Maybe, just maybe

The Titans shouldn’t have let Kenny Britt stew on the bench behind their mediocre veteran receivers for two months, while the team stumbled on the way to an 0-6 start.

Will exams get in the way?

Greg Auman reported last week that the St. Pete Bowl was likely to invite Rutgers or UConn (barring the outcomes of next week’s games). Technically, the International (Toronto) and PapaJohn’s.com (Birmingham) bowls have first dibs before St. Pete, but my understanding is that, in practice, the Big East office works with the three to set up the best logistical matchups (a point echoed by Auman). Hence, they don’t want to send a team to the same game two years in a row, and want to avoid sending a team like USF all the way to Canada.

I think that Rutgers is likely to get the nod over UConn for several reasons if it came down to those two teams. Rutgers won the head to head matchup (although, UConn may very well be the better team this year…), they’re a bigger name, hail from a bigger media market, and have a better travelling reputation. Now, on Wednesday, an Orlando Sentinel blogger reported that UConn was unlikely to accept any bid to the St. Pete bowl if it was offered, as it conflicts with their finals schedule. Does that mean they’re ticketed for Toronto (or a trade with Detroit?) However, Dec. 19th falls right in the middle of the Rutgers finals too. I have to think that Rutgers would absolutely not turn St. Pete considering the other options, although this is one more reason to try to win next week, because the bowl in Charlotte is on the 26th.

Yes, I am completely discounting the possibility of a Notre Dame win over Stanford, which could further throw a wrench into things.

And so it begins

From Pro Football Weekly:

Davis has the mass, base strength, athletic ability and feet to play on the left side in the NFL. And he knows it, which has been one of his biggest problems in college and is expected to be in the pros. The immature 20-year-old has been suspended for violating team rules and allowing his weight to fluctuate too much, to the point where he was temporarily demoted during training camp prior to this season. Despite possessing natural talent, Davis’ character is suspect and could knock him off many draft boards. He is expected to declare for the draft following the season but will come with a “buyer beware” tag.

On one hand, the innuendo and rumors about NFL draft prospects can go too far at times. It’s a mistake to read too much into his suspension last year, or a one week demotion during fall camp in August for being 10 lbs overweight. Rutgers runs a zone scheme; at other schools he’d be downright slender.

However, Davis’s play has noticeably slipped this year, and I’m not just saying that because everyone’s expectations of him are so high. Yes, Rutgers fans want him to play like Orlando Pace in his prime on every snap, and that is unfair. At points this year I think he has dogged it though. That’s why I singled him out for criticism at points, even though he’s far and away the team’s best lineman.

Compare and contrast A.D. to Kenny Britt last year; Britt was dominant in all facets, and in fact, clearly looked like a NFL player as a sophomore. I screamed bloody murder when critics who probably weren’t even watching the games were knocking Britt, as he was the offense’s only weapon in September and October, and was still dominating despite defenses focusing all of their attention on him. With Davis, that top level dominance to match his raw attributes isn’t there. He’s still a work in progress.

When looking at this question though, you have to be objective and take off your Ray Rice jersey for a minute. Davis is a freakish athlete. 40-yard dash times don’t matter one iota for offensive tackles (although they may correlate with doing well in other athletic drills), but actually the thing PFW said that I take the most issue with is his estimated 40 time. Davis has nimble feet, and moves downfield like a monster, and that’s what NFL evaluators look at. They want traits that project to the next level, and they project based on how they see a prospect developing as a pro, not necessarily with how they performed in college.

Anthony declaring for the draft the moment this year’s bowl game ends isn’t exactly a well-kept secret. It was probably a foregone conclusion as soon as his film went out to every school in the country. I don’t begrudge him for his choice; he has a right to earn a living and support his family. I appreciate the fact that he decided to stay home and prove that elite prospects could attend Rutgers. Still, I can’t help but wonder whether or not his draft stock would be much higher if he did come back and have a strong senior season protecting Tom Savage’s blind side.

Maybe he’ll get a bad projection from the NFL, but he’s probably gone regardless. A record number of juniors are expected to declare this year, again. There’s always, always, always a run on linemen in every draft, and he blows the door off recent selections like Duane Brown or Sam Baker. In the end, I don’t know if any of those other tackle prospects are as good as Anthony, and that’s reason enough to declare. If he wants it, he can be the best out there. At least with the next two games televised, he’ll have the requisite stage to prove his case.

Dude can play

I caught the Louisville game on tv today, although I haven’t had any time to post until now because of the holiday.

Oh hey, thanks ESPN for playing nice with YouTube now.

Following last week’s debacle, I was curious as to what. if any, tricks Steve Kragthorpe would pull out of the playbook today. As it turns out, not much, and that’s one of many reasons that he’s likely out the door. Not to take anything away from Syracuse, who just kicked Rutgers in the teeth, but when their players are coming out and saying that they looked at Rutgers as their bowl game, and that’s the one they want more than anything, I don’t know if it’s fair to draw any further conclusions from that about the state of RUTGERS football this year and going forward. Give them that feather in their cap, but I don’t think it meant all that much for Rutgers beyond as a sign of continuing, baffling inconsistency, and highlighting certain personnel issues (porous OL play and lack of upperclassmen contributors at offensive skill positions) with this year’s roster.

Anyway, back to the Cards. You do have to give Kragthorpe one thing; this one wasn’t like last year, where the Cards quit at the opening whistle. In fact, Louisville has played tough in most of their games this season. Only Cincy and Pitt beat them by a larger margin (Rutgers the third best team in the Big East? Maybe so.) The Cards gave WVU and USF all they could handle, and gutted out a win against a superior Cuse team two weeks ago. They have a decent home record, and we did blow it at Papa John’s two years ago, so I’m happy to take a win. In fact, this one was slightly more impressive than it seemed when the offense was struggling in the second half, because the outcome was never really in doubt.

Kragthorpe has been a trainwreck for the Louisville program, and will deservedly get a pink slip in the coming days, but maybe he was on to something with all his blathering on about “character” in his weekly press conferences. Doesn’t excuse his poor clock management in the fourth quarter though. UL probably wouldn’t have done anything, but I don’t know why they were running the ball and going for short passes when down by two scores. I think the Rutgers offense was being deliberately conservative by that point, more than willing to trade yardage for time, and it paid off.

My blogpoll ballot: week twelve

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Florida
3	TCU
4	Texas
5	Cincinnati
6	Georgia Tech
7	Pittsburgh
8	Boise State
9	Oregon
10	Virginia Tech	6
11	Oregon State	1
12	Ohio State	3
13	Stanford	3
14	Oklahoma State	1
15	Clemson	3
16	Southern Cal	2
17	Iowa
18	California	1
19	North Carolina	2
20	Penn State
21	Nebraska
22	LSU	11
23	Miami (Florida)
24	Mississippi
25	Arkansas
Last week’s ballot

Dropped Out: Arizona (#22), Wisconsin (#24), Navy (#25).

Submitted this morning, but I forgot to post it. Probably didn’t spend enough time on my selections.

Jersey basketball in the pits

Unfortunately, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn cleared another major legal hurdle yesterday. As much as I wanted them to thrive (in Newark), and start picking up the pieces, I’ve just about given up at this point, and am just waiting for the Nets to leave so I can give up on pro basketball entirely. That is, if Forrest City doesn’t bungle this step as they have all other aspects of the process. It’s truly sad what Bruce Ratner has done to what was a successful franchise only several years ago. This isn’t just about uprooting a team; the Atlantic Yards project is on a Dickensian level of evil owing to the fact that it’s going to destroy a perfectly good neighboorhood for no good reason at all. New York is telling the little guy to take a hike for the whims of a private developer, for a project that isn’t even viable without state subsidy, and is projected to have a negative economic impact.

Once again, kudos go out to Steve Politi from the Ledger, who’s made this story his own. At one hand, I just want to be out of my misery at this point, but then Politi has to go and drop a scoop about the Nets moving to The Rock next year. Has to be hedging their bets, as there remains a glimmer of hope is that the sordid mess gets Xanadu’d (2), with no investor interest in a completely superfluous project having zero in the way of grassroots community demand or interest. The real estate bubble is over, and both seemed garish and risky back when any idiot could get overleveraged credit and pass along the risk to the next sucker that came along

I have to take issue with somethng Timothy Du said the other day; it’s not fair to blame Lawrence Frank for this mess (by the way, Byron Scott was a bad coach, our boy Eddie Jordan was running the show back then). No, Lawrence Frank is awesome, and I’d take that Jersey guy in a second at the helm of Rutgers men’s basketball.

That’s all I’m saying for the time being; my post on Fred Hill a few weeks back was so long because I wanted to cover points so that I didn’t have to keep revisiting the subject throughout the year. What else is there really to say about a team that can’t make free throws or prevent turnovers? Hill’s tenure is so pathetic that he can’t even match Steve Kragthorpe’s futility as the worst coach employed by any Big East conference team. He’s failed at failing. Unfortunately, due to finances Rutgers is most likely going to keep backsliding over the next two years. A lot of good Rosario and Echenique do when they can’t beat Vermont (who were just blown out by a Providence team that lost everyone), and there aren’t any more Rosarios or Echeniques coming down the pike. Honestly, two more years of this level of futility will set the program back so far that any buyout will look like a pittance. The facilities hurt, sure, but not nearly as much as having a head coach far in over his head.

Forget Syracuse; football season needs to never end at this point. Not when USF fans are joking about our basketball team. USF! Oh well, at least there’s always the wrestling team.

Happy Thoughts: Kenny Britt

I think Tennessee’s revival can be credited more to Chris Johnson and an improved defense than their passing game, but it’s fun to watch nonetheless.

This last one is more pointless than anything else, but does feature Kenny.

Can we just make it a rule that juniors have to dominate like Britt or Rice did before everyone projects them to make millions in the NFL?

Couple links after the jump.

11/24 Recruiting Update

The competition in South Carolina is no match for Chas Dodd and Byrnes.

Most of the news lately is centered around all of the out of state targets coming in for the West Virginia game, although a couple locals will be coming the week after that. Maryland receiver Brandon Coleman will be in the house, and the big question is whether he commits, or takes any other official visits.

“I have the Rutgers visit planned for December 4th,” he said. “I’m trying to get Maryland set up soon. I think Maryland is going to be after the season now.”

Other Maryland targets will be making the trip with Coleman, but athlete Josh Furman (and his totally awesome goggles) won’t be. He’s down to Michigan and VT, and my guess would be VT. Speaking of the Maryland area, the Post just had a feature on the Kouandjio brothers. Rutgers was the newest offer for younger brother Cyrus, but it doesn’t look like Arie is as interested as teammates Lorenzo Waters or (especially) Shane Johnson in becoming Scarlet Knights.

The other big target this year is Florida, which has been friendly to Rutgers in recent years, and assistant Brian Jenkins has been working his tail off to reestablish the Knights down there. The one guy to watch is WR/DB Tim Smith. When a West Virginia site is calling Smith a Rutgers/WVU battle, chances are he could very well land in Piscataway.

“The school that’s on him the most in Rutgers,” Hutchings said, adding that RU recruiters have been to watch Smith play this fall.

Other names to watch include Ace Sanders and Jeremi Wilkes. As always the pay sites will likely have far more information about the many other visitors.

Now, 12/12 is on the backburner somewhat with all the names expected to attend on the fifth, but the following weekend will bring visits from the likes of Tejay Johnson.

Johnson is juggling EHT’s playoff run with the demands of being a college recruit. Nebraska, Cincinnati, Michigan State, Rutgers and Syracuse have offered him scholarships. He has visited Nebraska and Cincinnati and plans to visit Rutgers on Dec. 12.

ZAGSBLOG echoes earlier reports about T.J. Clemmings being down to Pitt, Ohio State, and Florida.

FL DE Giorgio Newberry is a new 2011 offer in the Scout database. In 0ther ‘11 news, St. Peter’s Prep DB Sheldon Royster picked up an offer from West Virginia. Neptune RB Charles Davis will soon start taking a few unofficial visits. West Virginia is one of the teams following PA ATH Terrell Chestnut.

Watchlist: Taj Alexander, Myles Jackson, Tyrone Johnson, Doug Rigg, Artie Rowell, John Shkreli, Nate Smith, and James Timmins.

My secret affinity for Charlie Weis

With the guillotine about to fall in South Bend, I feel like it’s finally the right time to get this off my chest, and admit that I actually do feel a lot of empathy for Charlie Weis. It doesn’t meant that I think he is a very good head coach, or condone everything he’s said and done (particularly, his pitches to New Jersey prospects about “Jersey guys sticking together” in the middle of Indiana), but I do like him. It probably has a lot to do with bias towards anyone who has ever been remotely affiliated with the New York Football Giants.

I imagine that if I did have any kind of background in sports, I would want to delude myself into believing that the absolute  best-case scenario for my tenure would be something resembling that of Paul DePodesta with the Dodgers, where he made a series of savvy moves, only to be run of town by self-important cretins like Bill Paschke at the first possible sign of vulnerability. Weis isn’t worthy of that level of martyrdom, as his failings placed the Notre Dame program that much closer to permanently falling off the national radar, but he inadvertantly created more enemies with his perceived arrogance. Now, sportswriters will lap up and explain away all such misgivings if you win (see: Belichick, B. and Parcells, B.), but it’s a thin line before the knives start coming out.

As any driver with experience on New Jersey roadways can attest, profanties and other rude behavior are the rule rather than the exception. You can only hope for a sort of indifference-to-neglect. I can’t even recount how many times I talked with out-of-staters when I was an undergrad at Rutgers, and they all reiterated the same complaint: New Jerseyans are really, really unfriendly. Believe it or not, their primary gripe was that pedestrians on the street don’t ever say “hello” to complete strangers. Wait a second, there are alternate universes where that occurs? Apparently so, considering that even Californians seem to be adamant about this point. It’s no coincidence that television’s House, M.D. is set in Princeton.

 

Hrmph, like those simpletons are worth engaging anyway! Apparently so though; a little gesture and perceived effort go a long way. We’re all lacking in tact out here, and that’s why Weis is heading out the door, and West Virginia’s Bill Stewart, aw-shucks act and all, continues to hang on for the time being. That’s a rough break, as Charlie had grown up his whole life in our gruff, no-nonsense culture, and was a fish out of water in the Midwest. (Watch how sanctimonious the locals at any Big Ten school become in response students from the Northeast, and their supposed big pockets.) I don’t have any direct insight into why Weis said what he said, but I can’t count on two hands the number of times when I have unintentionally come as a self-centered jerk when that totally was not my intention. How many readers are nodding their heads right now and thinking, “yeah, I’ve been there.”

 

Most of all, I think the Weis schadenfreude stems from the fact that he was the head coach at Notre Dame, the most deplorable and wretched football program in all the land. Which, is more than fine. Would anyone even watch them on NBC if it wasn’t to see what new low the Domers can sink to each week? However, this line of thinking creates a new dilemma given what is about to happen. Notre Dame is firing Weis; Notre Dame is automatically at fault, so it follows that Weis must have been wronged, somehow. After all, he did once dream of coaching Rutgers up into a good program. Has to be some good in there.

 

Charlie Weis: a good, fair, misunderstood man crushed by the unrealistic dreams of a mediocre program mired in steady long-term decline. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Let’s welcome Charlie Jr. with open arms.

If Pitt can do it

I saw an interesting item on Brian Bennett’s blog yesterday. Pitt’s athletic department has done a wonderful job of putting together quality OOC schedules over the next several years. I’ve spoken before (sorry, can’t find the post at the moment) about how I look at Pitt as an ideal model for the Rutgers athletic department – in terms of success, academic prestige, and fiscal discipline. They’ve done a masterful job with fundraising (and Tim Pernetti has made the first of many strides here with that), and give their athletic teams all the needed tools to succeed. I look at Pitt though, and I’m still green with envy.

Now, I understand that these deals need to be put together years in advance. Realistically, it’ll be at least five years between when a series is announced and the games are actually played. Still, if Pittsburgh can do it, there’s no good reason why Rutgers cannot. It’s very simple really: they’re using the exact same model for scheduling that I’ve advocated numerous times. Three home and home series games every year (either with BCS conference teams, or “good” mid-major programs like Navy and Utah), arranged in a way to buttress the unbalanced Big East schedule. For instance, two of those OOC games come to Pitt when they only have 3 conference games, and only one OOC team comes in when they have four. To fill out the schedule, buy two games against patsies.

It’s not a mystery. The big obstacle to Rutgers playing a competitive out of conference schedule in the near future is Army. They may or may not be on the level of Navy in the coming years, and I wish them well in those pursuits. Right now, treating Army as an equal partner, whatever the secondary benefits, necessarily must result in Rutgers playing a bad out of conference schedule.

I think Tim Pernetti is off to a great start, and he’s surrounded by K-Mac and other capable people. After 2009, they have to know what’s up (presumably they did earlier, with all the big series announcements several months back). There’s a hunger for Rutgers football in New Jersey, but no one wants to pay $70 a ticket to watch a scrimmage. We want good, competitive games. I understand that what happened with the 2009 schedule was a worst case scenario that everyone tried to avoid, but it’s bound to happen again without implementing the proper changes. That means, a commitment to long-term scheduling, and jettisoning the Army series once and for all. Please, live up to fan expectations by giving Rutgers football the challenges that it deserves over coming seasons. Give our Scarlet Knights the opportunity to show the world what they can do.