Big Ten Football: Catch the excitement!

Over the past few days, events have reached a fever pitch. In the face of a changing landscape, it is no longer possible to ignore the question on everyone’s mind: is it time for Rutgers to join the Big Ten?

Now, normally folks, I wouldn’t think twice about this topic, but that was before those long-standing rumors actually started to have some substance behind them. Last week Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez ignited this firestorm, by making public comments that spurred a formal response from the Big Ten on Monday.

Now all rank speculation has an air of respectability, and Rutgers fans can daydream about plating the weight room in gold and training tables full of caviar. Is it time to pay attention to a topic that I’ve gone out of my way to ignore, and even actively show contempt for in the past year?

Now, let’s all get ourselves pumped with some exciting Big Ten football highlights. Be sure to mute the video as to not distract yourself from the exhilarating action.

Man, that sent shivers down my spine! Quaking in my boots here! Who can possibly wait for some of that hard-hitting action. Sign me up today, I can’t wait for Rutgers to get its surely-forthcoming invite!

(This post is shameless ripped off from this. All requisite apologies to Alexi Lalas.)

From a whisper

It turns out that Barry Alvarez was just letting the cat out of the bag a few days early. Before I was out the door this morning, I saw a story on the Chicago Tribune’s website about growing support for Big Ten expansion. Then, a conference spokesman confirmed that an announcement was forthcoming, Soon enough,

The Big Ten is looking to add a 12th member to the conference, the league announced today. Its Council of Presidents/Chancellors (COP/C) “believes that the timing is right for the conference to once again conduct a thorough evaluation of options for conference structure and expansion,” the statement said. “As a result, the commissioner (Jim Delany) was asked to provide recommendations for consideration by the COP/C over the next 12 to 18 months.”

I for one, am not looking forward to an unbearable, endless cascade of rumors and speculation.

If something actually happens on that front, fine. Until then, I’m not going to sit around and pine for an awful football conference that happens to have a lot of ill-gotten money (i.e., Jim Delaney is standing directly in the way of a playoff, and the Big Ten network is a giant middle finger to fans, designed to directly capture more of their entertainment dollars). The Big Ten obviously brings (unwarranted) financial stability, and (unwarranted) great bowl bids to the table. Notre Dame is the only program that’s a natural match in terms of geographic footprint and unwarranted hype, so they’ll undoubtedly get the first call. Rutgers is probably the next most attractive expansion candidate, even though there’s no reason to rehash why at the moment. Tim Brewster told Steve Politi that he liked Rutgers as a candidate a while back, you’d think that Joe Paterno is probably on board, and that’s just for starters.

It’s not a slam dunk though. As inept as the Big East leadership is, and even considering how Rutgers usually draws the short end of the stick when Providence has anything to say about anything (re: UConn angling its way into the Pizza Bowl in Birmingham, and proceeding to sell 6,000 less tickets than Rutgers did last year), accepting an invite to what is, let’s not mince words, a cartel would be soulless and wrong. In a just world, the trio of Penn State, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse could have put their petty differences aside back in the day, and we’d actually have conference affiliations that made geographic sense.

The lesson from that, and similar debacles, is that Rutgers can’t stand idly by, and it can’t be Joe Paterno’s lapdog either. It has to make the decisions that are in the best interests of Rutgers. Unfortunately, with the money at stake, that would likely mean holding our noses and accepting any invitation if it ever comes to that, even taking account how plain boring and overrated Big Ten football has been in recent years. Even putting aside all the other, very sound reasons why making a jump would be a bad idea. All Rutgers fan should be filled with disgust and contempt at the Big Ten conference. We despise you. Now give us your money.

Note on bowl projections

Keith Sargeant had a very informative post yesterday about RU’s bowl prospects. Basically, the Meineke Bowl wants nothing, at all, to do with Pittsburgh (if they lose to Cincinnati), echoing their comments from last year. Something clearly has to give with the other bowls. Rutgers beat USF and UConn this year, but unfortunately the International Bowl picks first even though all three teams would rather go to St. Pete or Birmingham. Based on the belief that UConn won’t go to Toronto again (although they could go to Detroit), and that USF won’t be sent to cold weather, many projections floating around the net have Rutgers heading back to Toronto. I don’t see how Rutgers would stand for that though. It’s quite a stalemate, which is all the more reason to play well on Saturday.

I am a bit confused about one part of it though. The Meineke Bowl may indeed want Miami, but will they have the opportunity to take the Canes? They may not, because the Peach and Champs Sports bowls get their pick of the ACC before Meineke, and Miami to the Orlando-based Champs Bowl seems to be a natural fit.

Complicating matters is that even though nearly everyone in Morgantown and Blacksburg believed over the past week that West Virginia and VT would end up playing in Charlotte or Jacksonville, it now looks like the Peach Bowl wants the Hokies.

Now, that doesn’t matter in the sense that West Virginia is a near certainty to go to the Gator Bowl because of their fan support, even if it means jumping a one-loss Cincinnati team. However, the ACC lineup could portend trouble for RU’s chances to land in Charlotte. For instance, suppose UNC ends up playing in that game again. Not only would a Rutgers/UNC game be unappealing considering that the two teams played last year, and are set to meet again in 2010, but UNC would sell enough tickets to the game that Pittsburgh’s reputation for anemic fan support may not matter. Miami and Clemson are good fits for Rutgers though, and it looks like either UNC or Miami will get the bid.

One further complication that I don’t understand: could a 6-6 FSU team jump BC and their worst-in-FBS travelling contingent for the Meineke bid, once again exiling the Eagles to San Francisco? I didn’t think it was possible because of NCAA regulations about 6-6 teams having to wait behind winning teams, but the Charlotte Observer does not think so.

I wrote that last night, but now comes word that the Gator Bowl has designs on inviting Florida State, even though it would seem to be precluded by their contract. It’s not like we already didn’t know that some very sketchy and unethical people run that bowl, and hopefully they’ll be shut down like the Sun Bowl was last year.

Fear of Jarrett Brown-ing

Jarrett Brown, West Virginia’s senior starting quarterback, has had an up and down season. He torched East Carolina, and followed that game up by throwing 4 interceptions at Auburn. After Brown was hurt against Marshall, it was up to Noel Devine to save the day against UConn, and then the offense slogged through uninspiring performances against USF and Louisville. Given that Pat White may be the most beloved player in Mountaineer history, it may have been asking too much for anyone to fill his shoes.

Rutgers fans have reason to fear Brown though. With White out, Brown started at QB in an absolutely gut-wrenching overtime loss in Morgantown at the end of the 2006 regular season. It was no 80-7, but that loss arguably stung more, with Rutgers not only failing to secure a conference title during its best season in decades, but eventually relegated (once again) to a second-tier bowl against an overmatched opponent. I’m going to put the frustration angle aside for now, because it’s sure to come up more during the week.

Here’s a thought that may sound heretical, but I do have a very specific reasoning for it, so hear me out. There’s no debate that White was an incredible player, and was far superior to Brown. However, for that one specific game, I would have rather played White. The Rutgers defense traditionally has had a lot of speed under Greg Schiano, and they’ve had a decent amount of experience defending the different flavors of option/spread-option. In 2006, the one achilles heel of the defense was in the secondary. Rutgers ranked 69th in defensive pass effiency, despite finishing fifth in sacks and tackles for loss, and 17th in total rushing defense (surrendering less than three yards per carry, a good number albeit undoubtedly scouted by specific schemes and personnel).

Now, Steve Slaton ran for his customary 112 yards and 2 touchdowns, but that wasn’t honestly that bad considering that he averaged 7 yards per carry on the year, and put up comic book numbers against the rest of the schedule. USF (another defense emphasizing speed) was the only team that fared better against the elite Mountaineer rushing attack, and they always have West Virginia’s number, just like Rutgers always beats USF, and West Virginia always beats us. Rochambeau.

Now, as amazing an overall player as Pat White was, I didn’t think much of him as a passer. He had a lot of screens to backs, and had a big arm for the deep ball, but didn’t have much accuracy on the intermediate stuff. Purely in terms of passing, Brown is better. West Virginia had only 305 pass attempts last year, and they’re already at 308 with two games remaining. Brown’s overall line on the night (1 TD, 1 INT, completed less than 50% of his passes) wasn’t that impressive, but he did throw for 8.4 yards per attempt. That indicates many long completions, and I recall a lot of them coming on third and longs. I’m not saying that Brown is anywhere near as good as White (although he is a decent player), or that Rutgers would have necessarily won that game against White. I will always be curious as to how things would have unfolded though.

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.

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.

How Doug Marrone is like a totalitarian dictator

Here’s some food for thought.

• Doug Marrone rules with an iron fist over the vast plane of desolate, inhospitable tundra known as Upstate New York. The region’s traditional sport involves masked thugs attacking each other with rubber balls and netted sticks.
• There is zero tolerance for dissent, leading to frequent purges of any remaining players with ties to the previous regime. Judging from the way Michigan’s defense has looked this year, Greg Robinson has yet to resurface.
• Awash in the new Mandate of Heaven, they’re eager to establish link to past foregone imperial glory days.
• Overworked wounded subordinates are dropping like flies.
• The fearless leader is a purveyor of newspeak, believes in the One, True Adjective above all others.
• He allegedly attributes past failures to vast, insidious conspiracy by the (clearly omnipotent) Rutgers football program. No subsequent witnessess have surfaced, as they were all sent to labor camps for re-education.
• There was recently a bizarre public outburst in defense of favored apparatchiks. Ryan Nassib better watch out for icepick-wielding assassins, and I’m not talking about Joe Lefeged.

You know, it was surprisingly hard to find enough quotes to do a Kanye/Hitler style riff here. Why does Marrone have to be so damned boring? Can’t he spout easily-twistable country colloquialisms like Bill Stewart does (e.g., “It’s a lot easier if you have bullets in the holster”)?

What’s really sad is that his pressers don’t even show up in the top Google search results for the T-word. Wouldn’t manipulating those page rankings be the perfect X-Mas gift? More importantly, do they even celebrate our western bourgeois holidays in the fiefdom?

Going six with Orange::44

Here’s my Q&A with Brian from Orange::44, the other half should be available there. Unlike with the last one with The UConn Blog, I didn’t fantasize about destroying East Brunswick with nuclear weapons (this time at least, no guarantees for the future) or savage Lil’ Jovi, although I kept looking for an in there.

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How do you assess Doug Marrone’s first season as head coach? How has he and the Orange football team fared by your expectations going into the season?

It is truly tough to answer this question because this team Syracuse currently has is not the team we started with.  Through various circumstances including players quitting and injuries Syracuse is a shell of its former self, losing over 20 players since the season began.  None more impactful than Mike Williams for the offense and Arthur Jones on the defense.  These two players were excellent as Jones anchored the best rush defense in the conference, and Mike Williams led the conference in reception yards.  Losing both players is a huge loss for Syracuse.  So it truly is impossible to say if the team is living up to expectations.  I myself predicted a five win season, but that was judging by the talent we had.  Therefore I suppose with the team we currently have, and I don’t expect another win, they are right on par with my expectations.  Before that, they started the season very well, looking much improved from the Greg Robinson era, passing the eyeball test.  They were just slightly underperforming their first couple of Big East games, but in general they were right about where they should be for the talent level on the team.
 
As for Marrone, while he has made some rookie mistakes along the way, overall he is exactly what the program needed.  He is a hard ass with rules, and is an alumnus of Syracuse University.  Oh yeah, and he seems to be able to recruit, which as everyone knows is one of the biggest keys to college football.  Plus, as stupid as this sounds, realizes that to be able to tackle in a game you have to tackle in practice.  Something Greg Robinson never got.  Like the fan base, I am overall very pleased with Marrone as coach, and what he has done with the program, especially restoring some old traditions that went by the wayside when Robinson took over.

The History Card

If Syracuse football has any supposed trump cards over Rutgers, you’d think that it’d be centered on their program’s tradition. They’re 38th in all-time DI-A/FBS winning percentage, and had two very successful periods (between the late ’50s to late ’60s under Ben Schwartzwalder, and between the late ’80s to late ’90s under Dick MacPherson and Paul Pasqualoni). Between Jim Brown, Larry Csonka, Floyd Little, Ernie Davis, and Joe Morris, they’ve put out as many quality backs as any program.

SU holds the edge in the all-time series between the schools, at 28-10-1, which is better than their records against any other Big East football opponent. For any fans who started following SU football at some point during the MacPherson/Pasqualoni eras, it’s obvious why Rutgers winning five of the last six games in the series, and six of the last ten (yes, Terry Shea actually beat a McNabb-less Cuse on 11/13/99 in overtime) is so disconcerting.

That’s where the Orange faithful are coming from. Fine and good, but my counter is that all those past letter winners don’t have any eligibility left. Every program will have ebbs and flows in its trajectory (Frank Maloney didn’t win all that much in the seventies), and the ’90s not only saw Syracuse a high note, but Rutgers football hit its absolute nadir under Shea, a disasterous hiring with an uncanny number of similarities to Greg Robinson.

It could be worse for Syracuse

It’s been a trying couple of years up in Orangeland. Greg Robinson’s tenure itself constituted a level of misery that most programs typically don’t see over the course of a century. Uncoincidentally, Rutgers has only recent managed to emerge from depths brought on by a similarly disasterous hire, so I can empathize. The program has been through a lot, and 2009 was supposed to mark a new beginning with the first step of their rebuilding process under Doug Marrone. The latest outrage? ESPN exercised an exclusivity clause in their contract to bar SNY and other regional Big East Network affiliates from airing the upcoming RU/SU game, which will solely available through their 360 streaming video service.

As anyone who’s followed Rutgers football can attest, rebuilding, while absolutely necessary after hitting rock bottom, won’t happen over night. Marrone and Syracuse have a long and difficult road ahead of them. No matter what’s said on message boards and blogs, no matter how many guido jokes on Twitter this week, it’s not a process that I’d wish on any program (excepting one particular one located in South Bend). Still, obstacles were to be expected. When Marrone dismissed 20+ players off the roster after taking over, including several contributors, that was an eye-popping number on the surface, but really shouldn’t have been. Happens all the time in rebuilding.

That lack of depth made any chance to be competitive this year largely doomed from the start. True, they came out firing on all cylinders in September, and regardless of any subsequent mistakes, Marrone and staff do deserve credit for those early efforts. It was inevitable that injuries would eventually start piling up, but the specific circumstances surrounding their more-recent roster attrition (e.g., Mike Williams quitting the team, those random JUCOs leaving which I didn’t really pay much attention to, Arthur Jones tearing his meniscus, compounded by a loss by their basketball team to DII LeMoyne) renders any comparisons to the biblical Book of Job not entirely on the level of hyperbole, or even downright plausible.

This got me to thinking a bit, because the narrative of all these events was vaguely familiar, although I couldn’t quite place exactly what I was recalling at first beyond the obvious parallels to Job. Then, it hit me all of a sudden. Take the following basic structure: unspeakable, nearly-unprecedented hardship compressed into a relative short period of time. The reasoning then follows that things could not possibly get any worse, as they have already sunk to rock bottom. There’s no more ghost to give; and yet, somehow they do in such an immediately striking and painful way. And then, they sink even deeper.

You know where I’ve seen this all before? Months ago, I had the misfortune of reading the Wikipedia entry for the seminal 1970s band Badfinger (which I don’t recommend reading for the faint of heart). Basically, they were scammed by their manager, and the resulting financial and stress caused one of the members to take his own life. Another never got over that death, and killed himself a decade later. Honestly, it’s one of the most tragic stories out there which doesn’t involve harm to innocent children.

Well, it was just a dumb point I wanted to make, as there’s not really a lesson here beyond the chance that things can indeed always get worse. By the way, the first commentator that compares Rutgers to Squeeze in this analogy will get IP-banned.