Rutgers football battles UNC in Quick Lane Bowl game action

Rutgers celebrates with the Quick Land Bowl trophy after a 40-21 win over North Carolina on Dec. 26, 2014 in Detroit. (William Perlman | NJ Advance Media)

DETROIT — In the beginning, it was clear that nothing was going to be as it seemed. On the Brush Street side of Ford Field, a lone scalper ran up to a car, rapped on the window and hollered:

"You got extras? I got money and I’m buying."

"Why?" an amazed passenger asked.

In terms of the acres of empty seats that would remain that way all day inside Ford Field throughout this inaugural Quick Lane Bowl, his was the kind of optimism Custer must have felt at the Little Big Horn when he told his scout:

"Indians? You gotta be wrong. Isn’t no Indians out there."

But then so much of what happened yesterday despite an impressive winning effort by Rutgers over North Carolina — 40-21 — was highly laced with smoke and mirrors. You could start with the announced attendance.

The capacity of this home of the Detroit Lions is 65,000. The attendance as announced by the Lions’ president, Tom Lewand, was 23,876. That would mean that more than a third of the joint was filled. That gave eyewitnesses two choices:

a) Attendance was kept using the Harry Wismar School of Counting. Harry was founder of the New York Titans (who became the Jets) and less than truthful. It was believed that he counted arms and legs turning crowds of 7,000 into 28,000 each Sunday.

b) On the other hand, the alternative could be that there may well have been about 50,000 people clearly disguised as empty seats.

It was as though the Scarlet Knights were giving a clinic — and nobody showed up to watch it. The way they played, they deserved better.

And it wasn’t too shabby when they were on the other side of the ball. A shining case in point was strong safety Lorenzo Waters, a three-year starter in his last season of eligibility. He came to the Banks of the Raritan out of the highly touted DeMatha High School program in Maryland. He was talented and he was smart, reminding us all that it is foolish to underestimate the value of higher education.

He already has graduated with twin majors and is working on his master’s degree. The way he played yesterday his actions seemed to say "learn from a graduate how to do this."

He recovered two fumbles. He blocked a kick. He showed that properly played defense, can be as much an art form as running the perfect post pattern or fashioning the perfect punt return.

Meanwhile, the Carolina pinball offense was out on a very long lunch break. For reasons never explained, the Tar Heels, who entered the game averaging a play every 12 seconds and as many plays as 77 a game, slowed to an unexpected crawl for the first half. Yes, the Rutgers defense had a lot to do with that, but, in truth, it was as though something had let the air out of their frenetic attack.

For 30 minutes, they showed absolutely nothing. They butchered a fake field-goal attempt. They were 0-for-2 in the red zone. They played exactly like a .500 team, which is exactly what they were before yesterday's whipping.

And even after Carolina finally put seven on the board in the third quarter, Rutgers came back with a perfectly balanced and perfectly managed attack. They covered 75 yards in eight plays, running Hicks effectively and then capping the effort when Nova threw a 34-yarder to Andrew Turzilli untouched in the end zone. At 30-7 after three quarters, nobody could have asked more of them.

There is absolutely no way to detract from any of that.

But in the waning minutes of this game, they did not play that way. They had a 40-7 cushion with a little over six minutes left, and then this team that had been a model of discipline until then twice had their good-hands unit play as though it had webbed fingers.

In the span of roughly three minutes, Carolina squibbed two onsides kickoffs and Rutgers handled them like a team equipped with catcher’s mitts trying to pick a glob of mercury off a kitchen table.

Result: a 40-21 score.

One more such attempt and the Scarlet Knights would have looked as though they were about to paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa.

But nobody is perfect. The Scarlet Knights earned what they got because for three quarters they damned near were.

Now if only there had been an audience worthy of the show.

Rutgers dominates North Carolina in Quick Lane Bowl