Visiting Rutgers thoughts

Thought the Rutgers fans were all very friendly and polite... even had one apologize for chanting at me hahaha. Stadium speakers were horrible although the crowd did get loud. You can really see how much they appreciate being in the B1G now. 

The campus really reminds me of MSU's. Very large, barren and OPEN and much nicer fans. You really don't realize how nice we have it at Michigan being able to WALK 100k strong down Hoover straight to the Big House and walk back while partying at houses along the way down S. State until you visit other schools. We had to take shuttle buses to the stadium because apparently they have like 5 different campuses or something obscene. The way back was nightmarish due to traffic and people. 

Overall fun time tailgating. Ended up sitting with all the players' families, felt bad for them having to listen to criticisms down the stretch from nearby fans ignorant of knowing who they were. 

Oh and Michigan turn out was FANTASTIC, I heard more Go Blue chants than any R U chants. At some point Rutgers fans were wondering whether they were at a Michigan or Rutgers home game lol. Delaney is looking like a genius with Rutgers and Maryland additions. 

im glad it sounds like Rutgers has unpleasent fans. For the vast majoirty of games we will throttle them. This way those wins will be more enjoyable.

The bathroom situation was awful, the bar/restaurant scene was not great, the fact that the stadium is far from the campus is not ideal, also, where were all the students?  But, there were a lot of UM fans who were in surprisingly fairly good spirits.  Maybe they are too beaten down to care at this point.  The Rutgers fans I sat with in the far end zone were pretty funny and nice.  I had a great time anyways getting to see UM, even though they're awful, and getting to see my friends in the tri-state area that I don't get to see that often any longer.  It could have been a better experience, sure, but I had a great time.

And wanting real football to watch was more of a reason than I really admitted to myself.  College football just does not matter in the New York area unless you're a grad in the city or a student home on break. 

It was unbelievable to me that Rutgers was added to the Big Ten, and now it feels fictional (historical fiction?) that they beat us. 

As for the fans, if by worst you mean "uninformed, unengaged", very, very true.  If you're implying, on the other hand, that they're the worst just because of some intrinsic New Jersey character, that's plain ignorant. I may as well equate Michigan with my experience in Spartan Stadium during the Blake Ezor era.

I thought that the fans were pretty respectable, there were a TON of Michigan fans there.  My friends and I actually got some cookies from a nice Rutgers lady in the tailgate lot and lived to tell about it lol.

I got tix from the M Ath Dept and while were 40yd seats, were last row up top upper deck.  Not terrible, probably breezier than others, would have definitely been respectable in the Big House.

I appreciated that they have more of an authentic game experience with the band dominating the sound.  The fireworks and "cannon" are a little kooky but whatever...its their stadium.

One thing a friend and I discussed on the way back was that their fans seem involved in various chants both inside and outside the stadium, they got pretty loud several times, apparently leading to a little difficulty for our players communicating but not super significant.

The 3rd down play was sort of unbelievable, from my vantage point I saw Darboh catch the ball, take 2 steps in-bounds, and then dive out ahead of the 1st down tape stripe.  That there was something to be reviewed was baffling.  Very telling is Rutgers refused to show the replay on their video board.....oh well.

If one was ever to go back, its a confusing network of streets not all of which have clear signage and police blocking and throttling certain streets that you'd never know about unless you'd already attended a game, probably best to just sit and tailgate for a little longer post-game and then wait for traffic to open up.

I can echo just about all the comments here as I had pretty much had the same experience. The Rutgers fans like their football team, but REALLY seem to LOVE their tailgating.  A few fans tried 'chopping' us, but it was a pleasant experience, much like the Connecticut and Penn State games that I've been to the last few years. Only a handful of knuckleheads here or there, but I must say I was expecting way more just from the experience I have at every NJ Devils game. The fans were really excited - seemed like a sell out with maybe some room to spare in the student section. I think their main theme song is Metallica "Whom The Bell Tolls" as they did some sort of choreographed hand movement every time the song played. We were in the front row on the 20 yard line behind the Michigan bench and were completely surrounded by Michigan fans. I was pleasantly surprised to see Baba Booey and Jon Hein roaming the sideline the whole game. The only really a-hole I saw was the Michigan guy with the sign that said "This is not Michigan". Dude - why bother showing up if that is how you feel? Also, I must say that after going to the Notre Dame game this year, I am very thankful to go to stadiums that have a scoreboard and screen for replays. Really had no idea what was going on on more than a few plays in South Bend - didn't care for that at all ( not to mention the outcome of that game).

The fans were the worst but you expected that from Jersey? What an asshole thing to say. That's exactly as true as saying that Michigan is full of Walmart-loving, camo-wearing nincumpoop hillbillies. Please spare us your half-assed generalizations.

I am Jersey raised and currenty live in New Jersey. I went to UofM where half of my family has gone - my Dad's family is from Michigan. Almost all of the UofM alums in the family came to the game. What exactly did the Rutgers fans do that made them the "worst"? I honestly expected the experience to be worse than it actually was - owing to the fact that this team and program haven't "been there before." The fans did act like they hadn't been there before - by storming the field - but I honestly was quite impressed with the behavior of their fans. I didn't receive any guff from anyone other than some tongue-in-cheek taunting in pre-game and neither did any of our group. If only all opponents' stadiums were that welcoming.

The quibbles with the fan base's knowledge and the lack of impressive facitiliies are all spot on. However, I don't know why anyone would be surprised given the lack of history and success associated with the program. If UofM had the same track record I doubt we'd be complaining about potential attendances of 90,000 fans - we'd be celebrating it.

There will always be a few bad apples, but I didn't run into any here, and I was flattered frankly, by how the RU fans held us in such esteem, even in our current freefall. I look forward to making the Rutgers game a biennial tradition.

The trip was pretty good, outcome of the game, notwithstanding.

Took the train from Manhattan, and grabbed a pretty good dinner at Harvet Moon (thanks to whoever recommended it in the "Going to Rutgers" thread - it was perfect). We walked the 40 or so minutes from the train station to the stadium: New Brunswick seemed like a kind of typical dumpy college town, pretty spread out and nothing special. The walk through the riverside parks were nice, though.

The fans seemed fine. I got called a gay slur ("I forgot that people talked like that." - my wife), but mostly it was playful trash talk. Sat among some perfectly reasonable Rutgers fans in the stadium. I agree with what someone else said, which was that there were a lot of Michigan fans at the game with friends who were Rutgers fans. Overall, they were pretty laid back and low key.

The stadium was definitely small, which was good and bad. I bought the cheapest tickets on StubHub, so we were pretty high up. But it was so small, that there weren't really any bad views. They could stand to add more bathrooms, though.