I'll play along, simply because I don't care why anyone asks questions and these are good questions.
It is easier to start a ship in the right direction than to correct it after its been a long time at sea. So yes, I think the university is committed, but it's a qualified commitment since we don't really know how to do it, administratively speaking. It will happen initially more by trial and error than by intent, so there will be a measure of keep-trying-till-something-works impacting the process. Then we'll reverse engineer what we did right and hope to repeat it in the future if the need arises, and perhaps eliminate what we did wrong.
As for Hobbs, yes, he was a politically-influenced hire, and I'm fine with that because state government needs to be not only aware of the state university's existence, but supportive of it, especially of its most visible component, which is football and then basketball. As long as the state knows to stay at a long-arm's length in how to run the athletics department, a hire like Hobbs, who has connections and a conviviality that are helpful for someone in his position, is a step in getting the ship headed in the right direction. And given that he was an Ombudsman in Christie's administration and he was the outgoing president of Seton Hall Law, it's an easy connection to make between the Governor and Hobbs's hire.
