The same kind of email will arrive in my inbox, without fail, in the hours after every humbling Rutgers loss -- or, in some cases, even sooner. This one arrived in the fourth quarter of Buffalo's 42-13 beatdown of the Scarlet Knights, and over the 24 hours that followed, so did several more.

"I told you that Rutgers made a colossal mistake joining the Big Ten. Are you kidding me? If this team can't compete with a team like Buffalo, how is it supposed to beat Ohio State or Penn State? It should go back to the days when it was playing Colgate and Lehigh."

Not all Rutgers fans believe this, of course. Maybe only a few do. If you understand the many, many reasons that the Scarlet Knights jumped at the chance to join one of the nation's premier conferences when it came calling in 2012, please feel free to stop reading.

I'm writing this so I can have the hyperlink handy this season. I'm writing this because, frankly, I'm tired of re-litigating the decision with readers every single time this program suffers an ignominious defeat, and because I'm expecting they'll be a few more of those this fall.

Rutgers begins a string of eight straight Big Ten games on Saturday when Indiana comes to Piscataway. It could lose all eight by a combined score of 300-0* and joining the Big Ten will remain one of the most important moments in the history of the university.

* Please don't.

Not the athletic department. The entire university. Rutgers went from being associated with USF and Houston to being in the same club with Michigan, Michigan State and the elite land-grant universities that match its own mission and values.

This is from the university's website:

"Participating in the Big Ten Conference brings membership in the Big Ten Academic Alliance, a consortium of 14 world-class research universities. This alliance continues to give our students and faculty opportunities for meaningful scholarly collaborations as well as access to members-only databases, conferences, and library collections."

But let's say "scholarly collaborations" are not your thing. That's fine, because strictly from a sports standpoint, joining the Big Ten was the most significant moment for Rutgers since the lads from Princeton came to town for the first intercollegiate game in 1869.

Part of that is the money. The Big Ten schools are cutting themselves a $50 million share of the revenue pie this year, and while Rutgers is still getting table scraps as part of their entrance deal now, they'll get their payday starting in 2020-21. That won't solve all of the athletic department's problems, but it will take care of plenty of them.

The money isn't even the biggest reason. It's relevancy, because consider the alternative. The alternative is Connecticut, a football program that was once on an equal level with the Scarlet Knights that has been sentenced to permanent second-tier status.

And, remember, the conference affiliation is more than just football. Connecticut basketball, with its four national championships, is stuck playing the likes of ECU, Tulane and UCF. Even staying in the reconfigured Big East would have been better than that.

Right now, Rutgers may still seem out of place in the Big Ten, both culturally and competitively. What about 10 years from now? Or 20? A generation of future fans are going to grow up knowing nothing else than Rutgers as a Big Ten member. If their parents want to break it to them it wasn't always this way, well, that's up to them.

Rutgers is in a conference with universities steeped in athletic tradition, an association that should make them better in the long term. That conference affiliation isn't the problem. It is, quite simply, the best thing the Scarlet Knights have going for them right now.

Here's an idea: Get better.

I should have anticipated several of the responses to this column, so in interest of answering ALL future emails related to Rutgers and the Big Ten, I've added responses to the responses:

ADDENDUM NO. 1: "Yeah, but since they were only in it for the cable subscribers, will the Big Ten eventually kick them out?"

No, being bad at football is not going to get Rutgers booted from the Big Ten. Northwestern was bad, really bad, for most of the '70s and '80s. You'll notice that the Wildcats are, in fact, still a Big Ten member.

For all the concerns about cable cutting, the Big Ten Network struck a deal with Comcast after a long negotiation. The TV industry is changing, to be sure, but that doesn't mean the league is going to toss a member in good standing to the curb when it does.

ADDENDUM NO. 2: "Sure, Rutgers should have joined, but the Big Ten was stupid to take them."

The Big Ten expanded its footprint as a Midwest league to two massive East Coast markets when it added Rutgers and Maryland. That was a business decision, not a football one. Everyone gets that.

But I'm still trying to figure out the downside to having Rutgers in the Big Ten for the conference. The occasional (ahem) lopsided score on the ESPN scrawl? Is that embarrassment really worth dumping the benefits? It isn't like Rutgers' presence is screwing the league's chances of getting a team in the four-team playoff. The SEC has bad teams, too.

ADDENDUM NO. 3: "Joining the Big Ten has led to increased spending on athletics, and that's a waste of money that does nothing to help the central mission of the university."

You know what the overall Rutgers budget was last school year? $4.4 billion. The athletics budget was $100 million. Not quite loose change in the sofa, but still, it's hardly impactful.

If you want to debate the pursuit of big-time athletics at Rutgers, please find a coffeehouse and have at it. That horse left the barn in the 1980s. This is a decision that Rutgers made, and one that has its benefits and problems. Maybe it's crazy to pay a football coach $2 million a year, but a) everyone's doing it and b) Rutgers was doing it long before it joined the Big Ten.

Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find NJ.com on Facebook.