Syracuse probably won’t get it done, either; the Orange simply aren’t good enough. Which will leave it to West Virginia, which was ranked fifth before falling to Louisville a week ago and which has one of the nation’s top rushing games. Before Rutgers played Louisville, you would have given the edge in that game to the Mountaineers. But now, after seeing the speed of Rutgers’ defense and the grit of an offense that rides the punishing shoulders of running back Ray Rice, it’s not that easy a call. If the Mountaineers couldn’t beat Louisville, how are they going to beat Rutgers?

If you want a playoff, which is the only fair way to pick a champion, climb on the Rutgers bandwagon now, because it’s the only way to throw the system into utter chaos.

Think about it. Rutgers will not get credit for being a top team because it’s never been a top team. It wasn’t that long ago the Knights couldn’t beat Buffalo and had to scrap against Temple. It’s been 34 years since the team declared that it was going to abandon a course that had it headed for Division I-AA and try to play with the big boys. And few of those years have resulted in anything memorable for anything other than futility.

Voters go with what history. Texas and Auburn and Florida and USC and Notre Dame have been playing for championships and inhabiting the upper reaches of the polls since forever. It’s hard for somebody who watches the game to believe that one of those teams with one loss isn’t better than a Rutgers team which not only has never won anything, but also has never even contended for anything. Heck, it’s hardly ever been ranked, even for a week.

MICHAEL VENTRE ON COLLEGE FOOTBALL Crazy, crazy season Rutgers' undefeated run not only odd thing happening MSNBC.com

Their coach, Greg Schiano, a New Jersey native whose stops as an assistant coach included Penn State and Miami, refused to get involved in the debate. It wasn’t that he was still basking in the glow of the greatest win in his program’s history, but that he’s been in situations before in which his teams had great records but didn’t get to play for the title.

“I’m not going to get into ‘Nine and oh, should you be or shouldn’t you be?’” he said. “We can’t control any of that.”

College football Two-man race with Tebow, McFadden

He teaches his team to worry about the process, which is the only thing it can control, and not the result. Perform the process right, and the result will take care of itself. And if it doesn’t, there isn’t anything you can do about it.

For Rutgers, it’s a good philosophy, because the odds are that no matter what the Knights do from here on out, it’s not going to be enough. Besides, the one-loss schools are a lot better at lobbying than he is. Of course, they’ve been there before; they’ve had practice.