Did you know that Rutgers has moved to NYC?

This just in!!!  Rutgers has moved to the east side of Manhattan.  Yes, it’s true.  Or, so says SNY, the TV home of the Big East.  Look at the bottom of page 36 in today’s Star Ledger sports section.  A SNY ad promoting Saturday’s R-U’s football game at Cincinnati, in effect, proclaims the State University of New Jersey has moved to the east side…or as it so cleverly says “New York’s BIG East side.”  Nowhere in the ad can you find “New Jersey”, “NJ” or “on the banks of the Old Raritan.”  So, SNY would have you believe that Rutgers now is the City University of Manhattan…situated on the banks of the “Old East River.”  As I take my tongue out of my cheek, let me frankly say that this SNY ad is the biggest bunch of garbage that I’ve seen in a long time…at least on this side of the Hudson River.  We’ve known for a long time that the Rutgers Athletics Department has been pushing its football program as one that belongs to both New Jersey and New York.  I get that.  But this really is the first time that, at least subliminally, the point is trying to be made that Rutgers is the college football sports franchise for NYC.  Before you say “Well, this is the doing of only SNY”…don’t believe that for one second.  Rutgers and the Big East are so in bed with SNY that I’m sure they sign off on all this type of advertising and branding.  For all the New Jerseyans who have bitched and moaned for so long about how the national media says the Giants and Jets play in New York even when they’re showing a shot of the Meadowlands…I urge you to add this latest Rutgers/SNY revelation to your rants.  This is another indirect step by Rutgers to move away from its New Jersey roots in an attempt to position itself as NEW YORK’S college football team.  I wonder how that big Scarlet Knight booster, Governor Corzine, feels about this OR the New Jersey state legislature that is loaded with R-U alums.  You’re losing your grip on the State University of New Jersey!  What’s next?  Taking the block “R” off the helmets and replace it with “SNY” or “NYC?”  It’s a slippery slope, people!  Think about that the next time they light up the Empire State Building in red.  Oh, wait a minute.  They didn’t do that for the big win over Morgan State?  Yeah, I forgot that Greg Schiano’s crew is 1-4 and going nowhere in 2008.  Instead of going to a bowl game this season, maybe the Scarlet Knights can go to Rockefeller Center in mid-December and help NYC hoist up the big Christmas tree.  But, you know what?  A couple of mediocre seasons and NYC will back away from Rutgers like the plague and will look for the next big thing.  And the Scarlet Knights will be lucky if spurned R-U fans let them back thru the Lincoln Tunnel.