2008 Season Preview: Quarterbacks

Projected depth chart:

QB: Mike Teel (RS-SR 6′4 220 lbs), Jabulani Lovelace (RS-JR 6-2, 215 lbs), Chris Paul-Etienne (RS-SO 6-3, 190 lbs)

Popular opinion is not very kind to Mike Teel. Between R-rated Facebook messages in 2006, or criticism of his play last season, one could forget that he ranked #17 in I-A pass efficiency last season, throwing for over 3000 yards, and 20 TDs against 13 INTs. He did struggle at times, but most of the criticism of Teel that I read neglects to mention the serious thumb injury that he suffered against Norfolk State last year. Greg Schiano foolishly used the justification that he does not rest starters before halftime, and we all paid the price, as Teel hurt his thumb in the waning minutes of the second quarter. The injury hurt Teel’s accuracy all season, culminating in being barely able to play in games against Army and Pittsburgh late in the year. There’s also some lingering criticism from his first two seasons, where he was extremely green, and was seen as unfairly usurping Ryan Hart’s starting job in 2005.

Second scrimmage today

Per Sargeant, Kevin Haslam has a chance to play vs. Fresno State, but will miss today’s scrimmage. Howard Barbieri will start at LG in the mean time.

A few leftover bits from Monday.

Rutgers’ practices are for the most part closed, although parents (of players and coaches), recruits and university faculty are common sights. On Monday, former running backs coach Robert Jackson, now the director of player development, came out.

Justin Francis, the defensive tackle on a year’s suspension, also patrolled the sidelines. Then there was the unnamed donor, who tossed a football around and then and with former holder Anthony Cali’s assist, twice attempted to kick a field goal.

Brian Bennett, the new BE writer for ESPN.com, wrote the obligatory Teel-by-numbers column. It does have one bit of previously-unknown information though.

Teel injured his thumb in the third game against Norfolk State. Then, at the end of the first half of the Scarlet Knights’ upset of then No. 2 South Florida on Oct. 18, he broke the trapezoid bone on the top of his hand. He played that way the rest of the regular season.

A new and improved attitude could mean a breakout year in 2008 for George Johnson.

George Zoffinger’s war on Rutgers

Or as I call it, Josh and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

It’s absolutely remarkable that Margolin and Sherman are still clinging to their disproven allegations.

Hopefully ESPN.com or someone will pick up Tom Luicci when the Ledger goes under in the next few months. Can’t imagine that he’s too happy about them torpedoing a relationship that he’s worked years to cultivate.

As to the story itself, no one ever accused the Rutgers AD of being competent. No one should accuse them of graft either. They’re just bad at their job, they’re not criminals. They couldn’t successfully embezzle anything if they wanted to.

I’m trying not to sound like a broken record, but it’s really a shame that the sports media; hell, the entire meta-journalism media, hasn’t picked up on what an utter travesty is going on here.

Please submit questions

The authors of The Bulldog Bounce (Fresno State blog) and TarHeelFan (UNC) have both graciously agreed to do brief Q&As for Bleed Scarlet (likewise, I will answer a few of their questions).

If all goes to plan, I will post the answers from The Bulldog Bounce next week. Please respond in the comments of this entry with questions for both blogs. Alternatively, you can submit questions to me by email (upper lefthand corner), or post them on one of the various Rutgers forums on the internet, and maybe I’ll come across it.

8/19 Recruiting Update

Elizabeth RB and erstwhile Rutgers target Ray Graham (brother of ‘08 recruit Khaseem Green) committed to Pittsburgh on Saturday. Graham is a tremendous player, but Rutgers had not been recruiting him strongly due to grade concerns. Graham attended practice last Wednesday I believe, and claimed to have received an offer from Rutgers then. That claim has not been verified, and it is unknown whether the supposed offer had additional conditions applied to it. My personal belief is that, if Graham holds a committable offer, his recruiting process is far from over. Mike Farrell quoted Graham as saying that he’s done, but again, Mike Farrell.

In other RB news, here’s an update on Lamar Miller:

Miller mentioned Rutgers may be another school to get an official visit. He also let SoFLAfootball know of one school that will not get an official visit.

Miller is a terrific running back prospect, but has serious grade issues and may not qualify.

Irvington athlete Joshua Evans is saying a whole lot of nothing.

Three-star athlete Joshua Evans hasn’t taken any visits recently. The 6-foot-2, 185-pounder plans to start looking into official visits in the near future.

“I haven’t gone anywhere yet, everything is equal,” he stated. “Everyone is showing me a lot of love.

“I haven’t begun to narrow my list. I like all the schools and am happy to be in this situation. I have 29 offers and I’m looking at all of them.”

When will Evans look into officials?

“Eventually, probably around next month or a couple months from now I’ll look at what schools I want to visit,” he said. “I’ll be looking for what every player wants, the depth chart, who is coming back, who I’ll be battling with to see if I’ll see the field. I want to become part of a family.”

A traitor among us

Every Rutgers fan simply must read Rick Malwitz’s piece from THNT today.

While Zoffinger sees his job as carefully minding the books, others see a different agenda.

Some say Zoffinger would still like Mulcahy’s job.

Zoffinger denied that he wanted the job in 1997, until he was shown a copy of the story published in the Home News Tribune the day former director of athletics Fred Gruninger stepped down.

“I would attribute that statement to not closing doors,” Zoffinger said last week.

That does not explain half of Zoffinger’s malfeasance.

The negotiations between the football teams and the state widened a wedge between Zoffinger and Codey.

“In my 34 years in politics, I never met a more dishonest person than George Zoffinger,” said Codey.

Codey said negotiations meant to be private were leaked to the media. Codey said he confronted Zoffinger, who admitted leaking information. “George swore he wouldn’t do it again. Then, he’d do it again,” said Codey.

“Codey’s an idiot, and you can print that,” said Zoffinger.

Leaking information you say. Dick Codey is likely to be elected as the next Governor of New Jersey, and is one of the few politicians in the state with positive approval ratings.

In 2004, during the period between McGreevey’s announcement he was leaving office and the date he officially resigned, the governor nominated Zoffinger to serve on the Rutgers board of governors.

The nomination was opposed by a group of students suggesting Zoffinger’s role as chairman of the board at DEVCO would conflict with Rutgers’ interests.

Zoffinger said he recuses himself from all activities on the Rutgers board dealing with DEVCO, and noted that he championed the students when he was the only one to vote against the recent 8.5 percent tuition hike.

“George works the media. He knows when he casts the only negative vote he becomes the story,” said Ron Giaconia, who served on the Board of Governors until his term expired in 2007.

If only we had listened to those students then.

It was reported by the Star-Ledger of Newark that there was an agreement between Mulcahy and Schiano that would not require Schiano to pay a $500,000 buyout, should he seek a head coaching job elsewhere.

Mulcahy and a person familiar with the language of Schiano’s contract say no such agreement exists.

Zoffinger isn’t convinced. “There is a signed agreement somewhere, and they haven’t found it,” he said.

That “person familiar with the language of Schiano’s contract” being Schiano himself as a press conference. Let there be no remaining doubt: as suspected, Zoffinger leaked the unfinished draft clause. If nobodies on the internet can put two and two together, there’s no doubt that Schiano, Mulcahy, and McCormick have and want to get this clown out of their hair as soon as possible. It’s doubly wrong of Zoffinger to keep raising this issue when he’s proven to be dead wrong.

And Zoffinger does not believe Schiano will remain at Rutgers when 84-year-old Penn State head coach Joe Paterno retires. “Greg Schiano, in my opinion, will go to Penn State in a heartbeat,” said Zoffinger.

I had refrained from citing Zoffinger’s status as a Penn State booster in the past as evidence of misconduct. However, it’s hard to see that not playing a role in this quote, which is equal parts trying to twist a knife into the heart of every Rutgers fan. Undoubtedly, Zoffinger is probably responsible for a large amount of the unfounded buzz on this topic.

Yikes

Our relative health couldn’t last forever.

Kevin Haslam, Rutgers’ starting left guard, went down early in practice with an ankle injury. While Greg Schiano said he didn’t know the severity of the injury, the Rutgers coach acknowledged that it was the same ankle that Haslam had surgically repaired in April.

“It’s his ankle,” Schiano said, only adding, “we’ll see” when asked if it’s an injury of lasting concern.

Haslam, who played in all 13 games last fall, starting six at right guard, was having a solid summer by all accounts. The 6-foot-7, 290-pound junior appeared firmly entrenched as the replacement for two-year starter Mike Fladell.

While redshirt sophomore Howard Barbieri manned the position after Haslam went down, Schiano said it was premature to get into who would move in if Haslam is out for an extended period.

“If he’s out,” Schiano said, “we’ll make some decisions.”

Rutgers had already shuffled its second-team line, essentially having left guard Matt Hardison and center Marlon Romulus trade positions.

“I think Rumulus not having to have the ball in his hands, I think he’s a better guard than center,” Schiano said. “We’ll see if that’s true.”

In other news, Robinson was active in practice yesterday. Dennis Campbell returned as well. Most of the depth chart appears set:

While the majority of Rutgers’ starting spots on offense and defense appear set, Schiano said right guard and strong safety are two positions he’ll be keeping a close eye on in the scrimmage. “”I want to see how (Caleb) Ruch plays, see how he does,” Schiano said of Rutgers’ current starter at right guard. Zaire Kitchen and Joe Lefeged, meanwhile, will battle it out at safety.

I did a Q&A last week for Saturday Sound Offs. It was posted yesterday. The one thing I regret at this point is not mentioning Bines as part of the DT rotation.

2008 Season Preview: Defensive Line

Projected depth chart:

DE: Jamaal Westerman (RS-SR 6′3, 265 lbs), Jon Freeny (SO 6′3, 240 lbs)
DT: Pete Tverdov (SR 6′4, 270 lbs), Charlie Noonan (RS-SO 6′2, 265 lbs)
DT: Alex Silvestro (SO 6′4, 250 lbs), Blair Bines (JR 6′2, 260 lbs)
DE: George Johnson (JR 6′4, 260 lbs), Gary Watts (SR 6′3, 245 lbs)

Or, as I call them (warning, don’t GIS smurf if you value your sanity)

Monday action packed super amazing update

Mason Robinson is still banged up. The good news is that Kordell Young has stepped up in his place. Robinson did return to practice on Saturday.

There was no practice on Sunday, largely because of double sessions on Saturday and today. Some players are banged up, but it’s nothing major apparently. No more two-a-days after that. Greg Schiano wasn’t all smiles on friday.

A couple interesting blurbs from Aditi’s Sunday Mailbag.

Well, Blair – a former high school tailback – has seized that and is, Greg said, “getting better every day.” He’s still probably behind Alex Silvestro, who has more experience up there, but for a guy who’s for the first time playing with one hand on the ground, Blair’s “certainly got the ability,” Greg said.

Teddy’s made remarkable progress. Remember, when he came in last year, he’d never punted in the rain before. He’s spent a year acclimating to northeast weather and I expect you’ll see a big improvement in Rutgers’ punt protection team too. Tiquan Underwood said having a designated special teams coach, who has no other position groups, makes a difference. I haven’t seen anything to argue with that.

Words cannot express how happy this makes me. Rutgers ranked 95th in defending kick returns last year, and a dreadful 117th out of 119 in net punting. If the ST units had even been average, Rutgers swings a game or too. At minimum the UConn game. BTW, in that mailbag, Aditi also talks a bit about the tight controls RU exercises over the press.

Ray Rice and Brian Leonard both played well on Saturday night. NFL.com has highlights. According to wire reports, Leonard left the game early with a shoulder injury. There’s more bad news, as Eric Foster reportedly was kicked in the calf.

This site has a nice breakdown of who voted for each team in the preseason AP poll. Aditi voted for RU at #20.

8/18 Around the Big East

CFN published their 2008 Big East preview. I don’t think it’s very good, but whatever.

Say it ain’t so, Brian Kelly. Toning down the offense? Sorry, but I’m still bitter about that swinging gate play from the end of the 2006 opener.

UConn is trying to get past a recent rash of injuries.

Will Matt Simms win Louisville’s backup quarterback job? Speaking of wayward Jersey sons - Derrick Caracter, once described as “Derrick Coleman without the work ethic”, has forfeited his umpteenth chance with their basketball team.

Pitt’s young offensive line looks to be a weird mirror image of ours - they have run blocking down pat, but need to do better in pass protection.

ZEISE: The offensive line is coming together — particularly as a run-blocking unit - but it still has a ways to go. And it still struggles in pass blocking and it is clear to me that speed rushers at defensive end will give Pitt problems all season. That being said, left tackle Jason Pinkston is really starting to come on strong and he has shown flashes this week that he can become a dominant tackle. Also, John Malecki just continues to get better every day. Of course, with a running back like LeSean McCoy, the line doesn’t need to be great to be effective. The other day, for instance, the right side of the line got blown up and McCoy looked like he was trapped in the backfield — except, he juked the linebacker who had him lined up for the tackle out of his shoes and then ran for about 30 yards before coaches blew the whistle.

Putting star freshman Lucas Nix on the Anthony Davis plan (working him in at guard to prepare him for a larger role next year) may not be the answer here. Young linemen can pancake defenders on pure talent. To keep their QB’s jersey clean, they’re going to have to get in shape and learn proper technique. If Paul Zeise is correct, then hopefully we will catch Pitt early enough that our pass rush will be a difference maker.

Rare good news from Syracuse: Boonah and Carter are working their way back to full speed.

Jim Leavitt is really laying on the coachspeak.

“I saw as much as I needed to see. We ran about 80 plays. The rain did kind of catch us a little bit there,” USF coach Jim Leavitt said. “It was 1’s vs. 2’s until I got mad, then we went 1’s and 1’s for a while and 2’s and 2’s. I just didn’t think we were as sharp as I was really hoping.

“We don’t have a lot of depth,” Leavitt said. “We have some guys that are going to go out and try to play as hard as they can. What kind of team do we have? We’ll find out soon enough.”

Storylines from the end of WVU camp. Noel Devine sat out during their final practice.