Hlist Week 9: Rutgers not ready for Big Ten

The Hlist was at the Northwestern-Iowa football game at 11 a.m. Saturday, and stayed up to the end of Fresno State's 35-28 overtime win over San Diego State at 1:30 a.m., Central time.

On Sunday, the Hlist rested.

1. Wasted Knights: Rutgers is joining the Big Ten next year?

Saturday, Rutgers played its first and only American Athletic Conference game against Houston. The visiting Cougars beat the Scarlet Knights by the rather vicious score of 49-14, racking up 611 total yards.

Houston threw five touchdown passes. Rutgers threw five interceptions.

Steve Politi of the Newark Star-Ledger was not impressed with the New Jersey state university's gridiron squad. Politi wrote:

Rutgers is not ready for its new league. Not when it has failed to develop a single quarterback capable of not throwing to the other team. Not when its secondary makes every opposing passer look like the Heisman frontrunner.

Not with a fan base that, despite a perfect fall day and a must-win league game, can't be bothered getting into the stadium until the second quarter. Arrive late. Leave early. That's the Rutgers way.

“I'd like to start by thanking the fans,” head coach Kyle Flood said. “I thought the fans were out in force today.”

So even in his postgame interview, Flood screwed up.

Again: Rutgers is joining the Big Ten next year?

2. Watered-Down Big 12: Losing Nebraska and Colorado weren't great for the Big 12, although University of Colorado football is on a par with Kansas State's skiing team.

When Texas A&M and Missouri bolted to the SEC, it seemed like the Big 12 had lined up quality replacements in TCU and West Virginia. Both enjoyed some serious football success in the five years before joining their new alliances.

TCU won 10 or more games nine times in the 12 seasons before beginning Big 12 play last year. West Virginia averaged 10 wins over the seven seasons before 2012.

But both got whipped Saturday. TCU was beaten at home by Texas, 30-7. West Virginia lost at Kansas State, 35-12. The Horned Frogs and Mountaineers are both 5-9 in Big 12 play since becoming members. Meanwhile, Mizzou and A&M have already made their marks in the SEC.

How bad was TCU's loss? It gave Texas Coach Mack Brown a sense of humor after the Longhorns waited out a three-hour mid-game weather delay because of heavy rains and lightning.

“They've all had a goal and a dream to play on Sunday,” Brown said about his players, “and now they've done it.”

OK, so it's not that funny. But the Longhorns can still grin, because they're 4-0 in the Big 12. That's the Texas that had jumped the rails, gone in the tank, come apart at the seams, blah, blah, blah, after nonconference losses to BYU and Ole Miss. The season is long.

3. Anyone Can Win: Whenever you hear someone say how hard is it to win in football and his or her school, know that winning can happen anywhere. Consider the following:

Minnesota: 6-2, fresh off victories over Northwestern and Nebraska after being declared toast following resounding Big Ten losses to Iowa and Michigan. The Gophers have had winning seasons over the years, but the current back-to-back wins they're enjoying are as good as they've had in a long time.

Duke: 6-2. The Blue Devils got their first win over a ranked team since 1994 when they won at Virginia Tech, 13-10. That covered 47 straight losses to ranked clubs. With one more victory this season, Duke will have its first winning season since, yes, 1994. It has had four winless seasons since that year, when Steve Spurrier was the coach. Spurrier has had quite a career coaching college football.

UNLV: 5-3. The Rebels beat Nevada Saturday, 27-22. It was their first win over their state rival in their last nine tries. UNLV's last winning season was in 2000 when it went to -- what else? -- the Las Vegas Bowl.

Rebels quarterback Caleb Herring was 1-for-14 passing for 8 yards two years ago in Reno. Saturday, he threw for 335 yards and three touchdowns.

“I'm going to cry tonight,” UNLV running back Tim Cornett said.

Buffalo: 6-2: The Bulls have had four straight losing seasons. Jeff Quinn started this season with a 9-27 record as UB's coach. But after opening the season with losses at Ohio State and Baylor (no shame there), the Bulls have peeled off six straight wins and have outscored their four Mid-American Conference foes by a total of 148-38.

The program is bowl-eligible for just the second time since it became a I-A (now FBS) program in 1999.

"This is probably the most exciting time to be a UB Bull," Quinn said.

Tulane: 6-2. The Green Wave's last bowl appearance was in 2002. They hadn't topped four wins in a season since 2004. They beat Tulsa Saturday, 14-7. Tulsa had won the last eight meetings against the Green Wave, outscoring them 346-99 in that period.

Personable Tulane Coach Curtis Johnson got a Gatorade shower after Saturday's game. “I never knew how sticky (Gatorade) was so I had to go and shower up and wear the clothes my wife made me wear,” he said at his postgame press conference.

Here's a snippet of Johnson's postgame video.

4. Oh, Octavias! A fellow named Octavias McKoy set an NCAA all-division single-game record Saturday by rushing for 455 yards.

West Connecticut State's McKoy did so in his team's 55-35 Division III win over Worcester State. He had 43 carries.

“I went into another gear,” McKoy said. “As the game was going on, I just told myself I've got to keep running, keep the Gatorade in me, and keep running some more.”

McKoy had 42 carries for 375 yards two weeks earlier in a 54-53 loss to Massachusetts Maritime. He had a mere 226 yards on 22 totes Oct. 19, but that was because he got lifted early in a 70-14 rout of Fitchburg State.

McKoy has 180 rushes for 1,556 yards and 23 touchdowns this season. You're next, Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

The previous record was held by Dante Brown of Marietta College, 441 yards against Baldwin-Wallace in 1996. The FBS record of 406 yards was set by TCU's LaDainian Tomlinson against UTEP in 1999.

5. Air Jordan: As Iowa and Purdue and MAC teams know too well, Northern Illinois quarterback Jordan Lynch is a dynamic player. But he added a new wrinkle Saturday in the unbeaten Huskies' 59-20 squash of Eastern Michigan.

Last week, Lynch rushed for 316 yards to set an FBS record for a quarterback. Saturday, he caught a 17-yard touchdown pass. The pass from receiver Tommylee Lewis wasn't that great, but Lynch knew what to do with it.

Lynch had passing, rushing and receiving touchdowns in the same half against EMU, which may have happened to the Eagles more than once given that they have allowed 50 or more points on four occasions.

Here are Lynch's 8-game stats: 1,711 passing yards and 18 passing TDs, 1,031 rushing yards and eight rushing TDs, 17 receiving yards and one receiving TD.

Oh, Lewis wasn't too shabby himself. He had eight catches for 107 yards and four rushes for 81 yards.

6. Boise Blues: Remember Boise State? You know, the team that went 84-8 from 2006 through 2012.

Well, the Broncos are a mortal 5-3 after losing 37-20 in a nonconference game at BYU Friday night. And the Mountain West Conference flavor of the month is unbeaten Fresno State.

Boise State and BYU are slated to meet every year through 2023. Broncos Coach Chris Petersen isn't wild about it.

“You've got to look at your schedule and see who else in on there,” Petersen said. “The one thing I know about BYU is, they're always going to be a really good opponent. We've played a couple league games and now we have this really good opponent that's not in our league that we have to deal with. That's hard. But with that being said, everybody has so much respect for BYU around here. It's such a good opponent, and a lot of people like to see that game. There's interest and all those types of things. For us, in some ways, it's a little bit of a double-edged sword, to play that good of an opponent that's not in your league, especially when you're playing them late - like I said, that's kind of hard.”

The BYU game was scheduled between games against Nevada and Colorado State. Missouri just played Georgia, Florida and South Carolina in succession. That's kind of hard. Iowa is about to finish a 3-week stretch of playing Ohio State, Northwestern and Wisconsin. That's kind of hard.

7. Little Big Man: How about the Rice Owls? Sure, their 5-game winning streak is great and all. But late in their 45-7 win over UTEP Saturday, walk-on running back Jayson Carter got his first college carry, for 1 yard. A nice yard, it was.

Carter is 4-foot-9 and weighs 135 pounds. He has a genetic disorder that hinders his growth.

Now, the player isn't a mascot and he definitely isn't a joke. He was a high school class valedictorian who rushed for 1,200 yards as a prep, and had 92 tackles, three sacks and an interception as a safety. He's a third-year scout team player for the Owls.

"If they ever come up with a device that measures heart and put it on top of my head," Carter said in this Houston Chronicle story, "they'll see I'm 6-9."

About his carry Saturday, Carter said "I did what I was supposed to … I didn't get negative yards."

Carter's teammates did the right thing after the game. They gave him a hard time.

"They asked me why I didn't score," he said.