One of the best things about going to a Big Ten school is the football games. Rutgers joined the Big Ten conference two years ago, and now plays some of the nation’s top-ranked teams every season, including Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State. Unfortunately, Rutgers is not exactly on the same level as those teams quite yet. While they did manage to come within a touchdown of Michigan State, the nation’s #4 team at the time, they proceeded to get trounced 35-0 by Ohio State just two weeks later.

I’m not saying Rutgers should be as good as those teams, as they are nationally heralded as some of the top college football schools in the nation, and have been for decades. However, it would be a lot of fun if Rutgers could really become competitive in the Big Ten. Football Saturdays are always some of the best days of the year at Rutgers, regardless of who the opposing team is. But a great game on top of the pre-game festivities makes game days amazing. The environment at the Michigan State game last year was unreal as the Scarlet Knights tried to pull off what would have been arguably the greatest victory in school history. I remember wishing that High Point Solutions Stadium could be that electric every game, and it very well might be some time soon.

New coach Chris Ash has immediately shown that he wants to make the football program great as fast as possible. This isn’t going to be the same Rutgers team that has managed a 4-12 conference record in its first two Big Ten seasons, or spiked the ball on fourth down with one last chance to beat Michigan State. This will be a team that will be a force to be reckoned with in the Big Ten. It all starts with the great state of New Jersey. For years we have seen some of New Jersey’s best players and top national recruits, such as Jabrill Peppers, fail to even consider Rutgers. New Jersey has some of the best high school football talent in the nation, and Rutgers’ best chance to be competitive is to keep as many of them as possible in the Garden State. (One of Ash’s new slogans for the program is “Fence the Garden,” in reference to this.) When Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh set up a camp at Paramus Catholic in Bergen County, which would undoubtedly draw some of the state’s best players, Ash did not sit back and accept it. He fired back and set up his own camp for the same day at Fairleigh Dickinson University with Ohio State coach Urban Meyer. Harbaugh is one of the more prolific coaches in college football, but if anyone can match his fame, it’s Meyer. This was a power move Rutgers football has not seen in years, as Ash basically said “we’re taking our state back.”

Both of my parents went to Rutgers, so I’ve been going to games in Piscataway since I was a little kid. I remember watching on TV as Rutgers upset #3 Louisville in 2006, and then #2 South Florida a year later. Those teams were a ton of fun to watch, and I’ve always hoped they could be great in my time there. With the flashes of greatness we saw last year and a top-25 recruiting class on the way in 2017, they are already well on their way.