For all you kids who have whined and complained about how stale and unenthusiastic Syracuse football games have become, I have your solution: Transfer to Rutgers before next season.

I know you might miss Kimmel or Chuck’s, but to enjoy an exciting football atmosphere these days is to attend a game in the birthplace of college football at RU, which I did Saturday when my home state Scarlet Knights hosted my schoolmate Orange.

Thanks to a high school buddy who goes to RU, I secured a student ticket to the game, meaning I sat in the middle of the Rutgers’ student sea of red. And I’m sorry, but I wore red in conformity rather than orange in defiance.

I did, however, have a great time from start to finish, which is more than I can say about any SU home game I’ve attended in four years, save for when the Orange hosted and beat Notre Dame my freshman year and when it beat Pitt in double-overtime my sophomore year.

RU’s student section – much bigger and fuller than Syracuse’s – rocked from beginning to end by chanting player names after each big play, standing up on more than just defensive third downs and scores and acting extremely politely through it all. While that last point sounds cheesy, it’s a much more pleasant gameday experience when you don’t have to hear ‘You suck!’ from a fan every 30 seconds.

Plus, the Rutgers crowd has various cheers, ranging from ‘R-U’ sung back and forth between halves of the stadium to kids actually singing the fight song lyrics to the wildly popular ‘And that’s a Rutgerrrrrs first down!’

I know we have ‘First down, Orrrrrange!’ But it’s only cool if your offense actually gains first downs. Basically, ever since the ‘Hey Song’ was banished, SU students have little to chant besides the clich ‘bull—-‘ after bad referee calls.

Rutgers even makes clever T-shirts for its games, with sayings like ‘Slice the Orange’ and ‘Fruit don’t play football.’ Here at SU, we’ve had to deal with gems like ”Cuse spits Pitts’ on T-shirts, despite the fact that a Pittsburgh Panther would on the contrary maul anything citrus-related.

What I find most striking, though, is how quickly the moods at Rutgers and SU have changed in my college years. As a freshman, I enjoyed raucous student crowds for every home game here and also witnessed the 2003 SU-RU Thanksgiving game in front of a cavernously empty Rutgers Stadium.

Now the roles have totally switched, where it’s Syracuse filling its crowds to half capacity and Rutgers packing in a sold-out house to welcome the worst team in the conference.

How does this happen so fast?

One word: winning.

At home in the last four years, Syracuse owns a 13-11 record. Fans are hesitant to go to a game when there’s close to a 50-percent chance they’ll witness a loss.

Rutgers has gone 16-9 at home in the same time, culminating with this season’s perfect 6-0 home record on the banks of the Raritan River.

By nature, a team and its crowd have a causal relationship: if the teams wins, people will come. It is not the other way around, despite what schools want you to think.

As such, the Rutgers bandwagon had its doors blown off this season and seems like it can now accommodate the entire New Jersey population.

Then you look at the Syracuse bandwagon and it looks like the wagons that tried to ford the river in Oregon Trail and lost all their oxen.

The problem is, I don’t think there are any viable solutions to help solve SU’s dilemma.

Rutgers has a vibrant pre-game tailgating scene – which I enjoyed for a good two hours – that Syracuse can’t match because it’s too cold outside and there’s no parking near the Dome.

SU plays indoors, which helps with CNY weather but hurts when it’s a gorgeous Saturday afternoon outside and people want fresh air with their football.

But most importantly, Rutgers wins and Syracuse doesn’t. Simple as that.

The Knights return the electrifying Ray Rice and that ferocious defense next year, plus a supportive fan base that will now back them from Day 1.

Syracuse loses its entire starting linebacking corps, half of its secondary, its starting quarterback and its star punter all to graduation.

So unless Greg Robinson has some major tricks up his sleeve, we can expect more of the same at the homes of two programs going in vastly different directions next year.

Don’t worry, though. You still have time to transfer before you pay for 2007 season tickets.