The Scarlet Knights will be checkmated in the Queen City

The Queen City of Cincinnati, Ohio has never been kind to the Rutgers football team.  It has travelled to that part of the Buckeye State six times and has only won once…and that was by a 10-7 margin of victory in 1987.  Two of the losses have been devastating to those respective Scarlet Knight teams.  In 1992, head coach Doug Graber’s talented squad was in bowl contention with three games left, coming off that memorable last-second 50-49 Halloween home win over Virginia Tech.  But that great R-U offensive machine of Ray Lucas, Bryan Fortay, Terrell Willis, Bruce Presley, Marco Battaglia and Chris Brantley couldn’t outscore the underdog Bearcats with Cincinnati winning on a last-minute field goal 26-24, crushing the Knights’ post-season hopes.  Then, just two years ago, head coach Greg Schiano was at the apex of his eight-year tenure, coming into Cincy at 9-0 following that great home win over Louisville, ranked in the Top-Ten and entertaining BCS bowl game hopes.  But, the Bearcats just about put an end to all that talk, pulling off a convincing 30-11 upset.  Add to that the fact that Cincinnati came to Piscataway last season and engineered a 28-23 win, a loss that Rutgers really couldn’t recover from in an attempt to get to a major bowl.  So, here we go again this Saturday…although the scenario is different this time around.  Cincinnati is a nine-point favorite over the visiting Scarlet Knights.  The Bearcats come into their Big East opener at 4-1 with the only loss at number-one Oklahoma.  R-U, meanwhile, is 1-4 overall and 0-1 in league.  Cincinnati, led by second-year head coach Brian Kelly, has turned to redshirt freshman quarterback Chazz Anderson to run the offense.  Anderson made his starting debut last Saturday in a 33-10 win at Marshall, passing 18-for-26 for 158 yards and two touchdowns.  Meanwhile, the Bearcats feature a tough defense, particularly in the secondary with a talented secondary picking off eight passes in the opening five games.  Factor in that the game is at Nippert Stadium, a place where the Scarlet Knights have struggled at over the years, and it all adds up to another defeat on the road to nowhere for Rutgers.  I’m going with Cincinnati 28-20 over R-U.  One step closer to not qualifying for a bowl game berth for the first time in four years.