Latest Rutgers Football Stories
Posted: Jul 7th 2008 6:10 PM ET by John Radcliff (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Big East, Rutgers Football, NCAA FB History
Rutgers fans are very quick to remind you that their school hosted and won the first college football game. As well they should. It's an important distinction in this beautiful thing we call college football. The
1869 game between what is now Princeton and Rutgers was the first recorded instance of a football game being played between two universities.
Fast forward to 2008, and college football is a time honored tradition in this country. Actually, you don't have to go to 2008. Depending on who your root for, college and football have gone together like Rum and Coke for decades. Which brings me to my point. Workers
discovered the remains of a tavern while clearing land around Rutgers Stadium.
While construction workers were excavating the future site of Rutgers University's new football stadium, they unearthed the remains of a tavern and artifacts that are dated back to the 18th-century. Thousands of ceramics, cutlery and bottles were found and said to have been from the Raritan Landing settlement. The tavern that excavators discovered is the legendary Rising Sun Tavern, which was the first building where academic classes were held.
That's right Rutgers students! The next time your parents question why you don't return their calls until the next day, just tell them you were out honoring a Rutgers tradition.....again! Man, classes being taught in a tavern is enough to make me want to go back to school!
Before I get too carried away, I in no way want to suggest that Rutgers students should use this post as an excuse for binge drinking. Or that Rutgers fans have more of a drinking problem than the rest of us. But if we're looking for that missing link between college students and alcohol, we may have just found the origin.
Posted: Jun 30th 2008 11:55 PM ET by Adam Jacobi (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Big East, NCAA FB Recruiting, Rutgers Football
Not pictured: Schiano crashing the trophy down on losing coach Brady Hoke's head. Hoke was 49.
How many high school commitments does your favorite football team have for 2009? Odds are not many, especially if you're a Niners fan. Sure, there's USC with 15 future All-Americans, about whom Pete Carroll is feeling jacked. And there's Texas, loaded as ever, here at the dusk of June. Oh, and also with 19 commitments, of course, is Greg Schiano and Rutgers.
That's right, Rutgers.
No, this story didn't take a sharp detour into Crazyland, where the marching band plays kazoos and the yards are marked with cake frosting; this is actually happening. Rutgers, out there in the Big East and with negative infinity football tradition, is absolutely cleaning up. Their latest success is wideout Shawney Kersey, a lanky, three-star prospect with a four-and-a-half-star name (it's not Barkevious Mingo, but that's all right) who was destined for West Virginia last week.
Kersey's commitment will make it 13 such in June alone, which is more than most teams have, um, at all so far. Most of them hail from New Jersey, which means that recruiting goldmine (see Moreno, Knowshon) may well be drying up for outside teams.
If Rutgers continues to lock up their home state, Big East teams will probably wish--if they don't already--that Schiano had actually accepted one of his rumored offers. For now, though, all your Big East are belong to Greg Schiano.
Posted: May 30th 2008 1:44 PM ET by Brian Cook (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Penn State Football, NCAA FB Rumors, Rutgers Football
Greg Schiano is a young, successful coach who's turned down offers from Miami and Michigan the past two years. Joe Paterno is a thousand years old and is widely rumored to be entering his final season as Penn State's head coach. Schiano was a Penn State defensive backs coach back before he came to prominence as Miami's defensive coordinator.
Add it all up and...
Barring a last-minute power struggle or change of heart, the source indicated that this will be Paterno's last season in Happy Valley, and that Penn State would move quickly after Schiano at season's end.
That's an internet sportsmag called
The Phanatic that covers the sports of Philadelphia and environs. Though few have heard of them, they seem to be a relatively up-and-up lot and do feature a couple hundred thousand hits on their site counter. Take or leave that as you please.
Penn State blogs naturally go "
urk!?!" at mention of this since Schiano appears to be the only truly attractive option available to Penn State should this be Joe Paterno's last year of vaguely guiding actual Penn State head coach Tom Bradley, nominally the defensive coordinator.
Color this guy skeptical, since the
Phanatic's article is explicitly couched in anonymity and vagueness. From appearances, coaching searches are always but always fiascoes. Even if the
Phanatic's source is Graham Spanier himself, the situation will change a thousand times before a new Penn State coach is named.
Evidence? Last year during the Michigan coaching search a highly reliable tipster told
me Michigan had come to an agreement with its new head coach: Greg Schiano.
Posted: May 7th 2008 5:30 PM ET by John Radcliff (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Louisville Football, Pittsburgh Football, West Virginia Football, Big East, Rutgers Football, Cincinnati Football, South Florida Football
Was it really only four years ago that the Big East was in danger of losing it's BCS status? Miami and Virginia Tech left in 2003 and Boston College in 2004. The conference sent Pitt, one of several 8-4 teams in the Big East to lose to Utah in the Fiesta Bowl. And there wasn't much reason to think the conference was going to get better any time soon. The conference was written off by the media and the blogospher didn't even bother to poke fun.
But something happened last week that most of us didn't even notice. The Big East was granted a spot in the
BCS through 2013.
The reason is simple: no one noticed the news. No one questioned the Big East's place at the adult table. The reaffirmation wasn't even a note in BCS meeting coverage. "It was quiet,'' Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said Tuesday. "The way I like it."
You'd never make it as a blogger Mr. Tranghese. You need to rub it in someones face every once in a while. The least you could do is hold up one of those foam we're #1 hands. Or one of six, I guess. How bout a little woot-woot? Oh fine!
Despite the picture on the right, you can't just point to West Virginia and say their two BCS bowl victories and three straight top ten finishes are the reason. But I won't argue with you if you do. It really has been the improvement of several teams in the Big East that has brought the conference back to respectability. Louisville was expected to be one of the better teams in the conference. And mostly, they've come through. But the real surprise has been the improvement of South Florida, Rutgers, and Cincinnati. And more recently, Connecticut.
While the conference still isn't flooding the first round of the NFL draft with players, it is putting a lot more teams in the top 25. Sure, some coaches have left for "
greener"
pastures. Others like Greg Schiano and Jim Leavitt have made commitments to their schools that don't involve contracts. There's a balance, and certainly enough rising programs and programs that are there to keep the Big East respectable. At least until the Big
11 10 decides to add another team. Wankers.
Posted: Apr 28th 2008 8:29 PM ET by John Radcliff (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Louisville Football, Pittsburgh Football, Syracuse Football, West Virginia Football, Big East, Rutgers Football, NFL Prospects, Cincinnati Football, Connecticut Football, South Florida Football
I did this last year, so it seems only fitting that I would do it again. And it wasn't even close. Louisville had five players drafted, while Pitt and West Virginia had three apiece. Rutgers, South Florida, Cincinnati, and Connecticut had two each. And for the first time
since 1975, Syracuse did not have anyone selected.
That's 19 players drafted. And any way I slice it, that's just not all that good for a BCS conference. Looking at
the distribution of what rounds the players were taken, it was pretty well spread out over the entire draft for the Big East. But that doesn't make it feel any better. It's especially bad if you look at a team like West Virginia that has had three 11 win seasons in a row along with three straight top ten finishes. They've had exactly four players drafted in the last three years. And Chris Henry and Pac Man Jones the year before that. So we won't even go there.
The ACC? Yeah, that conference we've been quietly laughing at after Miami, Va. Tech, and Boston College left. Yeah, they had 33 players drafted this past weekend. The coaching must really suck over there or something.
Pac 10? Oh, they had 37 players drafted. SEC? 35. Big 10? 28. Big 12? 27. Hell, C-USA had 11 players drafted!
Patriot League? Never mind.
Even more upsetting for West Virginia fans, two players left early for the NFL and weren't drafted. Those two being Darius Reynaud and Johnny Dingle. Yeah, sorry folks. Those
Dingle-
Berry photo's won't be happening anymore. Those are definitely two players the Mountaineers could have used this year, though. I'm not saying that their stock would go up any with one more year of college. But it sure wouldn't go down.
Louisville will have the most holes to fill as well. You don't replace Brian Brohm, Harry Douglas, and Art Carmody. I know there are others, but those three were special at their positions. West Virginia won't be far behind with the loss of Slaton and most of the secondary and defensive line. Rutgers, well we don't know how bad it is because we haven't seen anyone but Ray Rice run the ball. The rest of the conference should be fine. And that's not a good thing if you think about it.
Posted: Apr 26th 2008 6:03 PM ET by Charles Rich (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Notre Dame Football, Big East, Rutgers Football
When the Big East was reconfigured a few years back, the conference was able to persuade their non-football member Notre Dame to commit to playing more Big East teams in football. To that end, the Irish have a six year home-and-home series with Pitt starting this season, they agreed to play UConn and they also set up a six year series with Rutgers.
Pitt is actually one of their most played opponents in the Irish history (5th behind Navy, USC, Purdue and Michigan State), so that wasn't a surprise. The UConn series required the Huskies to essentially go to neutral fields for their home games by
making the games at NFL stadiums in the Northeast.
Rutgers is presently expanding their seating capacity to 55,000 at a cost of over $100 million. The expansion would be completed for the 2009 season. The year the Notre Dame series was to begin was in 2010. Notre Dame, however, was insisting that the Rutgers home games take place at the new NFL stadium at the Meadowlands. Rutgers, unlike UConn,
wouldn't accept leaving their own facility so the series is now off.
Rutgers entered into discussions about a possible long-term series with Notre Dame, but at the end of the day both schools could not agree about the site of the games," [Athletic Director Bob] Mulcahy said in a statement issued by the school. "We feel Rutgers' home games should be played on-campus at Rutgers Stadium."
Unlike UConn coach Randy Edsall, Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano had no interest in surrendering true home field advantage just to play Notre Dame.
Posted: Apr 2nd 2008 7:28 AM ET by Jeff Adams (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Fresno State Football, Big 12, WAC, Rutgers Football, NCAA FB Coaching, Kansas State Football
It's been a long time coming, but Tuesday Kansas State fans got the official word. KSU has dropped Fresno State from its 2008 schedule and
replaced it with powerhouse Montana State. Kansas State will pay Fresno State $250,000 as part of a buyout agreement.
This is a
quick reversal in philosophies for Prince and Kansas State. A year ago at this time, Prince was
championing the tough schedules facing KSU in the future and encouraging a move away from previous head coach Bill Snyder's cupcake-laden slates. At that time, he was quoted as saying:
"Where we are in the development of our team and our program, I think having the opportunity to go play those kind of opponents [Auburn and Fresno State] will do nothing but benefit us," coach Ron Prince said Monday.
I suppose the fact that the Wildcats finished 5-7 a year ago, while Fresno State was 9-4 in 2007 might have had something to do with Prince's flip-flop.
On the other end of the deal, Fresno State
has added Rutgers to their schedule to replace Kansas State. That move should surprise few.
Pat Hill and the Bulldogs have always had the attitude of "any team, any time, anywhere." In fact this isn't the first time that an opponent has backed out of a game against Fresno State.
Hill is used to foes dropping him. Earlier this decade, he saw Oklahoma State and Texas Tech duck out of visits to Fresno. The inability to get opponents to come to his turf has led to Hill's team getting just five home games this fall.
Posted: Mar 7th 2008 9:51 PM ET by Adam Jacobi (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Oklahoma Football, Penn State Football, USC Football, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac 10, Rutgers Football, NCAA FB Police Blotter
Here's why athletic directors are frowning today...It's time to play Guess The Misdemeanor!: As a coach,
Greg Schiano has to make decisions. Most of them are easy, like "should I blitz against Syracuse" (yes) and "should I sell an internal organ in order to bribe
Ray Rice to stay" (yes again--the left kidney and a lobe of the liver).
When it comes to player discipline, the answers aren't so simple. So when Schiano found out defensive tackle Justin Francis was arrested,
he suspended the young man, then informed the media. Nobody likes a secretive coach, after all. But he decided not to provide the specifics of the arrest itself, which we celebrate as an even better decision. Why? Because it allows us the opportunity to engage in
reckless speculation! AOL cannot attest to the veracity of any of these rumors, of course--mainly because this author making them up right now--but we're confidently narrowing down the list of possible infractions to the ones listed below.
- Riding a puma through the drive-thru at the local Arby's. Pumas are endangered, pal!
- Running an illegal bronzer smuggling ring. Yes, it's Jersey, so the market's there, but get a permit, for crissakes.
- Parking fifteen stolen cars on the tarmac at Newark International Airport. Pilots do not appreciate "obstacle courses."
- Puma bombing. Again with the pumas!
Posted: Mar 4th 2008 5:52 PM ET by John Radcliff (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Big East, Rutgers Football, NCAA FB Media Watch, The Word
How long has it been since you were aware of
HGH or the practice of
blood doping? If you're a fan of baseball or a fan of the
Olympics, you've probably known about them for a while. In fact, you can't escape news about them. So when I caught this piece over at
The Wizard of Odds, I was more than a little taken back.
Last week, we told you about Rutgers planning to try the Pure Power Mouthguard, which promises to safely reproduce some of the effects of steroids and the human growth hormone. The manufacturer says the device aligns an athlete's jaw properly by using bilateral electrical stimulation and relaxes face muscles, allowing the rest of the body to work more effectively.
Wow! Really? A mouthpiece that enhances your performance? I feel like the old man that asks, "what will they think of next?" The thing about steroids and other performance enhancing drugs, besides the repercussions on the human body, is that they create an uneven playing field. And that really is what should be front and center in any discussion about the subject. I mean, let's just say for a minute that this mouthpiece actually delivers on it's promise. Will Rutgers record, no matter what it is, get an asterisk?
OK, maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit there. But hey, back to that old man question. It's not so much what will they think of next, because the money is obviously there for them to invest. And they will think of something else. The question should be what are we going to do when they come up with it. The likely trend will be the production of products that improve performance without the side effects of steroids. So where do we draw the line? As long as no one gets hurt, do we allow every product on the market into our sports? At what point do we quit being human beings, and become Borg-like creatures (nerd alert) totally dependent on the drugs and equipment to perform? Maybe Rome will fall before then.
Posted: Feb 25th 2008 7:04 PM ET by John Radcliff (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Louisville Football, Pittsburgh Football, Syracuse Football, West Virginia Football, Big East, Rutgers Football, Cincinnati Football, Connecticut Football, South Florida Football
OMG! Football news! February is like the worst sports month in the world! Unless you like meaningless mid-season NBA and NHL games. Sure I love NCAA basketball. But that love has been tainted by
my coaches fashion sense and my teams ability to rip defeat from the jaws of victory. So I'm kind of not liking February at all.
Anyhow, some good news today football fans. The
Big East released the 2008 football schedule. And while that's nothing compared to being in the stands after hours of tailgating and screaming obscenities at opposing fans and players, it is a reason for hope. The hope that another football season will soon be upon us.
And lookie, there are actually some good out of conference games this year. In September:
Cincinnati @ Oklahoma-Will the Sooners crumble again in the face of Big East might?
Penn St. @ Syracuse- When this game was scheduled Jo Pa was heard saying, "That Paul Pasqualoni is a tricky devil. We're going to have to find a way to shut down McNabb!"
Kansas @ South Florida- The Bulls can't be looking at this game the way they were a year ago.
West Virginia @ Colorado- This game fills the void left by Maryland opting out of the series. And given the size of Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen, that's quite a void to fill.
Iowa @ Pitt- Again, Iowa might not like this game as much as they did when they scheduled it.
Rutgers vs. TBA-Ah, the unknown enigma that is TBA. You just never know what team you're going to play.
