Rutgers is still the Rutgers that we all know and don’t care about

I woke up in a cold sweat last night.

My veins were trembling through my body. I clenched… I woke up in a cold sweat last night.

My veins were trembling through my body. I clenched my pillow tightly and tried ever so hard to get my mind off of Saturday’s Pitt game.

I just couldn’t stand to believe that Saturday could possibly be the end of Pitt’s four-game win streak. Just as the Panthers finally get rolling on the ground, an undefeated team has to make its way into Heinz Field.

But then I thought…

“What the hell are you thinking about, Alan? It’s Rutgers. You’re overreacting here. It’s just the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.”

Phew. How could I forget?

Listen, so Rutgers is back in the top 25 for the first time since 1977. I get that. Congratulations. The team is undefeated at 6-0 this season. I get that, too. They have one of the nation’s leaders in rushing. You guessed it, I get it.

But seriously, it’s Rutgers, and I don’t care. Unless Quincy Douby makes his way on to the field and somehow starts firing up 3-point shots in a football game, I’m not going to be worried. It’s just that simple.

So the Rutgers program is back on the rise with its top-25 ranking. That’s good. The Big East needs some more teams to step up since the departures of Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami (Fla.) are still lingering.

And that 6-0 record, well, it must have been rough taming that big-play offense that Navy possesses and posting 56 on the boys of Howard.

The same goes for Ray Rice and his 899 rushing yards, which is good enough for fourth in the nation. Running over those team’s stout defenses, much in the same way West Virginia’s Steve Slaton is doing to his inferior competition, is a daunting task.

Now before all you Rutgers fans start jumping down my throat and calling me a homer, hear me out.

I’m not here to bash the Scarlet Knights and praise the Panthers. The Panthers aren’t even in the top 25, though a win Saturday will accomplish that feat. It’s still hard, however, to imagine Pitt as one of the top 25 teams in the nation.

Pitt put up 50 on some lesser opponents, too, and it felt good. But the Panthers still haven’t beaten a team with a winning record, and the team they lost to, Michigan State, hasn’t won a game since.

I respect Rice’s yardage. I really do. But let’s settle down the talk of how great a back he is and how the Heisman Trophy race could be between Slaton and him.

In case you haven’t noticed, Pitt quarterback Tyler Palko has put up some huge numbers against opponents who, well, he should be putting up huge numbers against. But you don’t see Pitt or its fans wishing its homegrown kid would change his name to Tyler Heisman anytime soon.

The national media has simply caught on to a Rutgers team that’s brought itself back above the mediocrity bar and taken it a little too far.

When I look at Rutgers, I see a team that still has a long way to go to earn respect. When you don’t win for so long, a couple seasons packed full of wins against teams Pittsburgh Central Catholic could challenge doesn’t impress me.

The Panthers are in a similar situation, though. Pitt only has to recover from one bad season and not decades of underachievement. And the Panthers have improved, but thankfully, the media hasn’t made a notion of overrating them.

Call this game what you will, but I can’t buy into it being a huge statement game for either squad. A loss for either team is not the end of the world, nor is it the beginning of an NCAA dynasty.

Besides, both Rutgers and Pitt still have matchups later with the two legit teams of the conference — West Virginia and Louisville. It’s then that we’ll see which team is on the verge of breaking out.

So, the rest of the media can crown Rutgers. But I’m pretty sure the Scarlet Knights are who I think they are, and I don’t see the Panthers letting them off the hook. Not after last season.

Now that I’ve talked myself through this, back to my nap.

Alan Smodic is the sports editor of The Pitt News and he really needed to fill space in the paper with this column. Excuse him if it’s poorly written. E-mail him at ams85@pitt.edu to voice your concerns.