Piscatawa, N.J. ? Synonymous with college football futility for the past decade, Rutgers has been neither punch line nor punching bag this season.

At 5-2, the Scarlet Knights can become bowl-eligible with a victory over Navy (4-2) today. The one and only time Rutgers went to a bowl game was 1978, when the Scarlet Knights made a short trip to the Garden State Bowl at Giants Stadium.

None of the players on the current roster was born then, and head coach Greg Schiano was 12 and living in Wyckoff, N.J., about 75 miles north of the Rutgers campus.

“I’m not going to say it has been easy at all times,” said Schiano, a former Miami assistant who was hired in December of 2000. “It’s been very tough, but I knew that getting into it, that that’s what we were in for. I’ve had some great times in my career and some tough times. That adversity prepares you for down the road.”

It has been mostly tough times for Rutgers in recent years. The rundown:

¢ no winning seasons since 1992, when Rutgers went 7-4.

¢ three winning seasons since 1984.

¢ 18-75-1 in the Big East from 1991-2004.

¢ 3-20 overall in Schiano’s first two seasons.

¢ a 25-game conference losing streak from 1999-2003.

Rutgers quarterback Ryan Hart, right, hugs teammate Clark Harris after Rutgers defeated Connecticut, 26-24, in this file photo from Saturday. After more than a quarter-century's absence from the bowl picture, Rutgers is on the verge of making some positive history.

This from the school that won the first college football game ever played in 1869. Rutgers beat Princeton, 6-4, but one of its players mistakenly tried to kick the ball through his own goal posts — a play that cynics say set a tone for the program that endures to this day.

The school fielded competitive teams through most of the 1960s and ’70s and even went 11-0 in 1976. But the recent past is inescapable.

“All fans care about is wins, and when you don’t win the games, they come down on you and make you feel like you’re not putting in the work,” said New York Giants center Shaun O’Hara, a member of the 1999 Rutgers team that went 1-10. “We probably worked twice as hard as any other team because we knew we weren’t as good. This year’s team appears to have a confidence that a lot of Rutgers teams haven’t really had in the past, that they belong on the field with the teams they’re playing.”

Schiano has demonstrated a jut-jawed determination in staying the course over the last four-plus years. The same couldn’t always be said of his players during that time.

“There were previous years where we were talented enough to win a lot more games than we did,” fifth-year defensive end Ryan Neill said. “I don’t think guys were consciously saying, ‘I’m not going to do what the coaches said.’ But guys didn’t understand that in college football, with the talented teams we’re playing, if you don’t do to a ‘T’ what they want you to do, if you’re one foot in the wrong spot on a field that’s 50 yards wide, it could be a touchdown.”

Neill, second nationally in tackles for loss, is one of several upperclassmen who have emerged for the Scarlet Knights. Tres Moses is the school’s career receptions leader, and fellow senior Ryan Hart became the all-time leader in passing yardage this season.

There is no question that Rutgers has benefited this season from the departure of Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech from the Big East. Combined, the schools were 34-2-1 against the Scarlet Knights since 1991. They were replaced on Rutgers’ schedule by South Florida, Louisville and Cincinnati, the team’s next three opponents after Navy.

“It’s been awhile since we’ve been in contention for anything, and it’s been awhile since I’ve been in contention as a coach for anything,” Schiano said.