Rock Chalk Quick Notes

-Rutgers has announced a future home and home series with Kansas. The Jayhawks will come to Piscataway in 2015 and the Scarlet Knights will visit Lawrence in 2018. The athletic department teased a BCS opponent being added to the schedule earlier this week, but many fans were left disappointed when they found out it was Kansas. The Jayhawks are not very good right now, but a lot of things can change over a 3-6 year period.

Jersey native Charlie Weis is taking over the program, and they have nowhere to go but up after Turner Gil's disastrous tenure. Weis has not had a lot of success in the college game, at Notre Dame and then as the offensive coordinator at Florida, but he is a solid recruiter and a great offensive mind. He won't have the same amount of pressure as he had at Notre Dame or Florida, so maybe he can take the necessary time to rebuild the program the way he wants to. He should have a decent recruiting base to work with, since Kansas is a junior college haven and Texas is semi-close by. Remember: this program did have some nice season under Mark Mangino not that long ago

Regardless of how Weis does or does not improve the program, Kansas is still a pretty significant upgrade to Rutgers' future schedule. Playing a BCS opponent will pique fans interest more than a MAC team will and gain more respect across the country for Rutgers if they win. Plus, this game is more likely to get on TV than a game against a cupcake. The bottom line is this is a BCS opponent who is willing to come to Piscataway (unlike Oklahoma and Notre Dame), and Rutgers needs to bolster their out of conference schedule if they want to be a contender on the national level. Count me as exited for this series.

-Pre Snap Read  previews and ranks all 124 FBS teams before every season, and they have their Rutgers preview up. PSR has the Knights ranked 29th nationally and first in the Big East and the author is very high on Rutgers' defense and expects the offense to improve some what. This quote really struck me though:

 "There are more than a few teams – I can think of one or two just in the Big East – that wouldn’t mind being in Rutgers’ shoes, even if the program’s continued back-and-forth routine at quarterback needs to be addressed before the Scarlet Knights open the season at Tulane."

Just think about that for some perspective. Even though quarterback is probably Rutgers' biggest question mark, it could be a whole hell of a lot worse. Nova or Dodd are both capable starting QBs and some schools *coughUConncough* don't even have one.

-Double G Sports had a preseason Rutgers football roundtable discussion earlier this week, and I was apart of the panel.  We went over position battles, what true freshman we are expecting the most out of this year and what upper class man we think needs to step it up, amongst other things. Check it out.

-Chris from Smart Football passed along an anecdote about Greg Schiano's philosophy on recovering fumbles from an old coaching clinic. It's pretty funny.