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Butch Davis on RU recruiting'they missed a big window"

Rutgers may not become a Top 30 program. That much is reasonable. To say we can't be a Top 50 program on a more permanent basis is beyond pessimistic.


A friend of mine who doesn't post on here really puts it right. In 2012, right after the regular season we should have bought out Flood in some sort of it looks like a resignation but it's definitely a firing move. We knew we were headed to the Big Ten and Flood squandered a promising season in the end. It should have been a thanks for holding the ship together for the last year and being a loyal guy, but we need to bring in someone who can at least have a shot at taking it to the next level. And we then start preparing for 2014.
The ones wearing the helmets did that. Not the ones in the headset.
 
I've never coached a minute of football in my life and said this was where we were headed with Flood in charge of the program 3.5-4 years ago lol....
 
I've never coached a minute of football in my life and said this was where we were headed with Flood in charge of the program 3.5-4 years ago lol....

NFL Strategy is all you need.

Furthermore,

Agree with the non-gloaters as what goes around, comes around.
Disagree with the naysayers on how long it will take to be competitive.
 
On one of the BTN shows, they said that for Rutgers to be successful they will have to out recruit most of the West Division. If we do that then be will have the firepower to go to a bowl game every single year.

This year's class is ranked 27th nationally.

That includes 3 4-Star players.

To compare with the West

Nebraska sits on top with 7 4-Stars

Iowa and Wisconsin has 4 4-Stars each
The rest have two or none.

So we are about even with Iowa and Wisconsin but behind Nebraska and we are ahead of the rest.

In the East....
MSU has 4 4-Stars
PSU has 6 4-Stars
Maryland has 7 4-Stars
Indiana has none

So better than Indiana and about the same as MSU.

The big two...

Michigan has 13 4-Stars
OSU has 16 4 Stars

This is only so far for the class of 2017.

The numbers could change between now and signing day of course.

So we have a long ways to go to catch up with the big boys we are are on the right track.
 
NFL Strategy is all you need.

Furthermore,

Agree with the non-gloaters as what goes around, comes around.
Disagree with the naysayers on how long it will take to be competitive.

NFL strategy for recruiting?

Anyway figure I'll gloat for another year or so after the 2-years of crap I took, from many here, for speaking nothing but the truth. [cheers]
 
The need to say "I told you so" is very strong around here. I do find it interesting that the first poster I remember blowing the whistle on our former coach has not tried to gloat that I've seen. I assume he's just very happy he's gone and prefers to look forward.
Who would that be? Can't think of anyone specific. :rolleyes:
 
As long as we are in the Big Ten and in New Jersey we can always turn things around.

It is not like we are in the middle of nowhere and are forced to recruit nationally or anything.

Exactly. As angry as we all are about the consistent Big10 beatdowns and lackluster recruiting, this team seems to be a competent QB away from 6 wins. If Ash can continue to recruit at this level or a little better things should begin to look more promising. If Louisville can do it, Rutgers certainly can.
 
NFL strategy for recruiting?

Anyway figure I'll gloat for another year or so after the 2-years of crap I took, from many here, for speaking nothing but the truth. [cheers]

NFL Strategy to understand the game like Newt Gingrich...or one of those domers
 
Fudd was a very expensive hire and an example of the old saying about being penny wise and pound foolish. But he also reflected the 30 year history of Rutgers to try to go big time in football on the cheap. Like everything in life that doesn't work. You don't have to spend lavishly to have success but you can't go completely cheap and expect even average results. I hope we are finally past that foolish mentality.
 
I've never coached a minute of football in my life and said this was where we were headed with Flood in charge of the program 3.5-4 years ago lol....
When we were 6-0 in the Flood's first season while still in the Big East Conf you were predicting that we would be getting blown out by an Urban Meyer led OSU squad while being part of the B1G?
 
I posted here 'flood is a dud ' in 2012 way before he coached a game . I got some 'plum is dumb' comments .
 
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The year Rutgers lost all those 4 star recruits set us back for another five to ten years. We are competing against teams that can't have one down year.

I have accepted the fact that Rutgers will not be a top 30 program. It may occasionally crack the top 50, but overall it will always remain between 75 to 125. We may have cracked the top 30 only once under Schiano.

The last time this program had any buzz was a decade a ago. And that lasted for few weeks only.

You are on crack. While a big loss, that one recruiting class did not set back the RU program 5-10 years.
 
You can argue that we recruited very well in those down years. We got ourselves professional coaches for the future. if Flood had gotten a bunch of great players back then he would still be here today.
Rutgers has to recruit well every year. If RU happened to get great players based on a circumstance of two years our bad team and new coaches would have been delayed by two years.
 
enough with the flood hate, let's not forget that gary left us at the 11th hour as well

plenty of blame to go round
 
The year Rutgers lost all those 4 star recruits set us back for another five to ten years. We are competing against teams that can't have one down year.

I have accepted the fact that Rutgers will not be a top 30 program. It may occasionally crack the top 50, but overall it will always remain between 75 to 125. We may have cracked the top 30 only once under Schiano.

The last time this program had any buzz was a decade a ago. And that lasted for few weeks only.
These statements are beyond pessimistic. With an astute AD, a young up and coming coaching staff, and increased money for athletics, I am confident that it won't be long before we'll be on the same level, or higher, than the majority of our B1G brothers Buckeyes and Michigan, not so much.
 
I've never coached a minute of football in my life and said this was where we were headed with Flood in charge of the program 3.5-4 years ago lol....
What??!?! So 3.5-4 years ago you complained about Flood. That equates to halfway through Flood's first season. Does that mean this Sunday (halfway through his first season), I can complain about Mehringer?
 
What??!?! So 3.5-4 years ago you complained about Flood. That equates to halfway through Flood's first season. Does that mean this Sunday (halfway through his first season), I can complain about Mehringer?
To be fair Mehringer's is the OC not the HC, and I'd say his resume was better then Flood's. So a better resume for a smaller job. But yeah I think we should be able to complain about Mehringer.

As per Flood, I do need to recant a bit, I think those that argued at the time that Flood was a bad hire stood on a solid base. But I don't think there was any time after that, until the sheet storm of last year, that he should have been fired. He had a fairly successful tenure until that point.
 
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Flood should have been gone 2013...rallying around that stupid win over USF and excited about a crappy 6-6 season going to the Pinstripe. If only the donors didnt have stipulations, we would have quite possibly had Tom Hermann
 
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Flood should have been gone 2013...rallying around that stupid win over USF and excited about a crappy 6-6 season going to the Pinstripe. If only the donors didnt have stipulations, we would have quite possibly had Tom Hermann

The past is history. We need to move forward with Ash and be patient with him as he rebuilds the FB program.

Tim Pernetti's resume at RU looks pretty tarnished at this point.

If it wasn't for Greg then Tim would have never been hired as the AD by RU. Another whiff by our administration.
 
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Oh, this topic never gets old to me. Why doesn't it get old you ask. Because there were so many people on these boards who fought tooth and nail to retain Flood. No matter how bad things got. And it's very important to never forget for a program like ours in a league like ours that when things don't seem right, it's time to start considering to cut bait. Otherwise we can be in the situation like we're in now. And that includes our current regime with Ash having never been a head coach and a 28 year old inexperienced OC. I'm not saying that time is now, but we better pay close attention over the next couple of years.

Now Butch Davis might be late to the party but he is so right. Heading into the B1G with the north eastern programs down at the same time was perfect timing for us. It's a shame we wasted it with Flood. We only had that opportunity once. A lot of blame goes to our administration for not pulling the plug on Flood early.

Not really. What is "early?" One more year? Because one year early is the only logical time to have pulled the plug before we did. Assuming, of course, that you hired him in the first place because it would have been nice to have a coach in place on signing day and we weren't breaking the bank or luring a real coach away from his school at that time of the year.

So no, no blame for not pulling the plug early. I get that one year in real life could equate to more than one year of effect, but not many.

But it is a sad fact that joining the Big Ten at the same time (roughly) as Syracuse burning through coaches, Penn State being a mudpile and Boston College realizing its true destiny (I kid, I kid, sort of) made for a perfect storm on which we -- in typical Rutgers fashion -- failed to capitalize. But we're still in the Big Ten, we're still in a good recruiting area, we have a coach people seem to respect, so I am not going to sit here in three years and blame Flood if we're not at least back to bowl eligibility.
 
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Not really. What is "early?" One more year? Because one year early is the only logical time to have pulled the plug before we did. Assuming, of course, that you hired him in the first place because it would have been nice to have a coach in place on signing day and we weren't breaking the bank or luring a real coach away from his school at that time of the year.

So no, no blame for not pulling the plug early. I get that one year in real life could equate to more than one year of effect, but not many.

But it is a sad fact that joining the Big Ten at the same time (roughly) as Syracuse burning through coaches, Penn State being a mudpile and Boston College realizing its true destiny (I kid, I kid, sort of) made for a perfect storm on which we -- in typical Rutgers fashion -- failed to capitalize. But we're still in the Big Ten, we're still in a good recruiting area, we have a coach people seem to respect, so I am not going to sit here in three years and blame Flood if we're not at least back to bowl eligibility.

For me, if we really had to hire Flood because it was too late to get anyone else, his contract should've been slanted totally in favor of Rutgers. Pernetti should have known he was hiring a totally unqualified candidate for a program at our level and I believe should have totally scrutinized everything about the way Flood ran his program. After 2012 there were certain things that raised some eyebrows but I knew we weren't going to fire him after going 9-4. I believe we shouldn't have lost a game that regular season.

After the 2013 season without a doubt in my mind, he should've been fired. The wheels were coming off with his on field coaching and recruiting. There was still some decent talent in the program and if you brought in someone then, we wouldn't be in the hole we are now in. This trough that we are now experiencing wouldn't be as deep as it is now if we had changed in 2013 instead of 2015.
 
Could of, should of, would of fired him. At the end of the day you need to stare reality in the face and accept that during Floods tenure you had a Governor/State and a University President not that concerned about L's & W's.

What you do have today is hope with Ash which is better than what Flood offered the fanbase. At the end of next year we should have a better idea of who exactly was the better HC.
 
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In a vacuum, his analysis might be spot on. When you consider what was happening in your region/conference, I would say his comments are completely off base. Penn State being on sanctions actually helped them in recruiting because Franklin could use the "Return to Glory" sell and also offer early playing time while showing kids a depleted roster. You also had Michigan hire a much more highly regarded coach and do the same. Then you have some outliers like Fitzpatrick and Wimbush but that is going to happen. Now, Penn State is very blah and half the UM kids are gone and/or have been processed. Gary was going to be a stud no matter what so he doesn't count.

These first two recruiting cycles are where you should see your bump and then it comes down to Ash being able to deliver.

Out of curiosity, who is the one recruit you didn't get who you felt best about? I'm guessing Guarantano.
 
The year Rutgers lost all those 4 star recruits set us back for another five to ten years. We are competing against teams that can't have one down year.

I have accepted the fact that Rutgers will not be a top 30 program. It may occasionally crack the top 50, but overall it will always remain between 75 to 125. We may have cracked the top 30 only once under Schiano.

The last time this program had any buzz was a decade a ago. And that lasted for few weeks only.

Ash will make Rutgers a top 25 program. That's not a matter of IF but a matter of WHEN. My guess is year 3. There is a plan in place and in motion. Fans just need to be patient.

This staff is very well connected throughout the country and yet they concentrated on Jersey and surrounding areas with recruiting. That was phase 1. If they are unable to get the players they want (like a QB), don't be surprised if they start reaching out to other areas like Texas. This staff is hard working and relentless. Success is only a matter of time for these guys. As fans, we can help accelerate that timeline for success by giving our support. Not whining like little biches every time we lose.
 
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