Is Rutgers any good this year? I don’t know.

Coming into the season it was believed that they would at least be middle-of-the-pack in the Big East. With their schedule, it was thought that at least a bit above average would give them a great chance to win the Big East.

Of course, then the season started and they laid an egg in their nationally televised conference, season and home opener to Cinci. The second straight year of doing this.  Such a bad start that they were immediately dismissed from even half-hearted discussions as a player in the Big East this year (and forget the top-25).

Now, the Scarlet Knights have reeled off 4 straight wins, but that has come against two 1-AA teams and Maryland (2-4) and Florida International (1-4). Admittedly, if we start playing the schedule game, Pitt doesn’t look that great either — as UConn constitutes Pitt’s best win to date. Still, at least Pitt has one win against a team with a winning record.

It’s not like Pitt can run that much smack at Rutgers right now. They remain the only team in the Big East coach Dave Wannstedt hasn’t beaten at Pitt.

The Scarlet Knights have been a puzzle too complex for the Panthers to piece together. They’ve beaten the Panthers with both the run and pass.

The bottom line, says Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt, “They’ve made less mistakes than we have. I think every game has taken on a little different twist.”

While Coach Wannstedt did what he could not to make it a big deal in his weekly press conference, he was betrayed by reality and his own players. Starting with QB Bill Stull.

“This is personal, I’ve yet to be on the winning side of the ball and I am really taking it personal this week as are all of our seniors this week. It is obviously personal, but we are going to remain cool, calm and collected and make sure we give ourselves the best chance to win.”

Stull — who was knocked out of the game a year ago, giving him even more reason to make this one personal — and several of his teammates were made available yesterday after Wannstedt’s weekly news conference. They all recounted the disappointing ways they’ve lost to the Scarlet Knights over the past four seasons.

Wannstedt tried to downplay the significance of the game but it is clear his record against Rutgers is weighing on his mind as Stull, Gunn and Oderick Turner all talked about a team meeting Sunday night when he had all the seniors stand up and…

“He said to us — ‘Sit down if you’ve beaten Rutgers’ — and nobody got to sit down,” Turner said. “That said it all, so this year we’d like to do everything we can to beat this team. Just once I need to be able to go home [Turner is from New Jersey ] and have some bragging rights.”

Not to mention the fact that he has had tapes of the last 4 losses to Rutgers looping in the TVs at Pitt’s practice facility. But, you know, it’s just another conference game.

Of course, Rutgers can find their own slights for motivation.

A columnist who’s been one of Pittsburgh’s most trusted voices for nearly two decades now called Rutgers an inferior team. A national college football analyst, on a national broadcast, said Rutgers wasn’t on Pittsburgh’s level.

By early Sunday morning, Greg Schiano had heard the open-faced insults. And shrugged.

“I don’t know if we are in Pitt’s league. We’ll find out,” Rutgers’ head coach said, standing behind a podium he’d gripped just 15 hours before.

Surprisingly, I don’t think that “trusted voice” was Smizik, since he referred to Rutgers as “competition more difficult” than UConn. Turns out it was a throwaway line from Ron Cook at the end of this column. One of his space-eating single sentence ‘graphs.