in college football are.

This is their chance to give Rutgers an opportunity to prove whether or not it is deserving of a national title.

Hopefully, like Ito, they drill that opportunity home.