Don’t usually like to promote my non-Rivals stuff here, but on my Rutgers basketball podcast I talked with Wyatt from the Hoopla newsletter, where he covers Big Ten women’s basketball. We talked about Rutgers and the conference a whole.

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Link to the free Hoopla newsletter: https://hooplanewsletter.substack.com/

See that he did not make the field yesterday in the weather shortened game. Their starter threw 3 TDs, so my guess is that he will be spending a long time on the side lines. Looks like he traded one situation for an identical one.

Can’t make it to the game on Saturday as @rfootball takes on Akron?! Then head to our watch party at @penn6nyc! Please note this will not be a club staffed party. We will resume our halftime raffles during the following game watch. That being said, huge shout out to @rutgersrivals for partnering with us this season to help with annual subscription raffle prizes! @rutgers_alumni

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Can’t make it to the game on Saturday as @rfootball takes on Akron?! Then head to our watch party at @penn6nyc! Please note this will not be a club staffed party. We will resume our halftime raffles during the following game watch. That being said, huge shout out to @rutgersrivals for partnering with us this season to help with annual subscription raffle prizes! @rutgers_alumni

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Can’t make it to the game on Saturday as @rfootball takes on Akron?! Then head to our watch party at @penn6nyc! Please note this will not be a club staffed party. We will resume our halftime raffles during the following game watch. That being said, huge shout out to @rutgersrivals for partnering with us this season to help with annual subscription raffle prizes! @rutgers_alumni

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So I know a lot of us aren't happy about the Howard game being moved to a Thursday night. BUT.....the timing turns out to be very interesting as far as preparation for the VT game. Currently now, the team plays Howard on August 29th, has 9 days to prepare for Akron on Sept. 7th, then has 2 weeks to prepare for traveling down to VT on the 21st. And given how weak the Howard and Akron teams are (FYI: Akron went 2-10 last year), we can basically win those games with vanilla offense and defense. So not only will our team be well rested and hopefully injury free, Tech will have no meaningful game tape for our schemes.

Conversely, VT opens with 3 straight games, 1 against Vanderbilt, a weak team that is still a part of a P5 conference, and 2 against G5 teams, Marshall and Old Dominion. And they lost to Marshall last year 24-17. In addition, both those G5 teams were 6-6 during the regular season, so they aren't bottom of the barrel teams. They'll have to play to win without holding back, at least in the first half of all of those games. So they'll come in with the strain of playing 3 straight games, and we will have tape from all 3 of those games to help us scheme against them.

To add insult to injury, after our game VT will be traveling down to play Miami on a short week, as that game has been moved to Friday, Sept. 27th. And then they fly out to the west coast the following week to play Stanford on Oct. 5th before finally getting a bye week.

So despite having to work out the logistics for playing a Thursday night game before LDW, the schedule really sets up nice for us coming into the VT game. I expect them to be favored in this game, which is fine by me. Hopefully we can repeat last year's performance and walk out of there with a win.

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Here's an article that we had on Latrell Almond back in February 2023 when he was offered.

Hikers of TKR,

I'm planning an overnight hiking trip with my 19 year old daughter, who is less a hiker than me but wants to try an overnight trip. I'm looking for camping locations along the Appalachian Trail, but see very few. I see one near Sunfish Pond at the DWG, a hike that I've done a few times and think my daughter can manage. Any other suggestions for campsites along the AT? Or, any other hiking trail in the State, for that matter? I'd like to keep the two-day hike at about 16 miles total and can manage either a loop or linear hike. A primitive site would be fine; we plan on sleeping in hammocks or on the ground. Thanks in advance.

I thought Richie said we would know the time today?

I had a tech issue a couple of weeks ago contacted Rivals tech support and apparently Rivals evidently now outsources tech issues. They sent me a link to a service called JustAnswers. Rivals told me that I would have to pay $1 with a credit card, but that it would be refunded. The third-party tech company was not helpful. I recently reviewed my Amex statement yesterday and saw the $1 charge and another charge for $55 on the same day. Evidently, I was now paying for monthly tech support. I disputed the charge with Amex. Just wanted to share with other board members.

BOB has this team looking real good. Glad we don’t play them this year

While I’m not suggesting that he would’ve been good at Rutgers, he’s been a good MAC QB since transferring. He threw for 3000 yards at Buffalo. Transferred to Eastern Michigan and won the starting job. He threw for 241 and a touchdown albeit against UMass. That’s probably the level he should’ve been playing at but he’s been decent there.