Our #1 men’s winter sport

Until the basketball team can win scrimmages against MAAC teams, I’m “fairly” confident that Rutgers men’s basketball is going to take a back seat to the wrestling team this year. With two thirds of football season in the books already, it’s time to look for other RU-related athletic diversions over the next few months, because the women can’t play every night. Hear me out. Yes, this is a bit like asking everyone to give up Christmas for Diwali, but what exactly can we do after Santa keeps bringing a lump of coal every year?

By all indications, the Rutgers wrestling program is on an upswing. Within the next few years, it actually has a chance to be pretty good. Like most readers, I’m in the position of being moderately intrigued by year two of the revitalization, while knowing little to nothing about the sport, and probably inclined to jump off the bandwagon at the first hint of struggle.

I needed a level of expertise proportional to this interest, so I asked a friend from Iowa for comment. Now, if you don’t know anything about the state of Iowa beyond all the corn, they’re into amateur wrestling roughly as much as New Jersey is into hair grease and track suits. The Hawkeyes have won 22 national championships, and are back to their winning ways under their new head coach, Tom Brands. In-state rival Iowa State recently lost their coach, Cael Sanderson, to Penn State – lured by the promises of a rich talent poor, infinite resources, and no longer having to stand in Iowa’s shadow. That’s quite the psychological blow to the Cyclones, given that Sanderson was an ISU alum.

That’s right. Those damned blockheads in Happy Valley saw what their infinitely cooler, smarter, and better looking rivals in New Brunswick were doing on the mat, and followed our lead in what was the most brazen theft since Beaver Stadium appropriated that Zombie Nation techno song from German soccer clubs. If there’s anything that can rouse my interest, it’s competition from Penn State, so I had to get to the bottom of all of this.

What’s the opposite of a pyrrhic victory?

Is there any doubt remaining that Pittsburgh is going to rip Notre Dame to shreds next Saturday?

Sad thing is, if the Gator Bowl has any say about it, they’d still prefer to take the Irish over the Panthers. ND is like an unwanted houseguest that just won’t take a hint. I cannot comprehend their appeal on any level, but that appeal still exists nonetheless.

Which, has to be scaring the living daylights out of the Cincinnati athletic department right now. Jon Gruden and Skip Holtz may have the more obvious ties to South Bend, but it’s increasingly looking like a matter of when, and not if, Brian Kelly will replace Charlie Weis at the helm of the program.

Kelly may talk up the Bearcats to the press, but sports are driven by the bottom line, and college football is no exception. Turning down a Washington may be one thing, but will he be able to say no to Notre Dame and their NBC megabucks when UC is still dragging their feet on promised facility improvements?

But the stadium hurdle will be huge. UC has had a difficult time raising the $13.5 million to $15 million needed for the practice fields. The challenge of raising $50 million to $100 million or more for a stadium renovation looms as a daunting one.

Asked about the stadium Friday, new UC president Greg Williams spoke only in generalities.

“I’m exploring a lot of options,” Williams said.”

Keep forgetting to link this

Recently, one of the fellows behind Chop Shop U sent an email requesting a plug for the site’s custom Rutgers hoodies. I declined his offer of a free sample and can’t attest to the product’s quality. However, Rutgers alumni are behind the company, the merch is officially licensed, and they’re offering a discount, so you may or may not want to check that offer out and then make up your mind.

The Beat Visitor guy put about 10000 times more effort into his writeup, so you may want to check that one out.

Bowl gluttony

Now it’s clear why the Sun Bowl cast its lot with the ACC: the Gator Bowl is apparently close to finalizing a Big Ten/SEC game. Three thoughts:

1. Is there any chance, at all, of resulting bid reshuffling leaving a game like the Liberty or Music City bowls dissatisfied to the point where they would look for another partner?

2. The SEC can arguably stomach a tougher bowl slate, going 5-2 last year. However, it’s ridiculous that the Big Ten can go 1-6 (proving that it’s overmatched and overrated to begin with), and subsequently see an upgrade in its lineup.

3. The reason why this happened, as I’ve pointed out, is because SEC and Big Ten teams have the most fan support. It’s solely an economic decision. Which will turn the Big Ten matchups into blowouts and ratings poison. At some point have to wonder, where is the limit for fans of teams in those two conferences? Can 80,000+ fans continue to fill stadiums for matchups with MAC and Sun Belt patsies, glorified scrimmages held for the sole purposes of filling program coffers and transferring those revenues out of fan pockets? The big guys will be fine, but how do fans of middling programs justify continuing to support those teams with the rust belt economy in tatters? How do you justify going to a near-certain bowl loss?

I’d raise my hands and leave it at “this is completely insane, and college football makes absolutely no sense on so many levels”; but we appear to be about two decades past that level of sheer audacity at this point.

Stand by your band

I really like it when some of my friends can contribute guest posts here. That has been sorely underused, and I’m always looking for opportunities to work them in. In last week’s (I think, definitive) post about Texas Southern football, MY HOUSTON FRIEND gave the lowdown on TSU football. Being that, not only are they one of the worst teams on the FCS level (and believe youme, Cougar fans know their bad football – sorry, cheap shot), but their band, the “Ocean of Soul”, is not exactly up to snuff. Them’s fightin’ words.

Now, I thought any band related drama would be limited to RU commentators complaining about the Marching Scarlet Knights (Highland Park would probably beg to differ), but apparently not. Yesterday, one “Tim Fulghum” stopped by to express his displeasure in a comment. I’ll just let him speak for himself and repost the quote in its entirety.

Who ever wrote this is an idiot. If the Ocean of Soul is as bad as you say, then why were they invited to the Battle of the Bands last year in Atlanta. This is reserved for only the best bands. Have a clue about what you are writing before you write. As far as the football team goes, no there not very good, but they take care of there players and ensure they are getting a quality education. I’t wasn’t long ago that Rutgers wasn’t very good football team either, but you don’t here any TSU fans writing or saying bad things about there program. Instead of worring about Rutgers scheduling poor black schools, you need to focus your attention on your own conference (Cincinnati) where you took a thrasing at home.

Given that I see all Texans through the lens of The Rich Texan from The Simpsons, so at this point, I’m half-expecting Mr. Fulghum to challenge one of us to a duel. MY HOUSTON FRIEND informs me that nearly every SWAC band attended the Battle of the Bands, so there you have it.

As the action on the field Saturday will be completely irrelevant, methinks that Scarlet Knight fans will have something to turn their attentions to in between all the tailgating and homecoming acitivities. The Gauntlet has been thrown down. The Ocean of Soul are are coming, and it will be a deluge of funk and soul. The early line has the marching Scarlet Knights giving -4 to the visitors. Now, sports books are illegal in New Jersey (that’s what Delaware is for), but I don’t see any laws on the books barring these sorts of wagers. So hit AC during the week, and take the points, because the Marching Scarlet Knights are about to crack some skulls in the the only contest that really counts this weekend. Band smack talk rules.

Savage cleared to play

Barring any “setbacks”, Tom Savage is tentatively cleared to play this weekend against Texas Southern. Maybe that homecoming crowd in attendance will be treated to some actual, genuine successful passing plays. Savage playing isn’t necessary to clobber an overmatched opponent who struggles against other FCS schools, but it will give him needed reps for the rest of the season.

Letter to the editor: RU sports isn’t a flash in the pan. He’s correct in one sense. Rutgers football has not been “awful for 100 years”, or any variant of thesort. Anyone making that claim is not very bright. They didn’t place an emphasis on having successful athletic programs, and then tried to do everything on the cheap after they had started aiming hire. All of this was detailed in a series of posts here last year.

Isn’t it interesting how, despite the fact that the Big Ten has been, statitisticall, the worst conference over the past few years, is’t the Big East who ends up getting all of the flak? Early wins by Cincy and USF have shaken everything up, although we’ll see where the conference ratce stands down the line. Still, the Big East is not a bad football conference. Furthermore, it was foolish to expect the BE as a whole to necessarily struggle this season. Its fortunes are tied to the fate of each team. So what if they lose key players? Everyone does. Where they all stand would, and did, depend on how well their underclassemn reserves would look in larger roles this fall. There wasn’t a very good reason to think that the Big East would end up being the worstc conference. It shouldn’t be a surprise at all to this point.

Quincy Douby’s been working hard over the summer, and now it’s a question of numbers. and whether he can keep it up in Toronto cmap.

Will the N.C.A.A. remain toothless as they search for a new leader?

Newspaper cuts are leading to the erosion of a watchdog press corps in the New Jersey, if not nationwide.

God Bless You, Larry Coker

6 pm note: WordPress acting stupid, I have no idea why this post isn’t working, and am about at my wits end here. Try again, I think it is now.

With the bye week, I’d like to take this opportunity to go over a few things that I may have ignored or glossed over during the past month.

One big storyline coming out of the Maryland win was, of course, Joe Lefeged’s triumphant return as the conquering native son. Which raises an interesting point - Lefeged grew up a Terp fan in the shadow of College Park. Scores of ACC, Big East, and Big Ten schools were after him. Joe has lived up to expectations from the moment he stepped foot on campus, so talent clearly wasn’t an issue. In that case, why didn’t Maryland offer him a football scholarship coming out of high school? Clearly, there must have been some underlying cause.

Ralph Friedgen and staff apparently preferred an unheralded safety from Newark with no other offers. Ok, you have to trust your eyes when it comes to scouting. Rutgers certainly hasn’t offered every big name to come out of New Jersey over the past few years, for varying reasons. Even if those players bust, sometimes they create a pipeline that will hurt a program later on down the road. But when you don’t go after these prospects, and they end up living to the hype and then some, there will inevitably be second guessing over passing up on the local product.

Moving along, this theme is kinda the undercurrent in Aditi’s story on Tim Brown and Antonio Lowery last week. Having followed RU sports on the web for the past few years, I still remember the sentiment from late 2005 when the staff were going after those two players: how, how, how was the former Miami HC Larry Coker letting them through his grasp? I can recall watching their highlight tapes, and being utterly dumb-founded. There was no doubt whatsoever that each was good enough to play for the Hurricanes, or any other team, for that matter.

If I was in charge of the Miami football program, I wouldn’t bother recruiting on a national level. Hell, I wouldn’t cross the I-4 corridor with Tampa, Orlando, and Daytona Beach. Growing up in the Miami area is no picnic. Those kids have a certain toughness to them. It’s not the Northeast, blue collar, lunchpail, I’ll-punch-you-in-the-teeth brand of toughness. In a Pahokee (in the Everglades region, H/T to mgoblog), or certain parts of Dade County, football literally is your only shot to escape from a life of anguish. I’d assume that many of you are familiar with the Sean Taylor or Bryan Pata stories.

Knives out in Stillwater

Remember Belle Glade tailback Antwon Chisholm? The fledging Florida tailback so overburdened with interest from top FBS schools that he pulled a knife on a security guard at a mall?

Well, he claims to have committed to Oklahoma State, weeks after supposedly leaning towards West Virginia. The wording in that story is awfully sketchy; as if he’s not telling the truth, or if the other OSU is trying to keep this one a bit under wraps at the moment, for obvious reasons.

Anyway, probably won’t be of much, if at all interest to regular readers, but I wanted to pass that along in case anyone with a bigger site happens to come across this story.

Waxing testudinally

Here’s my half of a Q/A with Matt from the Maryland Terrapins blog Turtle Waxing. My answers should be up on his site at some point in the near future.

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Last year, the Terps rebounded from their loss to MTSU to beat Cal the next week, on route to another winning season and a bowl game. Can they do it again? Do Ralph Friedgen’s teams usually respond well to adversity?

If this Maryland team can keep from giving up turnovers they certainly have a chance at a bowl game. I’m not sure a winning record is likely but 6-6 is possible with Virginia and Duke on the ACC schedule. I’m not sure the problems this team has are the kind that will get better as the season goes along. There is some history of Friedgen’s teams stumbling early and then getting in a groove to finish the season. In 2002 and 2003 the team started 1-2 and finished winning 10 of the last 11 games both seasons but that was a long time ago. Recently Maryland’s teams have not finished the season well going 18-21 in games after September since 2004. I don’t see any miracle turnaround for this season.
 

Watching the scoreboard

A few scores of note from around the week in college football:

Miami 33, Georgia Tech 17. Talent wins out, eventually. Their head coach Randy Shannon has such a compelling story that you can’t help but root for him to succeed on an individual level (and, I don’t have any particular animosity towards the Canes). Mark Whipple also happens to be a terrific offensive coordinator.

Kentucky 31, Louisville 27. Victor Anderson is still Victor Anderson, and Scott Long saw fit to make his yearly cameo appearance. Rough break losing this one. The Big East could have used the OOC victory. These close losses have a bad way of snowballing.

Clemson 25, Boston College 7. Have to admit, I smiled reading that score. Unlike with Miami and Virginia Tech, I loathe BC, and wish for them to lose every game, even when they play hated Notre dame.

Florida 23, Tennessee 13. Say, what? How was this that close? Guess I’m voting Alabama #1. Florida may have the best roster, but they’re not firing on all cylinders at the moment.

Notre Dame 33, Michigan State 30. Losing Michael Floyd for the year is a rough blow to overcome. Not otherwise notable, except as evidence that the Domers aren’t that good, and have profound issues on defense.

Washington 16, USC 13. Not all to surprising. USC customarily loses at least one Pac-10 conference a year. Washington, under Ty Willingham, was a decent team coached by an inept, bumbling fool. They had the roster personnel in place for an immediate turnaround. Jake Locker is truly that good.

UConn 30, Baylor 22. Why on earth were all the pundits picking Baylor to win this one? Made no sense at all.

Pittsbugh 27, Navy 14. Way to finally get the ball to Baldwin, fellas.

Cincinnati 28, Oregon State 18. AND Jacquizz Rodgers played. Well done, well done. Keep winning, and make our loss look better in retrospect, please.

USF 59, CSU 0. Down goes Grothe to an ACL injury, late enough in the season that he won’t be able to petition for a sixth year of eligibility. Grothe’s career has to be remembered for being a colossal upgrade over Pat Julmiste, which helped the Bull offense get over a big hurdle. He arguably plateaued though, and struggled at times last year with inconsistency and turnovers (no doubt aided by awful playcalling). Still, USF doesn’t have much in the way of experience behind him. Behind Cincy, the Big East truly is wide open this year to all comers.

Syracuse 37, Northwestern 34. Baby steps. Helps the conference OOC, AND another black eye for the Big Ten. Awesome.

Miss. St. 15, Vanderbilt 3. Can Vandy go back to losing, and stop taking our recruiting targets?

FSU 54, BYU 28. It’s official. No one knows anything. Time to throw our hands up and go home.

Auburn 41, WVU 30. Auburn may be surprisingly good this year. A rough break for West Virginia, given their early lead before Jarrett Brown’s turnover implosion. At least Brown looks to be healthy, and won’t miss too much time.