Talk about burying the lede

Buried in an article in yesterday’s Boston Herald about RB Josh Haden’s impending transfer from Boston College was a brief tease about “mutual interest” with Rutgers and ECU. My 100% speculation about that one is that Coach Trivers is very connected to the prep scene in Maryland, and could open a few doors. However, I’d prefer not to take Haden for several reasons. I think he’s more of a a scat back than a feature guy, he would have to sit a year then only have two to play, and Rutgers is in the mix for better prospects over the next two years. Wouldn’t necessarily be that upset if this does end up bearing fruit, but I’d lean against it. Most transfers do not work out.

Well, you can stop worrying that Army press release, because the game is officially moving to the new Giants Stadium. Anyone who dares use the “Meadowlands” name can get lost.

If you haven’t read Aditi’s article about Tim Brown and Andre Dixon, you should.

USF returned a bunch of tickets to Rutgers for next Thursday’s game, and they can be yours for only $25. Buy a couple just so you can make crude remarks to Jenn Sterger (let me be clear about this, for being a Z-lister, not for her gender or anything like that), and then sneak back in after you’re tossed by security.

A National Football Post columnist reviewed the play of Tim Brown and Anthony Davis against UConn. I don’t really agree with his assessment of how Davis played, but make up your own mind.

This was making the rounds on Rivals yesterday – lost in the recent ACC bowl shuffle (refresher: losing Gator, adding Sun) is that the Tire Bowl (see, it’s much more fun to say than “Meineke Car Care”, isn’t it) is increasing its conference payouts, leading to a jump over the Music City Bowl in the ACC’s pecking order. I’m not too happy with the way things worked out with the bowl renegotiations, but this is a positive development.

Coach Hill, and sunk costs

With the tip-0ff of basketball season less than two weeks away at this point, I wanted to share my dire assessment of the current state of the Rutgers men’s basketball program. I do not expect to be posting muich of anything else on the subject in coming months, although I will have a smattering on it and other sports.

Last summer, I took the somewhat bold step of trying to handicap the race for Syracuse’s next hire as head football coach, even though Greg Robinson had been retained for the 2008 season. I thought that move was absolutely indefensible; not only was the program going in the wrong direction under his watch, they were absolutely falling off a cliff. There was absolute no conceivable scenario where GRob would ever turn things around.

You can step into any Intro to Microeconomics class and learn about an important concept called Sunk Costs, which served as my basis for concluding that not only would Robinson be fired, but it was a mistake to have retained him following 2007. In laymen’s terms, when there’s no longer any possibility of receiving a return on a prior investment, it doesn’t make any sense to keep doubling down on a losing bet. Not only did Syracuse have to keep paying Robinson for a wasted, lame duck season, but doing that put them a year behind in the rebuilding process.

They threw good money after bad, and had nothing to show for it. Point being, that the only (roughly, with a lot of weird contingencies if you really want to get into the gist of all of this) rational criteria in any decision making process ought to be expected future value. Sometimes, when facing an extremely difficult decision, one has to choose the alternative that will lead to the overall least harm as a direct result of that choice. Doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it, or not harbor any regrets, but it has to be a business decision. Make no mistake about it. Rutgers athletics is a business, and as soon as it maintains utmost standards of good-governance and professionalism, we (being, its supports and customers) will all be that much more mutually better off.

Halloween Hangover

Ok, time to get through everything that I didn’t have a chance to link last week.

Back in August, there were reports that Rutgers would play Army at the new Giants Stadium on Sept. 25th, 2010. Supposedly the first ever college football game in the new stadium, and the Rutgers athletic department would  receive a hefty profit in exchange for moving a home game. So, it was more than a little curious when Army announced last week that they’re playing Rutgers on Oct. 16, which would be a week before Notre Dame’s game in East Rutherford. The release also lists the game as being in Piscataway, although Sal Interdonato says not to read too much into that, seemingly implying that everyone involved is still in negotiations. The location is just symbolic, but Rutgers badly needs that big payday.

With the bye coming up, I’m not going to start getting into the USF game before later in the week. Have to give credit where it’s due; their backs were against the wall, and B.J. Daniels played well against West Virginia. The Bulls have had their number in recent years, and I’m still not quite sure what to make of WVU this year. Still think Rutgers should be favored in that one, and would have regardless of who won in East Hartford on Saturday.

It was a good catch by Jerry Sanchez to find a Youtube link to the highlights from the classic 1992 Halloween game between Rutgers and Virginia Tech. I tried to find that about a year ago and didn’t have any luck.

Er, this Dave Solomon column on Saturday’s UConn game is quite the odd bird.

TFY had a review of Anthony Davis vs. Pitt a few weeks back. Their analyses are a little spotty, so draw your own conclusions.

Fooch has a new video up of his interview with Fred Hill at media day.

Once again, it’s time to check in on Brian Leonard’s blog. He’s been battling through an injury the past few weeks.

Decent length story on Ray Rice in the Baltimore Sun on Friday. There’s not much new for most readers, but it’s positive, feel-good press nonetheless.

UConn’s in mourning, so what else is there today

Good stuff from NJ Newsroom today with comments from an anonymous scout on Brown, D’Imperio, and McCourty. I would have liked to see comments on Haslam and George Johnson, who I think is getting on the radar with his senior season. Don’t want to rehash some material, and I’ll go into this all more at some point. Brown is productive, but doesn’t have many NFL comparables beyond Roscoe Parrish (the Moss brothers are much heavier). D’Imperio could be limited to a Tampa-2 defense, which is going out of style. What that scout said about McCourty is off the mark a bit. Schiano’s mentors started out with that Cover-2, only rush four mentality, but he’s turned it on its head. Blitzing requires man coverage. He’ll bring out both kinds of looks. Jason McCourty was, as expected, a workour warrior, so why are we talking  4.5s when it should be 4.4s or even lower?

It’s interesting that SteBo still has a bit of a chip on his shoulder not being a bigger recruit.

“No, I was not recruited heavily in high school and everyone asks me why,” Beauharnais said. “I don’t know why. You really have to ask some of the other college coaches about that.

Film doesn’t lie. Anyone who followed the class closely knows that he can play. He didn’t get a lot of attention because he started out at a smaller school, and only transferred to St. Joe’s for a year. Should be an interestin competition between him and Glaud for a starting job next year. Speaking of the kids, how about giving Mark Harrison a shot? Yeah, he’s another find that the national sites dismissed, but the locals were high on.

Ray Rice: really good, blah de blah blah.

Did you know that Blair Bines has a brother that plays receiver for Purdue? He’s a JUCO receiver transfer named Keith Carlos.

In other BE news, Syracuse’s Mike Williams was suspended last week, and that’s worth watching at the moment. I also thought that it was interesting that USF CB Jerome Murphy’s job is in jeopardy. I didn’t get the preseason hype with Murphy this year. He was a pretty good safety a few years back, but just didn’t look to have the deep speed to play corner. Didn’t have it least year, at all, and it’s still his achilles heel.

Thanks to Peter King for tweeting this interesting article about the looming battle for prospect scouting videos. The Big East is actually sitting pretty at the moment, although I’m sure that something will work out. As the article says, they’re expecting a record junior turnout this year. Agents will always find another boogeyman to sell, even though a work stoppage, and the threat of a hard slot cap for picks, are as good of a threat as any.

Trying to ignore the game

Nope, don’t have anything to say about BE BB media day, or RU finishing 15th (yep, a point lower than USF) in the preseason poll. I’m happy to see that Jim Carr’s son is doing better though. May or may not have more on BB at some point before the season starts. I’m halfway more interested in asking an Iowa fan I know to write up a wrestling preview.

The new Schiano Show podcast is up. Will try to listen today.

Do I have to talk about Army? Ok…all I see is that they’re not happy about a few calls in the Temple game.

The early reviews on Clark Harris in Cincinnati aren’t half bad. The AZ Cards signed Brandon Renkart to their practice squad. Also, with Chicago’s rash of injuries at LB, I’d at least monitor the wires over the next few days to see if they bring in Kevin Malast for their PS.

Can you say Pro Bowl? Ray Rice leads the NFL in total yards from scrimmage.

Missed this one last week: TFY, a NFL draft site, is joining the growing echo chamber claiming that Anthony Davis will declare for the NFL after the season. I think he’s back to playing at a high level, and likely gone. Months back, I tried to look at what factors will influence AD’s decision. If he does leave, it will be a bit of a shame that Davis was never the catalyst for a really good season here.

By the way, for anyone who watched ESPN’s USFL documentary on Tuesday, K-Mac (who did PR for the NJ Generals – if you think Schiano is a taskmasker, just imagine working for Trump) was on screen for a moment.

Yep, I saw the quote about Schiano wanting to make the Army series permanent, and wasn’t too happy about that. If you’ll look at the history at State Rutgers’s chat room, you can read the transcript from Aditi’s chat there last night. Unfortunately, there was a technical problem recording Tom Luicci’s chat last week, so I have no idea what was said there. She did say a few interesting things about the specifics of her new position with SNY.

Gameday links

It’s hard to say what kind of impact the bad weather will have on tonight’s game. It’s probably a good thing to ground Pitt’s air game, but you don’t want to take the crowd out of it. There will be a lot of recruits in attendance (more Tuesday, although there are plenty of rumors going around). There’d be more if the game wasn’t on a Friday night. Playing opposite the Yankees doesn’t help, if that game isn’t rained out. I’ll still be braving the elements tonight.

I’m not surprised that Cincinnati won last night. In fact, I was rooting for them; I don’t expect to win the conference, and their success makes Rutgers look better in retrospect. Losing Tony Pike will be a challenge though. I still think they’re the best team, and I still think everything is wide open after them. Tonight’s game isn’t a must win, but it’ll help. More’s at stake than the claim about which fanbase hates Penn State more (we do).

Understandably, lots of NFL scouts are coming to the game tonight.

There’s actually a lot of buzz about Rutgers taking the lead for JUCO basketball player Marvell Waithe. Given past history, I’ll believe this one when he’s actually dressing for the game at the RAC next year.

Keep forgetting to link this – LeonardBlog has updates for weeks four and five.

Jamaal Westerman was inactive last week due to injuries in the Jet secondary (and the resulting need for more bodies). According to Dave Hutchinson, the Jets may try to save face by keeping Vernon Gholston active, although Westy has outplayed him.

Clark Harris is happy to be with the Bengals, but would prefer it if no one knew his name going forward (video).

Gov Corzine is bringing fmr. President Bill Clinton to campus for a campaign rally. It could be worse; Middlesex CC got Joe Biden.

Watch out, Grease Trucks: Sonic is coming to Rt. 27 in Somerset.

Ghosts of H.B. Blades

Pitt players are cognizant of their four straight losses to RU. The problem with taking that streak a little too seriously though is that it can become a mental block. This game has to be a business trip. If you pull a Blades, and put it on a pedestal, then any loss will hurt that much more. There’s an interesting contrast though, with Rutgers a home underdog, and not getting much respect from the media. If anyone’s interested, my Rutgers/Pitt answers are up today at Eye of a Panther.

Some tickets are still available for Friday’s game (expected to be terrible weather), even though school officials are expecting a big crowd. I wonder how much of the visiting allotment was returned.

The new Schiano show podcast is up at the usual place.

Jerry Carino has a Q&A up with Coach Hill.

Cincy snapper Brad St. Louis had an awful game on Sunday, which opened things up for Clark Harris to join Brian Leonard with the Bengals. Rough break (literally) for Gary Gibson, as he broke his ankle on Sunday, and will miss the rest of the season on injured reserve. Now it’s ok to hate the Rams again, who foolishly gave away a useful contributor in Brian Leonard. Per Football Outsiders, Leonard has an 88% catch rate, which is terrific. He has some of the surest hands in the NFL.

So long, nit wit: the Colts have parted ways with Penn State Ne’er-Do-Well Ed Johnson, which should create more playing time for Eric Foster at DT. Knock them dead, E.

Jeremy Ito landed with Hamilton of the CFL.

Eh, this West Virginia article about a supposed Big East football expansion doesn’t really say that much, and people are reading too much into it.

Not talking much about the game

I’m still having trouble mustering up any excitement for homecoming, but there are a handful of storylines worth following. Getting fullback Jack Corcoran more involved in the offense would be a positive development. At some point, if they don’t look at him at all, he won’t even be an effective decoy as a receiver. Of course, the OL needs to get their act together. It looks like Tom Savage will play, and he can’t be taking many hits, especially considering the opponent.

The biggest question mark for Saturday at this point is whether injured DE George Johnson will return. He’ll be needed at full strength next week for the Pitt game. Speaking of which, there’s a Q&A coming up with Pitt blog Eye of a Panther, so let me know if there’s anything you want to ask.

At least someone cares about the Texas Southern matchup; the Giants are sending one scout down the Turnpike to take in the game.

Travelling fans – UConn is cutting the prices of tickets for several Big East matchups, including the Rutgers game.

The new Mike Vorkunov podcast with Tom Brennan on RU and Seton Hall BB looks interesting. I’ll be giving it a listen soon, although I probably won’t have anything more to say on it.

A complete waste of time

Per ZAGSBLOG, junior college forward Marvell Waithe is down to Rutgers and Arkansas. We’ve been down this road before. Waithe nearly committed to the Scarlet Knights several yeras ago, before strangely jumping to Loyola at the last minute. Specifically, there’s just something about Ro Russell’s program and not exactly being friendly to Rutgers basketball. Over the past decade, commits Olu Ashaolu (Louisiana Tech!?!?!, after they hired his brother on staff, or something like that), and Antwi Atuahene (JUCO, and then Arizona State) failed to end up on the banks.

When this story popped up on my news reader just now, it instantly brought to mind a Zagoria interview with Russell from two years ago. Specifically, this paragraph:

“I’m going to always have players, and all (fans who rip me) are doing is hurting their opportunity for players like (6-8 St. Benedict’s big man) Tristan Thompson and (6-1 St. Benedict’s point guard) Myck Kabongo to look at Rutgers because if they’re seeing the stuff being said by the fans, then that’s just going to steer them away because those kids are part of the program and they know what goes on. The Rutgers fans should be friendly with me, and not be hard line like they are.”

It takes a certain type of individual to make idle threats towards a fanbase. Oooh, you won’t steer players towards a school your players already avoid like the plague.

I hope Waithe commits to Arkansas, or some other team that is not Rutgers. There’s no upside in being involved with Ro Russell or his program. At least there are no remaining expectations left to shatter at this point.

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.