Resounding meh

I’m sticking to my guns here – Rutgers/Syracuse won’t be very close. Injuries hurt the Orange this year, but the end result probably wasn’t ever going to be much different. At least they have an excuse now. The Syracuse side seems to think that Rutgers and/or Schiano have it out for the Cuse, but I’m not really feeling that on our end. The recent SI fan poll seems to concur. UConn is the #1 Rutgers in-conference rival, and even that takes a back seat to OOC grudges.

The feeling is mutual, but the conference team I can’t stand the most is USF. In terms of a rivalry, it’s going to be hard to top the last two games. If you had mid-November in the annual USF NCAA violations lottery, it’s time to collect your prize. There’s just such a stark contrast between the two athletic departments in all aspects that I can’t think of a better villain in-conference. I used to admire how far they had come in so little time, but now all I have is scorn.

Coach Schiano’s stated policy is to never relent in the first half of any game, but I honestly don’t see the impetus for treating this game unlike any other. In fact, there might even be some potential for Army-style sleepwalking through the second and third quarters. Won’t matter in the end, though. Since the NCAA doesn’t actually recognize both FCS victories, a victory would put Rutgers at seven wins in my book.

Sure, point to Ray Rice and Scott Vallone, but overall the two both programs have very different talent footprints. It seems like the press just keeps trying to push and force this angle because it’s  the path of least resistance, even though it’s more myth than reality, and the Rutgers side doesn’t care all that much. I mean, their kicker, Ryan Lichtenstein, trained with a former RU letterwinner who helped shock the Orange(men) back in ‘99.

A couple pro updates

Not going to hit everyone with this, just a few newsworthy items from the past few weeks.

I’ve always looked at 2009 as essentially a redshirt year for Mike Teel. By staying on the bench, the Seahawks can evaluate his progress in private, possibly giving them more leverage with their future personnel moves. The best thing for Teel, if he wants to take over Seattle’s starting job in a few years, was that Matt Hasselbeck have a bounce back season. The results haven’t been great, with Hasselbeck missing two games, and being inconsistent from week to week. Seattle will have ample opportunity to scout Jake Locker down the road at the University of Washington, and whether or not the Hawks address that position in the draft will be telling as to Teel’s long-term status in town.

When evaluating how Kenny Britt has played to this point, it’s not much of a suprise that Tennessee favors the running game, and wants to get Chris Johnson as many touches as possible. Poor quarterback play has been a factor. With how Britt started in September however, I was surprised that he didn’t see that many touches over the past month or so. With Justin Gage hurt, Britt returned to the starting lineup last week, and did have two catches for decent yardage. He is averaging 16 yards a catch on the season, which is, as Doug Marrone would say, tremendous. With Jarrett Dillard out for the season, Tiquan Underwood is up to 4th in the Jaguars’ WR rotation. He started the year 6th and on their practice squad.

In the backfield, it’s been a good year for the tandem of Ray Rice and Brian Leonard. The Ravens may only be 5-4, but that’s through no fault of Rice, who’s on pace for nearly 1,200 rushing yards, and is 4th in the NFL in yards from scrimmage. The bigger story on the year is the revitalization of Brian Leonard (the jumping fullback-turned-blogger), who’s finally found his niche as a premier third-down back for the resurgent Bengals. With a 91% catch rate (Brian has caught 22 passes this year, and dropped two), he’s in the conversation for best hands in the entire league. Cedric Benson’s injury could lead to more touches for Leonard and fellow backup Bernard Scott, although that will be complicated by how fast newly-signed pickup Larry Johnson can get up to speed, and whether or not he has anything left. It’s no surprise that Cincinnati QB Carson Palmer loves Leonard, and his ability to convert crucial third downs as a receiver out of the back field. Between Leonard, long-snapper Clark Harris, and watching Hard Knocks over the summer, I’ve been trying to follow the Bengals this year. They’re a nice story.

Jeremy Zuttah has started all year at left guard for the Bucs, although mysterious absentee Aaron Sears recently returned. With Zeus’s top level athleticism, he may still may end up at center when all is said and done (my wishful thinking: to the Giants after O’Hara’s contract is up). Jeremy has played well this year, although Sears was thought of as a rising player, and his woes prompted an inability to shift Zuttah to center following an injury to Jeff Faine.

You know things aren’t going well for Vernon Gholston when the NY tabloids are speculating about whether the Jets will give up on him after just two seasons. I don’t follow the Jets though, so I can’t say anything else about Jamaal Westerman’s play beyond that.

Zuttah’s Bucs also recently promoted CB Derrick Roberson off their practice squad. Titans CB Jason McCourty has been inactive recently, after looking very green earlier in the season when pressed into action by a rash of secondary injuries. That’s not a surprise, as he is very smart and athletic, but struggled in coverage as a senior, and is probably more of a long-term project. A lot has been made about Vince Young replacing Kerry Collins in Tennessee, but the deep ball was killing them earlier in the year. Plus, Chris Johnson is too good to not win a few games by himself.

And for good measure, the Raptors recently cut Quincy Douby. Things are going a bit better for Todd Frazier, just named the Reds’ best prospect by Baseball America. I think Todd has a lot more value in the infield (2B or 3B) than at a corner OF position. He’ll probably start ‘10 at AAA Louisville. A hot start might prompt Cincy to call him up early in the summer. Still can’t believe the Yankees passed on him for Andrew Brackman.

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.