I am really glad that Rutgers will play their first Big 10 game against Penn State at home. They are the opponent I wanted for this game. They are one of the marquee teams in the conference and a regional rival, and that should lead to an exciting build up to the game. I know most Scarlet Knight fans have plenty of ill feelings towards the Nittany Lions as well, and it will be cool to finally play them with a non-terrible team and maybe get some revenge for all the years they ran up the score on us. The date for this game is kept in place from the series the two schools scheduled before Rutgers joined the Big 10, and it's two weeks before anybody else opens Big 10 play.
(Poor Maryland drew Indiana in their conference opener.)
In October, Big 10 play really heats up for Rutgers, and they will face a trial by fire. They host Michigan on the first weekend of the month, and then make their first conference road trip following a bye week to The Horse Shoe in Columbus. That game will be played in front of 100,000 fans against what should be a highly ranked Buckeye team. They visit Nebraska after that, and then host Wisconsin. The Badgers and the Huskers are the two cross divisional foes Rutgers will face, and that is....rough. Rutgers is already in the Big Boy division of the Big 10, and they will play what are probably the two best teams in the west by a significant margin on top of that.
After another bye, things wind down a little bit, and the Knights will visit the Spartans in East Lansing, take on Indiana at home, and travel to Maryland. The Maryland game will finish off the regular season, meaning the Terrapins have probably been designated as the Scarlet Knights' "rival." The Big 10 season always ends with this "rivalry" game, so expect this game to take place at the end of every season. Hopefully everyone just lets this series play out with out forcing it as a serious rivalry, unlike Penn State and Michigan State's bogus "Land Grant Series" that neither fan base particularly cares about more than any other regular season game and has this stupid/God Ugly trophy. (Penn State and Michigan State's rivalry only exists because they were the only two non original members of the conference from 1993-2010.)
With the release of the 2014 schedule, it finally feels real that Rutgers is going to be joining the Big 10. Because of how the schedule is laid out, Rutgers will have either Michigan or Ohio State anchoring their home slate every year, and have a close road trip at either Penn State or Maryland every year. This is finally some much needed good news after the brutal last six weeks the athletic department endured.
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