‘U lose!’ After ‘chippy’ bowl win, Scarlet Knights get last shot with mocking gesture

NEW YORK — The day began with a disagreement.

A little over 90 minutes before Rutgers’s Pinstripe Bowl matchup with Miami kicked off, a kerfuffle broke out near midfield at Yankee Stadium between the Scarlet Knights and Hurricanes. ESPN cameras caught the small group that eventually swelled into a couple dozen people barking at each other, the emotions riding high on each side after a month of anticipation.

The exact spark of the moment was not divulged, but Rutgers star linebacker Mohamed Toure — who was right in the mix of the situation — had a broad explanation.

“It’s a championship game,” he said. “Feelings are involved. It’s football. You’re going out there, you’re trying to go and hit somebody else. Conversations are going on. But we’re good. It’s football at the end of the day.”

The day ended with a Scarlet celebration. Rutgers defeated Miami, 31-24, to earn its first bowl title in nine years and its first victory over Miami after a decade of futility in their shared Big East days.

The Scarlet Knights (7-6, 3-6) gathered on the field after quarterback Gavin Wimsatt kneeled out the clock. They put on their Pinstripe Bowl Champion T-shirts, hugged each other, ran over to the student section and shared an “R-U!” chant with their fans. They headed to the locker room in spurts, danced as they’ve done after each win this season and smoked the victory cigars dangling from their mouths.

“An amazing experience to play a great game with these guys and be able to send our seniors out the right way,” Wimsatt said, fresh off celebrating. “It means a lot.”

In between the explosions of emotion, a chippy game unfolded. The teams combined for 11 penalties, including multiple late hits and unsportsmanlike conduct calls, and plenty of emotional moments.

Cornerback Robert Longerbeam — a part of that pregame scuffle and one of the 10 Scarlet Knights seniors who are coming back next season — was hit late by Miami receiver Jacolby George in the second quarter, forcing him off the field. As he collected himself on the sideline after showing visible frustration in the immediate aftermath, the Hurricanes scored on a 30-yard touchdown pass on the following play.

“It’s just football. Heat of the moment stuff, I guess,” Longerbeam said. “He probably didn’t hear the whistle and hit me late. It was heat of the moment. I would chalk it up to that.”

Longerbeam acknowledged that the game felt chippier than normal, pointing to the fact his team went through 15 bowl practices and were “dying to hit somebody else.”

Both head coaches agreed it was a chippy game, and each had a different explanations.

Miami’s Mario Cristobal pointed to the “different dynamic” in college football, where old players move on and young players try to prove themselves. Sometimes, he said, that leads players “over that line,” but there is “no excuse for it.”

“It’s not winning football,” Cristobal said. “Both teams had their share … and both teams could have avoided a bunch. Obviously, got to focus on our team avoiding those because they’re selfish. Got to play guys that don’t do that or find guys who don’t, because that’s the fastest way to hurt your team.”

Schiano pointed to the fact they had not played in a while — 33 days, to be exact — and joked that maybe the players had “a little extra testosterone stored up.” He said he did not see the late hits that Longerbeam and punter Flynn Appleby took, but acknowledged he knew “something bad happened” when he heard “guys were screaming on the headset.”

“There was a lot going on out there today,” Schiano said. “I was concerned a little bit, but I think our guys really understand that there’s a certain way we do things as Rutgers football. The thing they hear all the time is: The standard is a standard. There are no exceptions, don’t care how good a player: The standard is the standard. I’m glad that they lived up to the saying today in the way they behaved, the way they played, the fact that they won the game.”

Once the result seemed clear, the Scarlet Knights up two scores late in the fourth quarter, the celebrations began, Rutgers pouring some salt pouring on the Hurricanes’ wounds.

Most notably, Longerbeam celebrated a big defensive stop by making the “U” hand sign the Hurricanes are famous for. Then he flipped it upside down — as if to say, “U lose.”

ESPN cameras caught that moment, too, and the video soon went viral on social media. Multiple teammates repeated the gesture in the victorious locker room, and then shared the video on Twitter as they rode the bus back to Piscataway.

“It was just heat of the moment. That’s all it was,” Longerbeam said. “All the respect to Miami. There’s no bad blood, it’s just heat of the moment.”

With cooler heads, Longerbeam and his teammates were able to appreciate their achievement. They not only reached a bowl game, but they defeated a program that had historically dominated them. They clinched a winning season for the first time in nearly a decade. They won the bowl game they fought so hard to reach, putting themselves on the path to keep climbing the ladder as a program.

“This is a stepping stone in building our program,” Longerbeam said. “Playing in a bowl game … being able to check this off the list as a program, it was a big step for us.”

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Brian Fonseca may be reached at [email protected].