Rutgers' pure joy increasingly hard to come by in NFL

	The outpouring of emotion at Rutgers following Jeremy Ito's game-winning kick is something rarely seen in the NFL. Al Tielemans/SI
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PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- I am running the veer this morning, skipping for the moment a compelling but not playoff-vital NFL Sunday (only one Sunday game, Bears-Giants, matched teams with winning records) to dwell on a college football story that is so much more than a college football story. The Rutgers win over Louisville last Thursday night, and the players involved in it, are what sports should be about.

This Rutgers football team is akin to the Patriots of 2001, minus (almost certainly) the championship. The national title is almost insignificant. The Cinderella-esque joy and some middle-class football players' reward for hard work toward a ridiculous pipe dream, that's the significant thing.

As I stood behind the Rutgers sideline Thursday night after Rutgers came back from a 25-7 deficit to beat nation's third-ranked team 28-25, I saw the savior coach get teary-eyed and I watched fans pour from the stands in utter jubilation and the kid who kicked the winning field was paraded around the stadium on the shoulders of Rutgers students -- all with looks of shock and unfettered glee -- and complete strangers hugged and one kid with a face painted red looked up at the sky and shrieked: "There is a God!'' As all this happened, I could only think of one thing I hoped for these players and coaches: "Enjoy this. Savor this. Some of you might be in the NFL someday, but there is no sporting moment in your life that will be more fun.''

• Rutgers losses in 2001, Greg Schiano's first season as Rutgers coach: 61-0, 50-0, 80-7, 42-0.

I've covered the NFL since 1984, and I don't think there are moments like this one in pro football. Close, but not quite. It has to do with enthusiasm and 20-year-old players who aren't jaded yet. It was so gratifying to see kids who understood this. The Rutgers kids did. I've been around Super Bowl-winning teams after games for the past 22 years, and only three times have I seen anything close to the sheer joy I saw Thursday night. There was an ebullient Jimmy Johnson after Dallas crushed Buffalo 13 years ago, Steve Young after the monkey-off-his-back Super Bowl win two years later ("They can NEVER, EVER, EVER take this away from us!!!'' he said), and Tom Brady holding his head in euphoric disbelief after New England's first Super Bowl win.

There's a lesson in this, and it has to do with living in the moment and not viewing money as your god. Hard to do today, when you're bombarded with so many messages about money equaling success and happiness. Hard to do in sports, when contracts obliterate team goals.

The Rutgers-Louisville game ended at 11:05 p.m. At 11:08, I ran into Shaun O'Hara, the New York Giants center, as jubilant students rushed past us to the field. "My senior year I was 0-11 on this field,'' he said. Then he thought for a second. "You know, I've got the Bears this week. I've got to get home. But you think there was any way I was gonna leave here before this one was over?''

• Schiano's first two games against Temple: Temple 30, Rutgers 5 ... Temple 20, Rutgers 17.

The last Rutgers player left the field after celebrating with the fans at 11:38. When the star running back, Ray Rice, walked through the tunnel and toward the locker room, he spotted starting left guard Mike Fladell -- 11 inches taller and 127 pounds heavier than Rice -- and shouted, "My linemen! My linemen did it for me!'' And he jumped into Fladell's arms and stayed there like he was velcroed. When he got off, Rice pumped the hands of two mustard-coated Fiesta Bowl execs, "How you doing? Ray Rice,'' he said, shaking their hands.