This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

Today's the day. NCAA Football 11 is out in fine stores everywhere, so be sure to pick up a copy. It's the next best thing short of opening kickoff in September.

The following two paragraphs are courtesy of EA Sports.

When you go to a particular school or grow up around college football, you are more than just a fan. It’s who you are. We thought we could leverage this pride in your roots and show that "where you come from" is more than just a statement about geography. By positioning NCAA Football 11 as a game that understands this pride and is authentic to these traditions, the takeaway should be that anything that is in college football is in NCAA Football 11.

And this doesn’t just include game play (though that’s a huge part of it). It’s rivals and mascots; it’s legends and stories. It’s those things that are at the very fabric of the game itself. Of course the game is great this year as well. With authentic entrances, mascots and specific offenses for each team, the term “where I come from” takes on a much larger meaning. While playing NCAA Football 11 is ultimately a great sports sim, it should also give you a sense of the pride and emotion one has for being a fan of a team they will never not be a part of.

This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

Rutgers football fans are starting to get more than a little impatient. In 2006, the Scarlet Knights missed winning the Big East title by a razor-thin margin. 2008 was their best chance yet, which ended up being derailed by an inexplicable stumble right out of the gate. Any hopes for winning last year were thrown away after freshman quarterback Tom Savage was pressed into action in the very first game. Now the future looks fairly bright, but we're all on the edge somewhat after the multiple near-misses in recent memory.

Rutgers will have a better chance of contending this fall as opposed to last year when going by personnel. The defense loses Devin McCourty and several other senior starters, but could well be better than ever with some of the younger players working their way up the depth chart like Logan Ryan, Khaseem Greene, Eric LeGrand, and Steve Beauharnais. Many freshmen were thrown into critical roles at the offensive skill positions in 2009. Tim Brown graduated, but Rutgers actually looks to be deeper and in better shape at receiver coming out of spring practice. If the offense can make any sort of improvement at all, then an already-good defensive unit should be far more rested and effective.

The season hinges on the play of a revamped offensive line; a unit that is still a question mark  because several key contributors were out injured during spring practice. Rutgers loses three starters off last year's group, which badly struggled at times. If 2009 was a one-year aberration, and the OL is back up to its usual high standards, then Rutgers is undoubtedly a contender to win the Big East.. The linemen on the roster are talented, but if they struggle due to inexperience, then this will be more of a rebuilding year.

I'm inclined to split the difference, imaging a group that will mesh over the course of the season, really coming into their own as the calendar moves into November. That will be very bad news for when it comes to blocking North Carolina's loaded defense, but almost the entire Big East schedule for Rutgers is towards the end of the season. That will improve RU's chances at finishing with a good conference record.

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This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

Today, On the Banks counts down five memorable moments in recent Rutgers football history.

5. Tim Brown throws up six for Jasper Howard.

In terms of the sheer "wow" factor, this play would be #1 on the list. However, it's docked in terms of total impact. While Brown's catch and run did help save a season teetering on the brink, the fantastical play barely registered on the national radar, and Rutgers was on its way to another merely above-average season.

That day in East Hartford Rutgers had jumped ahead to a big early lead on the Huskies. The game eventually turned into a defensive stalemate, with the Rutgers running game stuck in the mud, and Zach Frazer getting repeatedly abused by a stout Rutgers defense. Eventually that unit began to falter, exhausted by the offense's failure to put together sustained drives. UConn marched down the field late in the fourth quarter and all hope looked lost. That's when Tim Brown decided to take matters into his own hands.

With slightly over thirty seconds left on the clock, a leaping Brown caught Tom Savage's strike twenty or so yards downfield. The UConn safety shadowing the play then takes a bad angle at Brown, but who wouldn't have trying to tackle a sub 5'8 mite with blazing speed? As soon as Brown ran past that safety and crossed midfield, no Husky had chance to catch up. This just might be the most brutally effective playcalling shot to the solar plexus that you will ever see.

Not only a spectacular highlight, the story behind this one was almost too incredible to be believed. UConn corner Jasper Howard died in a senseless stabbing right after UConn's victory over Louisville. The Huskies proceeded to lose a heartbreaker the following week against West Virginia, and returned to Storrs with heavy hearts for their first home game since the tragedy.

The dominant media narrative in the week leading up to the game understandably centered around on the need to win a game to honor Howard's memory. It wouldn't be that simple though, because Howard actually grew up best friends with Rutgers receiver Tim Brown in Miami. The game actually was won for Jasper Howard, but not quite in the way that UConn would have hoped.

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This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

Today, On the Banks looks back at five memorable Scarlet Knights from recent memory. That means no Gary Brackett, because I only saw him on television a few times in college.

5. RB/FB Brian Leonard

Gouverneur, NY's favorite son hardly needs any more superlatives or introduction. The 2006 Draddy Trophy winner leapt straight into our hearts during four seasons in New Jersey. With his blond coiffure and reliable hands, this is a man could even bring Chuck Norris to tears. He had a supernatural, otherworldly field awareness and sense of the first down marker. Leonard was a quarterback's best friend, and something more entirely: Brian taught the whole Gouverneur and Rutgers communities to see hope in despair, a light at the end of the tunnel. For now you can look towards his continued success in the NFL, while awaiting his certain future inauguration into the Rutgers football Hall of Fame.

Leonard mostly played tailback his first two years, either in double TE sets (Sam Johnson was a ridiculous blocker), or behind a fullback like Medley. With Rice emerging in 2005, Brian shifted to more of a third down back role, which was a great fit for his strong pass blocking, soft hands, and short yardage power. It  wasn't really until 2006 where he saw a lot of time in two-back sets. Leonard was a long strider who didn't have great acceleration, but did have enough deep speed (faster than Rice) to run to the endzone after hurdling a  would-be tackler.

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This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

New Jersey's all about strict class obsession, and in no case is that more evident than when it comes to tailgating Rutgers Stadium. Sure, you can park in downtown New Brunswick and take the bus, or at Johnson Park, or at the church on River Road. The status-conscious New Jerseyan though, grilling gear in tow, instead will have to brave gameday traffic on River Road and Route 18. That's in addition to ponying up for a parking pass in one of thirteen color-themed lots around the Busch and Livingston campuses in Piscataway for the privilege of waking up early on a Saturday for an excuse to drink and grill (not necessarily in that order).

There's a further layer of complexity to the process. The Orange lot around the Rutgers Athletic Center is primarily used by visiting opposing fans, and Pink is just a fancy name for parts of the College Avenue campus in New Brunswick. The real action is around Rutgers Stadium. The closest lot just west of the stadium is the Scarlet lot, which is largely reserved for longtime donors and supporters of the program who have accumulated immense quantities of priority points. It's more of an older crowd, where you'll see most of the more elaborate grilling equipment, and the media truck and media will call (they all apparently park in the Green lot, which I'm not too familiar with).

The Brown and White lots directly to the east of the stadium have a reputation similar to the Scarlet. It's not quite as moneyed and debonair, but definitely more of the stocky, "down in front" sorts that abhor any loud cheering or standing during games. Hey, I kid because I love. If only every season ticket holder had the means and ambition to join this set. Historically, the vagrants and ne'er do wells looking for entertainment spent their game days at the Yellow, Purple, Tan, and especially Blue lots, the latter long used as the young alumni lot.

As Rutgers Stadium attendance grew rapidly over the past decade, a lot of these past stereotypes arguably don't ring true anymore (warning: this is hotly debated, and I'll probably get yelled at for taking any side at all). A common complaint nowadays is that with so many more fans going to games, the old Yellow/Purple/Blue lots have effectively gentrified, with their old crowds pushed far back to the Black and Silver lots. Those are closer to the Busch Campus Center, and are on actual campus gravel parking as opposed to the athletic fields grass east of the stadium. Any sojourners in search of frisbees and beer pong may need to prepare for a longer walk.

This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

2006 was the year that fortune smiled on Rutgers football, if only for a few fleeting weeks. It was a season of inauspicious beginnings, but momentum soon built and snowballed into an overwhelming crescendo during one fateful November night in Piscataway that's still seared into the brains of every Rutgers fan to this very day. The carriage eventually turned into a pumpkin thanks to a classic letdown game the next week at Cincinnati, a few bad bounces against West Virginia, and the Big East's crummy bowl lineup. That season is remembered as the time of Rutgers football's greatest apex, and most stinging disappointment.

To think that it all almost never came to pass. The opener against North Carolina was a war of attrition, which sent two evenly-matched teams in opposing directions: Rutgers on a magical run, and UNC to new depths of misery,  eventually leading to the firing of the overmatched John Bunting. The Knights followed up with laugher wins against Illinois (avenging their heart-wrenching 2005 loss) and Ohio, before narrowly escaping Raymond James Stadium behind arguably Ray Rice's finest game on the college level to topple USF. Who can forget Eric Foster's post-game locker room speech?

The team really jumped onto the national radar however the following week against Navy.

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This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

Rutgers College literally invented college football on Nov. 6, 1869. (The school later proceeded to pave over the spot of the first game with a parking lot, but that's another story entirely.) You'd think that spark of genius would inspire centuries of nationwide gratitude, but quite to the contrary in fact. Not only have the residuals been lacking at best, but the program is still in the process of shaking off any lingering memories of a down period that's now nearly a decade in the past. Considering that Rutgers football was able to recover from an abyss of misery and futility, I challenge anyone to find a group of tougher, more resilient, more loyal fans out there. Yes, we're proud and optimistic about the years ahead. No, we don't expect to win the national championship overnight.

Following the Scarlet Knights then is by no means for the faint of heart. We all buried our hemoglobin-stained razors after Rutgers finally made it back to a bowl game in 2005. It's difficult to leave those bad memories behind for good, and that's because the very nature of being a Rutgers fan will always have a tinge of fatalism to it, exuded into our very DNA. All of the shared collective misery made the resulting success that much more pleasurable, but it was a journey that ought not to be wished even on any fan's most hated rival franchises.

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EA Sports is sponsoring a series of posts here and across the other college sports affiliates on SB Nation this week to promote the upcoming release of NCAA Football 11. The latest entry in the long running video game series, Tim Tebow cover art and all, will be released to stores everywhere next Tuesday, on June 13th.

The chance to play in a simulated version of the expanded Rutgers Stadium should be reason enough to guarantee your purchase. Just look at how great our beautiful temple looks this year in digital form.

I wonder who that mysterious QB #7 is. He's rather fetching.

Now, the central theme of this campaign will be a focus on interactive, user-driven community content. On the Banks has seen very healthy traffic growth since launching in its current inception, and that's wonderful, but the network is looking for more reader participation and that's the emphasis with this series. Management wants to see you guys respond and share your stories.

On the Banks tries to get to the very core of Rutgers athletics, and nothing is more central to that in the first place than your fan allegiance the Scarlet Knights. The theme for this week will be delving into that in more depth, analyzing all the complex issues and such that come along hand in hand with our mutual obsession.