Rutgers Sports - Management (& AD) Failures

The 3 week saga with off and on again negotiations wth Schiano illustrates a glaring problem.  

The university elected to go 'Big Time' when they courted the Big Ten (under Pernetti, and perhaps earlier).  However, the current/departing president seemingly has no interest in sports, and the current AD keeps operating as if in charge of a regional high school (as did his predecessor).

IF an institution wants to play in elite company, it takes a commitment and ongoing involvement on the part of management.  You can't pay lip service, and then delegate 100% to a less than competent AD and turn your back.

To put it another way, if the institution can't live into the commitment it has made, then get the heck out of Dodge (Big Ten), and go back to playing second/third tier schools.  

At least we would all know what to expect, and not have to live through the caricature of a process that AD Hobbs has managed to perpetrate.  While the end result appears to be a win for Rutgers football, the AD (and by extension, the school) is now the laughingstock of the US.

I am not saying that the university leadership should be sports fanatics, but they must be willing to support the programs (ALL sports).  If they can't do that, they should not be leadership positions at a university that has elected to play 'Big Time'.

The best scenario would be to cut its losses and pack it in.  N.J. is not a football state. Right here, on M.O.L., there were posts asking for support for Columbia's winning season. I doubt anyone who didn't have a kid on the team, went.

When I moved here in '84, Saturday home games included the police department tacking on paper, No Parking signs along one side of the side roads around the football field. No one parked on the other side of the road because no one went to the games. Signs are still being put up but still, the stands are not full.

It would be an interesting question: How many tickets to the games are sold?

Then the B.o.E. spends $$$ to put up lights for night games and to turn on those lights.

News flash: N.J. people don't care about sports.

Formerlyjerseyjack said:

News flash: N.J. people don't care about sports.

N.J. people care about professional sports.

It's too bad that the Big East fell apart. That was a good football conference for Rutgers.  They won't be able to compete in the Big Ten.

Actually, during Schiano's first tour of duty, when Rutgers had Ray Rice, there was a broader level of interest (outside of the Alumni group).  

If the team consistently could win 5-8 games each season (ideally as a stepping stone towards something better), I think that the interest would come back.  At that point recruiting becomes a little easier.

However, it will take years to turn the program around again.

When I was a grad student at U Maryland a while back, I had a football player enrolled in my class. We were both from Joysee, so we chatted about the Rutgers' football program. When he was being recruited from high school he told the RU coach if they could just win (I think it was) 4 games that year, he'd pick RU over UMD. Long story short, he went to UMD, and was eventually picked up by the Giants.

Re-hiring Schiano is a huge mistake.

It was under Schiano that Rutgers was successful enough that the dream of joining the Big Ten became thinkable for the Board and Admin.  So now they think that the magic was Schiano when it could just as easily have been a combination of other factors--a modest enough schedule to win a lot of games (winning is contagious); a few good recruiting classes that did not add up to becoming a long-running major program.  Sure, Schiano is a good coach and recruiter, but he did not create a Big Ten ready program and it takes a lot more than one coach to get there.  

As a taxpayer and potential parent of a Rutgers student in a few years, I would much rather they give up on the Big Ten and focus more on other issues on campus.  And I say this as a Wisconsin-Madison alumni who saw what a Big Ten program is, up close and personal.  Rutgers just is not in that league and should not aspire to be there (same with Maryland).