NYTimes Article On Rutgers's Move to the B1G
The New York Times did a fairly deep dive on why Rutgers's move to the B1G has proved to be a disappointment for ... Rutgers. The whole situation is a bigger Charlie Foxtrot than I would have guessed. Seems like this marriage isn't working out for anyone.
Money quote? Money quote:
With televised games beaming into millions of homes across the country, Rutgers could draw top students and top athletes, rake in revenue to make up for money the state had cut, and finally achieve the prestige that the faculty and alumni have long thought it deserved.
The big payday has yet to arrive.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:04 AM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 9:48 AM ^
Did you know that Tolstoy originally wanted to title "War and Peace" as "War, What is it Good For?"
December 8th, 2015 at 9:53 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
December 8th, 2015 at 6:36 PM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 9:59 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
December 8th, 2015 at 9:09 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
December 8th, 2015 at 9:25 AM ^
absolutely nothing
December 8th, 2015 at 8:05 PM ^
Good God, Y'all.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:06 AM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 9:06 AM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 9:51 AM ^
Jim Delany - Hi, Patrick. Uh, what are you doing here?
Patrick Hobbs - Hey, Jim. I'm here for the annual B1G meeting. The East is looking really strong this year, what with Michigan winning the football championship game last year. Rashan Gary has been an absolute beast for them!
JD - (Stares, slack-jawed.)
PH - The Peppers Heisman in 2016 really blew the NJ pipeline wide open for them - we can't get any of the good local players to play for us, but we're going to start recruiting New Hampshire. It's really neglected!
JD - That's all good and well, but why are you here?
PH - For the meeting. I see everyone at the head table has a placard with their school, but I can't see Rutgers's placard. Where am I sitting? And why does Texas have a placard on the head table?
JD - Uhm, Patrick. The conference voted you out in 2016. Remember, when you hired Jim Tressel to be your head coach, and you thought nobody would notice he was banned from coaching? And when you brought Julie Hermann back as basketball coach ... .
PH - Yeah, I know. We're finally able to use some of that B1G money, and get competitive!
JD - Look, you're not listening. The B1G made a mistake, Rutgers made a mistake, and the conference decided to part ways.
PH - (Humming really loud while JD speaks, then) So, I also wasn't able to find my name tag at the conference table, so I borrowed a sharpie from Coach Harbaugh and made my own. He just stared at me with that "you stole crab legs???!?" look on his face.
JD - Yeah, he'll do that when he finds something to be really stupid.
PH - Yep, it was really funny. LOL. Well, I guess I'd better find my seat.
JD - But you're no longer part of our conference.
...
...
PH - So, where is my seat at the head table?
December 8th, 2015 at 9:07 AM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 10:01 AM ^
Remember when Jackie Jr. and his *crew* took down Jewel's benefit concert at Rutgers? Good times.
December 8th, 2015 at 10:09 AM ^
Also Jackie Jr flunked out of Rutgers, which I didn't even know was possible.
December 8th, 2015 at 10:16 AM ^
It was their vaunted "Pre Med" major that did him in.
"I want go into men's fashion."
December 8th, 2015 at 10:48 AM ^
the faggy part though.
December 8th, 2015 at 1:07 PM ^
I don't know, "Jersey Shore U" sounds pretty appropriate:
"Six players were dismissed after a series of home invasions and an off campus assault. Another had been suspended after accusations that assaulted a woman outside a game".
Both peaked in 2012.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:09 AM ^
Amazing they are not fully prospering, given it is the birthplace of college football.
/s
December 8th, 2015 at 10:29 AM ^
Randy Macho Man Savage is a Rutgers fan? Who knew.
December 8th, 2015 at 11:23 AM ^
Nothing about that dude is macho.
December 8th, 2015 at 8:32 PM ^
He sure does look randy though!
December 8th, 2015 at 9:30 AM ^
Looks like more of an article about the usual tensions between athletics and academics at a university flavored with blaming the move to the Big Ten as the prime cause of pressure towards bad behavior.
It's a lens for looking at the issue, but I don't think there's much of a causal link.
As far as Rutgers is concerned it's hard to say the move hasn't worked out as I think Rutgers athletics were in hot water regardless of the move to the Big Ten or not and at least this gave them a lifeline that staying pat did not.
From the Big Ten side of things, I am putting the Rutgers and Maryland addition down to people feeling a need to do "something" and then grasping at whatever straws were required to justify the move. It's irritating, but sometimes these things sometimes come down to peoples minds getting on train tracks and then not being able to turn off momentum.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:10 AM ^
Rutgers's head coach, Kyle Flood, high-fives Sam Bergen during a game against Maryland on Nov. 28. Mr. Flood was fired last week.
December 8th, 2015 at 10:01 AM ^
Rutgers celebrates losses with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind while we continue to curb-stomp Illinois. The Michigan difference.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:13 AM ^
Hmmm. As much as anyone I think Rutgers needs to GTFO and go to the AAC or something. But I'm not sure what the connection is between their move to the B1G and the problems they're having. Maybe the idea that they felt pressured to spend, spend, spend without actually having the full B1G revenue share yet. But shitty management is shitty management regardless of what conference it's in. If the NYT was trying to make the case that their move to the B1G caused their problems, they didn't get far.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:16 AM ^
I think the NYTimes focused on Rutgers's unrealistic expectations of what would occur when they joined the B1G.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:50 AM ^
I think you took a pretty pessimistic reading of that article. They mentioned that since they have joined out of state and international applications have gone up 14 and 40 percent and they expect that to continue to increase. They also mentioned the positive impacts joining the research consortium has as it gives access to other prestigious schools (they list northwestern, chicago, and wisconsin) and said that rutgers diddn't expect to see a big payday until 6 years after joining (2021). So joining the big ten has already had a positive impact on the national reach and academics of the school and while no big sports payday has come it wasn't expected to either. That is like being upset when a pharmacutical company in its first year loses money because they are researching a drug but can't sell it yet.
The issues the Rutgers AD had was being a shitty department, not anything to do with the big ten. The NYtimes article makes the insinuation that the move to the big ten created an atmosphere of pressure to succeed that caused those issues but I'm pretty sure they would have acted the same in the AAC. The issue there is the relationship between sports and academics, nothing to do with the big ten. Not like I like Rutgers, its just that the article didn't actually prove the move has been bad for Rutgers at all.
December 8th, 2015 at 10:00 AM ^
The article obviously isn't Woodward-Bernstein work from the 1970s, but the takeaway I had was that Rutgers thought that the move to the B1G was going to be a panacea for them. And an immediate one.
I think both Rutgers and Maryland benefit from being in the B1G, with little return benefit. What was surprising to me was that people at Rutgers/New Jersey thought that less than two years in the B1G would suddenly make Rutgers athletics good.
December 8th, 2015 at 10:41 AM ^
I don't know much about Rutgers but I don't know how you can say with little return in regards to Maryland unless all you care about is football. They are a major research university and serve as the backup to library of congress which is a major win the humanities side of the research consortium, they have some of the top programs in the country in things like criminology and public policy. On the athletics side they have won more big ten titles than any other school since they have joined, bring a top 10-15 basketball program in the country in both mens and womens, a top 5 soccer program, top 5 womens and mens lacrosse programs, the 4th largest media market in the country in terms of baltimore/dc combined, etc.
I've been saying it for a while but in 10 years Maryland is going to be looked at as a better addition than Nebraska.
December 8th, 2015 at 12:04 PM ^
Nebraska wasn't much of an addition so that's not much of a comparison.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:14 AM ^
"OT - who will replace Rutgers in the B1G?"
"OT - ND to the B1G - book it"
"OT - What about (Team Name)?"
"OT - Boner U to the B1G!!!"
...and then Brian's meta post telling us to stop.
December 8th, 2015 at 10:20 AM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 10:28 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
December 8th, 2015 at 1:37 PM ^
... I would gladly trade Boston College, Pitt, or Syracuse for Rutgers. I hate having them in our conference. Just saying.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:15 AM ^
Rutger's new AD had been the ombusdmen for Chris Christie. That's about as good as it gets.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:15 AM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 8:11 PM ^
It's helped our recruiting. That's all I care about
December 8th, 2015 at 9:16 AM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 9:33 AM ^
Seems to boil down to B1G move means bigger revenues, bigger revenues means more pressure to succeeed and that dumb people didn't act well in response to the pressure. It then does seem to place the blame on the big money pressure rather than on the dumb people. Really not my favorite article and reeks of a "Determine story angle, then contort facts to fit" approach.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:45 AM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 8:15 PM ^
No, he's saying the move to the Big Ten didn't put out the perpetual Rutgers tire fire. At least not yet.
I thought Durkin could do better than Maryland, especially if he stayed a year or two more at Michigan. I really think Ash could do better than Rutgers.
What the hell was he thinking? Whatever is wrong with Maryland is wrong with Rutgers times 10.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:18 AM ^
New Jersey has been good to us however I think justification for adding them was just because the SEC was moving to 14 teams and we had to as well.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:20 AM ^
What a terrible article, beyond the completely misleading headline. "Rutger's move to Big Ten Brings Athletic Scandals and Firings"?? How about, Rutger's move to the B1G finally gives it the AD revenue to be able to buy out a coach they couldn't afford to fire 2 years ago? How about, Rutgers continues to hire AD's without properly vetting them despite the fact that they are now in the B1G? How about, Rutgers used to suck at football, and they still suck at football, and the B1G money won't start to make a difference for a few years since they have to vest into their full share of revenue?
I read the Times, every day, but every day I come across a story shoddily constructed around a poorly thought out idea.
December 8th, 2015 at 9:57 AM ^
F-that hack rag...
December 8th, 2015 at 10:07 AM ^
but but. muh post hoc ergo propter hoc!