Dienhart: Big Ten's big, bold move East

[Husky25]

I'm not saying our athletic department is benefiting, what I will say is that you're right it would be great to be in the national news for performance on the field, these things just show that there is media attention.

If we beat PSU this year the following week would be filled with media attention. That's what I'm getting at.

There's media attention because of the perception that the Administration reneged on a quadriplegic (On top of the other scandals). Rutgers isn't going to get much sympathy for that regardless of the other scandals.

Beating PSU is a huge IF. Flood There is no Norfolk St. Eastern Michigan, or Temple on the schedule. They were 3-5 in the AAC last year and by every account, the Big Ten poses stiffer competition. At this point, Rutgers has a better than average shot of not being bowl eligible and by a wide margin. I count 6 probable losses as is and a few will be ugly, which is the unfortunate thing. Rutgers will maximize their own exposure more because of their opponents rather than their own achievement, which is just one more injustice of this whole Big Ten invitation debacle. The one silver lining of it is that, Much like UConn over the past two years, every time Rutgers is on the national stage, I have no doubt that the announcing team will bring up the Program's transgressions of recent history.

 

[JayRU09]

I think we will surprise this year. Not many air raids we'll have to worry about. PSU is probably one of our better matchups from a style standpoint. No OL and no WRs changes things a lot.

 

[Husky25]

I think we will surprise this year. Not many air raids we'll have to worry about. PSU is probably one of our better matchups from a style standpoint. No OL and no WRs changes things a lot.

Speaking from experience, this is a notion held by many a fan of a terrible program.

 

[JayRU09]

It's a notion held by every program. But PSU isn't predicted to be very good either and their weaknesses will actually hide our weaknesses, namely, not having receivers that we can't cover. And their main weakness, their OL, plays into what should be our strength this year which is our front 7.

We were broken last year by a terrible DC and a situation in our defensive secondary that I don't want to get into, in addition to key injuries on the offense to Carroo and James. People like to talk about us like we're this terrible program but we just got out of a stretch of 3 nine win seasons in four years. Our best recruiting classes ever are now at the point where they should be the majority of our roster.

All speculation of course, but this team isn't going to go down quietly.

 

[History Geek]

UConn does not get into the B1G without Rutgers or possibly Syracuse instead, and I rather deal with Rutgers.

All the Rutgers bashers on this board need to realize this.

 

[huskypantz]

What's the definition of insanity, again?

Visiting this board several times per day in anticipation for the "accurate " rumor thread stating UConn's headed to the B1G.

 

[gioff23]

Well, what is bad is that our best decision maker in terms of hiring is a walking mess (Julie).

She has made some terrific hires. If she can get out of the spotlight she will be our best AD ever.

She's hired:

Fridge: Obvious credentials are obvious. Best and most qualified OC we've ever had. 2 time ACC coach of the year, won the ACC as a head coach, multiple bowl games, almost always a top 25 offense. OC at Georgia Tech when they won a national championship and for the Chargers when they made the Super Bowl.

Donny Pritzlaff: New associate head coach for Wrestling. Was at the same position at WISCONSIN and MICHIGAN. We hired away the guy for the same position in wrestling from MICHIGAN. This is equal to us hiring Narduzzi to be our DC or us hiring Kevin Ollie in 2011 to be our assistant head coach in basketball.

Tom Luicci: Will be our AD's PR and media guy. Was the Star Ledger's RU beat writer for decades now. Just started.

Marco Battaglia: RU legend, will be in charge of trying to get larger donations to the AD and smoothing over relations with former players.

If she could just shut up for a minute (thinking that's why Tom was hired), she'd already be viewed as one of our best ADs. And this is all in her first year. As much as people want to rag on her, the score board says different.

This is such a priceless quote, I could not resist, sorry - - "Obvious credentials are obvious."

Her hires are good hires if you don't like your current head coach. Typically, the head coach builds a staff not the AD. She just put in place 2 people that have the current staffs looking over their shoulder. That may be a good long-term move, if you see it thru, but it can't help in the inaugural season of a new conference. And it can't help football recruits who have to be convinced Flood is gone shortly.

And i think it is great she hired a guy from the paper she wished would just go away.

good luck w/her.

 

[JayRU09]

Flood brought in Fridge. But Julie as the AD hired him and had to right to not hire him. She wants Flood gone so to allow him to bring in Fridge is a big deal to me and shows that even when she wants someone gone she will give them the resources to try and win.

And who is the other guy? If you're talking about Donny everyone in the NCAA wrestling world has called it a home run hire. Obviously our wrestling coach was key in bringing him in but again all hires go through the AD, and she's the one to put the package together that attracts the candidate to sign the dotted line.

I think people really underestimate the role of the AD in getting assistants to sign with the school.

 

[whaler11]

They still care because of advertising , although carriage fees make up the large % of profits..

The advertising revenue for the BTN is extremely low. Suprisingly low. And some huge percentage like 90% of it is generated on the 10-12 CFB Saturdays.

Maybe it's headed up, but it's all cable fees that drive it now.

 

[CL82]

I like when people say no one cares about us and then the whole nation gets up in arms over a snafu involving graduation speakers.

If anything these scandals have shown the B1G chose correctly because even PSU can't get on the news for hiring two guys linked to rape scandals in the post-Sandusky era.

I think the whole nation felt that gut punch that Rutgers took when LeGrand was injured. I know as UConn fan it reminded me of when Jazz Howard was killed. Having adopted LeGrand, who is a great young man, I do think that "the nation" was a bit upset when RU shat all over him.

Seriously, when are you going to get rid of Julie Hermann? She's a nightmare for Rutgers.

 

[CL82]

Visiting this board several times per day in anticipation for the "accurate " rumor thread stating UConn's headed to the B1G.

and yet every time a new post goes into the Key Tweets thread....

 

[ConnHuskBask]

I gotta say Eric Legrand and his attitude/ outlook on life after his injury is about the only positive thing that's ever come from Rutgers athletics.

Hopefully EL52 will walk again, he certainly has the right state of mind.

 

[JayRU09]

We'll get rid of her when she stops making awesome hires. Once she stops talking and just keeps doing her job as she has been she will go down as our best AD ever.

Hell, she's the only AD we've ever had with actual experience in an athletic department.

 

[CL82]

We'll get rid of her when she stops making awesome hires. Once she stops talking and just keeps doing her job as she has been she will go down as our best AD ever.

Hell, she's the only AD we've ever had with actual experience in an athletic department.

lol...oh man that was so...Rutgers.

 

[JayRU09]

Sadly it is :-(

I was completely shocked to learn she was our first AD with actual....you know.....experience in the field.

 

[SubbaBub]

The advertising revenue for the BTN is extremely low. Suprisingly low. And some huge percentage like 90% of it is generated on the 10-12 CFB Saturdays.

Maybe it's headed up, but it's all cable fees that drive it now.

You don't have to be a fan of Ro-Tel products to know this.

That no one gets this joke is reason enough for Delany to add UConn.

 

[Mr Blueskin]

Out of curiosity...does anyone remember if Rutgers was scheduling B1G opponents the year or two before they accepted an invite into the B1G?

 

[Durks07]

Out of curiosity...does anyone remember if Rutgers was scheduling B1G opponents the year or two before they accepted an invite into the B1G?

Rutgers scheduled a game for this season against Maryland in 2014.
http://www.fbschedules.com/2012/10/maryland-adds-rutgers-ucf-future-football-schedules/

 

[JayRU09]

Also scheduled a series with PSU IIRC.

 

[Rocktheworld]

We'll get rid of her when she stops making awesome hires.

Like the BB coach who lied about graduating from college?

 

[uconnfan68]

Correct. The Big Ten doesn't care if anyone watches the Big Ten network up to the point that the cable companies keep it off a specialty tier and pay the carriage fees. On the other hand, Once a channel is offered on a basic tier, it is pretty safe from being moved back to a specialty tier (MSG notwithstanding).

I think Cablevision did that with BTN. At least in northwest CT. I'm pretty sure I was getting BTN for a while, and its been subscription only since last fall. Never really bothered watching it, but don't remember seeing that blackout screen before last fall while channel surfing.

 

[JayRU09]

Like the BB coach who lied about graduating from college?

Hired by the interim AD.

 

[Rocktheworld]

Hired by the interim AD.

Gotcha. Stand corrected.

 

[BoatShow]

UConn does not get into the B1G without Rutgers or possibly Syracuse instead, and I rather deal with Rutgers.

Cuse has at least won something.

 

[JayRU09]

I think behind the scenes Rutgers and UCONN had at least an amicable relationship, Cuse and UCONN? Not so sure.

Plus Syracuse is about as far away from the Big Ten mold as a school can get, at least in terms of what they're looking for now.