A few notes to chew on before your attention drifts over to pro football for the rest of the night.

Hard to beat a Monday Night doubleheader, eh?

Greg Schiano addressed the media today at Rutgers Stadium, as did several Rutgers players. The Big East coaches teleconference was also today, so there was a lot to talk about with a lot of different people.

Here are a few of the highlights that I couldn't fit in the paper.

1. Mike Teel said he watched almost every snap of South Florida's win over Auburn on Saturday night and was extremely impressed. "South Florda's a good football team," he said. "They're fast, they run around, they make plays. The defense is fast. It's a great win for the Big East and a great win for their program." He said he flipped back and forth between the Louisvile-Middle Tennessee State game and the Cincinnati-Oregon State game while relaxing in his hotel room a night before the Knights hosted Navy. The Bearcats dismantled Oregon State, forcing seven turnovers in what was another big win for the Big East. "Cincinnati has done a great job and so has South Florida," he said.

2. Greg Schiano said the Knights defense watched tape of the Buffalo game yesterday instead of the Navy game, since Norfolk State's offense -- like all other offenses -- is nothing like Navy's. "We actually didn't even look at it right after the game because we weren't playing against a traditional offense," Brandon Renkart said. "So there was no point in looking at it until this week."

3. You could talk to every player on the Rutgers roster and not find one player who doesn't same virtually the same exact thing about being the best they can be regardless of whether the opponent is LSU or Norfolk State. (In case you haven't heard, next week, it's the latter, not the former.)

Here's Renkart's take: "We're tying to see how good we can be. That's really what it comes down to. It's really about how good we can be, and how perfect we can be in our schemes."

And Ron Girault's take: "I think everyone’s on the same page already because we know that focus isn’t just that it’s Norfolk State we’re playing or it’s Navy or it’s Buffalo. Our focus is on Rutgers and on how good we can be. We just have to do everything we can, in the weight room on the practice field, and everything, to get ready for this game.”

Wonder where they got that mindset? A clue might be this quote from the head coach:

"I think the team’s concerned about how good we can be. Early in the year, we haven’t played to the level that we expect of ourselves so that’s a challenge, but I don’t think that’s because we’re playing a 1-AA team or we’re playing Navy or whoever we’re playing."

4. Forget being diplomatic about it. Syracuse is flat-out the laughingstalk of the Big East. There's no other way around it. The Big East is 14-2 this year against teams from opposing conferences and 28-2 in its last 30 games. Both losses have come from the Orange, and neither of those games have been close: a 42-12 drubbing to Washington opening week at home, and a 38-0 laugher Saturday at Iowa during which Greg Robinson's pathetic team managed a whopping 103 yards of total offense and got inside the Iowa 25-yard line only twice. Not surprisingly, they missed a field goal both times they had a chance to score.

That's all I've got for today. My money's on the Bengals and 49ers tonight on MNF. Enjoy the action.