There are now thirty days remaining until the kickoff at Husky Stadium and Rutgers’ 2016 football season kicks off. If you are like this writer, you can’t wait for the season to begin, and are chomping at the bit to be back in Piscataway, tailgating, eating, drinking and best of all, being in the stadium for all of the excitement and camaraderie that comes with being a fan of Rutgers football.

From now until September 3rd, I am going to post a daily reason why it is great to be a fan of Rutgers football. There are a lot more than thirty, but I picked my thirty reasons, and hope you like them. If not, be sure to let me know (though that has never been a problem for our readers to date).

Reason #30- Proximity

Many Rutgers fans carry a chip on their shoulder, and are mightily offended, when everyone doesn’t understand that Rutgers football is the center of the universe. After all, fans choose to follow and support the team even when there are a gazillion other things to do in the region. It isn’t like living in Iowa City, where if you don’t follow Iowa sports, you watch corn grow. However, having been to Iowa City, I can say from personal experience that their corn is better than Nebraska’s corn, hands down.

Let’s look at WHY Rutgers’ proximity to everything makes it great to be a fan. Rutgers sits in Central New Jersey (OK, South Jersey fans. I know you think everything north of Trenton is North Jersey, but relax already!) It sits in the center of the NJ Universe. It is the place where if you go 10 miles north, you rarely hear about Philadelphia sports, and if you go more than 20 miles south, you rarely hear about New York sports. In terms of population, it is just about in the center, with about as many people living to the north of Middlesex County as there is from Middlesex south.

Plus, High Point Solutions Stadium is less than 40 miles from the middle of Time Square, which is the center of what many consider to be the Capital of the World. Any player, student, or recruit can take a 50 minute train starting from 2 blocks from the College Avenue Campus, and be left off less than 10 blocks from Times Square. What other school can offer a potential student anything close to that?

If you’re a history buff, NJ is chock-full of history, with everything from the Monmouth battlefield to the Battle of Trenton. Plus, don’t forget that just about an hour south by train from the Birthplace of College Football is the Birthplace of the United States, Philadelphia. Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross’ house, etc.

Tired of college sports? Well, take your pick! You’ve got the Yankees, Phillies, Mets, Knicks, Nets, 76ers, Giants, Eagles, Devils, Rangers, Islanders, and Flyers to choose from, and that’s only major league sports! The state has six minor league baseball teams, plus two more in NYC (one in Brooklyn, one on Staten Island).

Shows and Concerts? You’ve got over a dozen world class venues either within the state, or in NYC and Philly. Take your pick, everything from the State Theater to Broadway itself!

Places to go? Heck, the largest and the 5th largest cities in the US are both within a hours drive or so, as is the largest stretch of untapped woodland east of the Mississippi in the Pine Barrens, over 1 million acres of forest. Have at it!

So, a Rutgers fan has an incredible array of venues to choose from, and yet, and yet...

What are we doing right now? That’s right, we are counting down to the beginning of Rutgers football in 2016. With everything listed above, the simple fact that you get 50K+ fans in the stadium, and millions more watching on TV tells you simply that there’s nothing better than being a Rutgers football fan!

OK, that is reason #30. We will continue to count down every day from now until September 3. Tomorrow we will focus on one of the prime activities of a Rutgers fan at the game.