Here’s the AP story on the game.

Notwithstanding the Rutgers blog viewpoint of “it’s a big win, and I don’t care how,” the NJ media seems to be more of the opinion, “is nothing ever going to be easy with this team?”

Even when it looks easy for Rutgers, it never winds up that way.

Even when things are going as well as they can possibly go, the Knights somehow find a way to add unneeded drama to a game that looked to be completely devoid of it.
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It just became one of those too-close-for-comfort situations for Rutgers because of the Panthers’ 29-point second half after they went to a no-huddle, hurry-up offense.

“I was nervous,” said running back Brian Leonard, who caught two touchdown passes.

“I refused to look at the scoreboard,” senior defensive end Ryan Neill said.

A weary Scarlet Knights defense, on the field for 84 plays, finally managed to summon up the energy to make three big ones when they counted, enabling Rutgers to improve to 3-1 overall. For now — fleeting as it may be — the Knights are tied with West Virginia and South Florida atop the Big East standings.

The theme is repeated here.

Okay, so they won. They had a must-win game and won that game, and if you asked anyone wearing red when they entered Rutgers Stadium last night, they would have gladly accepted that result, regardless of the final score.

But we have to ask: Must everything be so difficult with this team?

Can’t a 27-0 halftime lead be a comfortable margin? Can’t this team remember that a college football game consists of two halves of equal length and importance?

Can’t these poor fans ever relax?

Some college football diehards carry Jack Daniels in their flasks. Rutgers fans carry Maalox. No lead is too big, no amount of time is too short, and the stomachs never stop churning.

Somehow, a 27-0 lead turns into 37-29 victory, a blowout turns into nailbiter. Somehow, a potential defining victory comes off feeling like the Scarlet Knights ended up stealing one.

This game should have been over early in the second half. The Scarlet Knights did everything right, dominating hapless Pittsburgh in every facet of the game.

It had the makings of a truly memorable night for a program that has enjoyed too few of them. The student section was packed an hour before kickoff. The tailgaters started arriving early in the afternoon. ESPN was in the building, and with no other games on the schedule, the night belonged to the Knights.
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This one was not over until Dave Wannstedt called the single most predictable fake punt in football history. There were four minutes left with the Panthers facing a fourth down on the Rutgers 29-yard line.

Still, despite the near collapse it was a Rutgers win. That is different.

Friday night, against BCS-fresh Pittsburgh, on ESPN2, Rutgers would have a chance to show the country what Rutgers football was “about” coach Greg Schiano said.

Friday night, against Pittsburgh, at Rutgers Stadium, the Scarlet Knights started doing just that. They drove into the Pitt red zone at will and then couldn’t will out more touchdowns than field goals. A team they should’ve run roughshod over they did for a bit and then maddeningly didn’t.

And then, on its first undivided national stage, the Scarlet Knights forged a new identity. They showed just enough less of what Rutgers football has been about and more of what it could be. They turned a clunker of a game into an interesting one and in the end, if not roughshod, they did at least sort of run over Pitt, 37-29, in front of a near sellout.

The win marked the first time Rutgers (3-1, 1-0) won its league opener in 11 years. It was the first time the Scarlet Knights took out Pitt (1-4, 0-1) in seven years, the first time they’ve won three games in a row in 13 years and the first time they refused to allow the old trappings of Rutgers football to wholly trap them.

A criticism sometimes leveled at Pitt fans is that we are still dreaming of the glory days back in the ’70s and early ’80s. Imagine, though, being a fan or alum of a program that has no glory days. All they seem to have is a history of ineptness, so only nearly but not blowing the game is seen as a big positive.

When Pittsburgh scored its second touchdown, with almost five minutes left to play in the third quarter, you knew what everybody in the building was thinking: Illinois. This is Rutgers, after all.

When Pitt scored its fourth touchdown and the score was 37-29, with eight minutes to play in the game, people were sitting quietly, presumably because they wouldn’t stand for this. Not again. Not another Illinois.

Even if the people here want to believe the glass is half full — and they want to believe this in the worst way — they live in fear of the emptiness they have come away with all these many years.
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… they had to go and make them play the second half, a traditional and persistent problem for the Scarlet Knights.

This time they made it through the whole 60 minutes.

They didn’t pull another stunt like they did against Illinois. This time they made an exemplary first half stand up.

That’s progress.

That’s sad.