Quotables
RU Athletic Director Pat Hobbs on home Basketball games:
“What I would love to see happen is that we start to do things that other programs do. When our players come on the floor, everybody should stand when our players arrive on the court. When our players leave the floor, everybody should stand. There should never be booing of any player. These kids are out there, they are working very hard for Rutgers University. We should cheer them, success or fail.”
Hobbs on moving past Rutgers’ recent issues:
“The outside issues we are dealing with, we can put in our past pretty quickly here, so it is not a continuing situation.”
Corey Sanders on not taking the last shot last night against Wake Forest:
“I trust Mike [Williams] to hit that shot. If we had to run it back, I’d trust him to hit that spot. It’s just a learning point.”
Wake Forest head basketball coach Danny Manning on playing Rutgers:
“I give Eddie (Jordan) and his staff and team all the credit. They made us not look very good this evening.”
Fat Cat Top Five
Top Five RU Defensive Performers of 2015
5.) Julian Pinnix-Odrick
4.) Isaiah Wharton
3.) Quanzell Lambert
2.) Steve Longa
1.) Quentin Gause
Bobby’s Crystal Ball
Pat Hobbs will easily be the most successful of any recent Rutgers athletic directors
Coaching Search Tidbits
It was a rather quiet Monday after Sunday’s big news day in which Kyle Flood was fired as Rutgers head football coach. The pool of candidates on Scarlet Nation’s hot board remains the same as it did yesterday. Meanwhile, Bowling Green head coach Dino Babers did not take the UCF job, but we are not hearing much buzz about him and a possible match with Rutgers at this point.
The current crop of top candidates are all ones with previous head coaching experience and it appears as though that is how this search will continue to trend. Rutgers is looking to make a long-term investment in its next coach and does not appear to be leaning towards rolling the dice on an unproven assistant coach. Keep in mind that RU’s prior two head football coaches had no head coaching experience when they acquired the job.
The time frame for the coaching search was expected to be within about a week, although there is a possibility it could extend slightly beyond that.
While some may consider Rutgers a tough job to walk into, there are a fair amount of coaches in the region who do not see things that way.
“I think Rutgers and Maryland are both feeling the wrath of joining a major conference like that,” said head Albie Crosby of Imhotep Charter School in Philadelphia. "It is a process and they are going through the growing phase right now. It is going to be an excellent job for whoever gets that opportunity. I think it is a gold mine for any coach looking to recruit."
Facility upgrades
Now that Rutgers is entrenched in the Big Ten, the competition for top recruits has been raised. Now, its division opponents have state-of-the-art facilities. Rutgers having to take a backseat to schools like Michigan and Penn State is an issue that was pointed out by some coaches within the region.
“While Rutgers facilities are good, you go to some of these other big schools and it’s like night and day,” said DePaul Catholic recruiting coordinator/assistant coach Bryan Murray. “They need to step up their game. If they really want to be a major player, they need to give whoever they are bringing in a real opportunity to do that. That’s the bottom line. You can’t keep saying you are waiting on Big Ten money. You have to build it and do it the right way. It has to be cutting age, state-of-art and ever-evolving. These big schools I visit with players change from one year to the next, it’s all different. Rutgers needs to do that.”
Part of the future plans expressed by new athletic director Pat Hobbs has been to upgrade the athletic facilities and he mentioned that last night inside The RAC.
“We are not where we need to be,” Hobbs said of the facilities. “My first priority is going to be getting a head [football] coach. My next priority is going to be fundraising, getting out to the Rutgers faithful and those who care about Rutgers University and getting them to invest in our success because without them, we are not going to be successful.”
Some facility upgrades have been put in place and Hobbs commented on what he has seen thus far in that regard.
“I have seen the plan, it looks terrific. I know we can get excitement about it and get support for it. Sarah [Baumgartner] and I are going to be meeting [today] for a little bit on that. And again, as soon as we get that coach in place, it’s full tilt.”
Commit watch
The decommitment of Elias Reynolds (Poly Prep, N.Y.) on Sunday night was the first defection following the news that Flood had been fired as Rutgers head coach. However, Reynolds had been planning on taking visits shortly after he committed to Rutgers back in the summer, so his decommitment does not come as much of a surprise. His teammate, Justin Morgan, has been fielding interest from Pitt, but other schools have not really begun to pursue him.
Many of the commits are still playing the waiting game to see who Rutgers hires as its next head coach. Keep in mind that this late in the process, not every committed prospect is going to have a ton of options. However, a couple of commits with limited offers have begun hearing from some Big Ten schools. Once the regular college football season concludes this weekend, things could pick up as coaches turn their attention more towards recruiting in an effort to finish out the class of 2016. No matter what happens, Rutgers should be expected to hang on to quite a few of its current commits.
This coaching search is different than the previous one as keeping the class together is not going to be as high of a priority as it seemed to be last time around. When Rutgers hired Flood, one of the primary reasons he was brought on is because he could keep in place that 2012 class, which was ranked as one of RU’s very best. That class had some hits and misses and here’s a look at how it has panned out thus far:
Carlton Agudosi – Hauled in 17 catches this season with four starts
Brandon Arcidiacono – Injury forced him out early, never played a game.
Ryan Brodie – Appeared briefly in five games during his RU career
Leonte Carroo – Rutgers all-time leader in TD catches and future NFL player
J.J. Denman – Started all 12 games at right tackle as a fourth-year junior
Kyle Federico – Made 30 of 45 field goals while at Rutgers
Darius Hamilton – Two-year starter and two-time captain, 2014 RU defensive MVP
Davon Jacobs – Eight career starts, although injuries have bothered him
Quanzell Lambert – Came on this year and started 11 games with 43 tackles
Steve Longa – Three straight seasons with more than 100 tackles
Chris Muller – started 37 straight games on the O-line
Derrick Nelson – started 11 of 12 games at center this season as a first-time starter
Ruhann Peele – Had one productive season with 28 catches, but was an ongoing discipline problem
Julian Pinnix-Odrick – Started every game this season and collected 33 tackles
Blake Rankin - Transferred out after never playing a down
Delon Stephenson – One-year starter who was kicked off team before the start if this season
Ian Thomas – Played in 5 games before leaving the program then coming back and transferring out
Jevon Tyree – Never played a down before transferring out
The Walk-On at Rutgers
One of the reasons Rutgers has been successful with its past walk-ons is because its familiarity with the state of New Jersey and surrounding recruiting areas. NJ products like Paul James, Michael Burton and Matt Flanagan have all turned into starters via the walk-on role. Moving forward, a coach with sound knowledge of the entire state may also be able to add some quality walk-ons down the line.
Coincidentally, James just closed out his Rutgers career this past weekend against Maryland when he led the team with 71 rushing yards on 17 carries. James talked about what it was like to close out his RU career.
"It was emotional in [the locker room]. For me, it was emotional. It was my last game here, my last game at Rutgers with this team. It was very emotional. It hurt a lot, not being able to get a win out there. But there is stuff to look forward to. These guys have another year to look forward to, I have a brighter future to look forward to."
James finished the season with 544 yards on 99 carries and five touchdowns.
"It was a difficult season from the beginning," James said. "It was a lot of adversity we got hit with. Like I said before, I feel like the team did a great job of dealing with that adversity, a lot of things just happening week after week. Things like that weren't really helping us out, but the guys stuck together on the team."
For his career, James averaged 5.6 yards per carry, which is the second-highest mark in school history with a minimum of 100 carries. He totaled 1810 career rushing yards on 323 carries.
Wrestling on the rise
While all of the coaching news dominated headlines over the weekend, there was another big RU wrestling victory out in New York. Head coach Scott Goodale’s team beat its fourth top 25 opponent of the season when the Scarlet Knights knocked off No.7 Cornell by a final of 21-13. Now ranked No.14, Rutgers also defeated George Mason 47-0.
“Duals are important to me and duals are important to this staff,” head coach Scott Goodale said in a statement released by RU communications. “We want to wrestle the best teams, we want to go to different environments, and we want to wrestle programs like Cornell. It’s important to wrestle these big matches. There’s a long way to go, we’ve just got to keep getting better.”
The win was RU’s first over Cornell since 1998 as the Scarlet Knights moved to 9-1 on the season. Next up for Rutgers is a road match against No.2 Iowa on Dec.10th.
RU Athletic Director Pat Hobbs on home Basketball games:
“What I would love to see happen is that we start to do things that other programs do. When our players come on the floor, everybody should stand when our players arrive on the court. When our players leave the floor, everybody should stand. There should never be booing of any player. These kids are out there, they are working very hard for Rutgers University. We should cheer them, success or fail.”
Hobbs on moving past Rutgers’ recent issues:
“The outside issues we are dealing with, we can put in our past pretty quickly here, so it is not a continuing situation.”
Corey Sanders on not taking the last shot last night against Wake Forest:
“I trust Mike [Williams] to hit that shot. If we had to run it back, I’d trust him to hit that spot. It’s just a learning point.”
Wake Forest head basketball coach Danny Manning on playing Rutgers:
“I give Eddie (Jordan) and his staff and team all the credit. They made us not look very good this evening.”
Fat Cat Top Five
Top Five RU Defensive Performers of 2015
5.) Julian Pinnix-Odrick
4.) Isaiah Wharton
3.) Quanzell Lambert
2.) Steve Longa
1.) Quentin Gause
Bobby’s Crystal Ball
Pat Hobbs will easily be the most successful of any recent Rutgers athletic directors
Coaching Search Tidbits
It was a rather quiet Monday after Sunday’s big news day in which Kyle Flood was fired as Rutgers head football coach. The pool of candidates on Scarlet Nation’s hot board remains the same as it did yesterday. Meanwhile, Bowling Green head coach Dino Babers did not take the UCF job, but we are not hearing much buzz about him and a possible match with Rutgers at this point.
The current crop of top candidates are all ones with previous head coaching experience and it appears as though that is how this search will continue to trend. Rutgers is looking to make a long-term investment in its next coach and does not appear to be leaning towards rolling the dice on an unproven assistant coach. Keep in mind that RU’s prior two head football coaches had no head coaching experience when they acquired the job.
The time frame for the coaching search was expected to be within about a week, although there is a possibility it could extend slightly beyond that.
While some may consider Rutgers a tough job to walk into, there are a fair amount of coaches in the region who do not see things that way.
“I think Rutgers and Maryland are both feeling the wrath of joining a major conference like that,” said head Albie Crosby of Imhotep Charter School in Philadelphia. "It is a process and they are going through the growing phase right now. It is going to be an excellent job for whoever gets that opportunity. I think it is a gold mine for any coach looking to recruit."
Facility upgrades
Now that Rutgers is entrenched in the Big Ten, the competition for top recruits has been raised. Now, its division opponents have state-of-the-art facilities. Rutgers having to take a backseat to schools like Michigan and Penn State is an issue that was pointed out by some coaches within the region.
“While Rutgers facilities are good, you go to some of these other big schools and it’s like night and day,” said DePaul Catholic recruiting coordinator/assistant coach Bryan Murray. “They need to step up their game. If they really want to be a major player, they need to give whoever they are bringing in a real opportunity to do that. That’s the bottom line. You can’t keep saying you are waiting on Big Ten money. You have to build it and do it the right way. It has to be cutting age, state-of-art and ever-evolving. These big schools I visit with players change from one year to the next, it’s all different. Rutgers needs to do that.”
Part of the future plans expressed by new athletic director Pat Hobbs has been to upgrade the athletic facilities and he mentioned that last night inside The RAC.
“We are not where we need to be,” Hobbs said of the facilities. “My first priority is going to be getting a head [football] coach. My next priority is going to be fundraising, getting out to the Rutgers faithful and those who care about Rutgers University and getting them to invest in our success because without them, we are not going to be successful.”
Some facility upgrades have been put in place and Hobbs commented on what he has seen thus far in that regard.
“I have seen the plan, it looks terrific. I know we can get excitement about it and get support for it. Sarah [Baumgartner] and I are going to be meeting [today] for a little bit on that. And again, as soon as we get that coach in place, it’s full tilt.”
Commit watch
The decommitment of Elias Reynolds (Poly Prep, N.Y.) on Sunday night was the first defection following the news that Flood had been fired as Rutgers head coach. However, Reynolds had been planning on taking visits shortly after he committed to Rutgers back in the summer, so his decommitment does not come as much of a surprise. His teammate, Justin Morgan, has been fielding interest from Pitt, but other schools have not really begun to pursue him.
Many of the commits are still playing the waiting game to see who Rutgers hires as its next head coach. Keep in mind that this late in the process, not every committed prospect is going to have a ton of options. However, a couple of commits with limited offers have begun hearing from some Big Ten schools. Once the regular college football season concludes this weekend, things could pick up as coaches turn their attention more towards recruiting in an effort to finish out the class of 2016. No matter what happens, Rutgers should be expected to hang on to quite a few of its current commits.
This coaching search is different than the previous one as keeping the class together is not going to be as high of a priority as it seemed to be last time around. When Rutgers hired Flood, one of the primary reasons he was brought on is because he could keep in place that 2012 class, which was ranked as one of RU’s very best. That class had some hits and misses and here’s a look at how it has panned out thus far:
Carlton Agudosi – Hauled in 17 catches this season with four starts
Brandon Arcidiacono – Injury forced him out early, never played a game.
Ryan Brodie – Appeared briefly in five games during his RU career
Leonte Carroo – Rutgers all-time leader in TD catches and future NFL player
J.J. Denman – Started all 12 games at right tackle as a fourth-year junior
Kyle Federico – Made 30 of 45 field goals while at Rutgers
Darius Hamilton – Two-year starter and two-time captain, 2014 RU defensive MVP
Davon Jacobs – Eight career starts, although injuries have bothered him
Quanzell Lambert – Came on this year and started 11 games with 43 tackles
Steve Longa – Three straight seasons with more than 100 tackles
Chris Muller – started 37 straight games on the O-line
Derrick Nelson – started 11 of 12 games at center this season as a first-time starter
Ruhann Peele – Had one productive season with 28 catches, but was an ongoing discipline problem
Julian Pinnix-Odrick – Started every game this season and collected 33 tackles
Blake Rankin - Transferred out after never playing a down
Delon Stephenson – One-year starter who was kicked off team before the start if this season
Ian Thomas – Played in 5 games before leaving the program then coming back and transferring out
Jevon Tyree – Never played a down before transferring out
The Walk-On at Rutgers
One of the reasons Rutgers has been successful with its past walk-ons is because its familiarity with the state of New Jersey and surrounding recruiting areas. NJ products like Paul James, Michael Burton and Matt Flanagan have all turned into starters via the walk-on role. Moving forward, a coach with sound knowledge of the entire state may also be able to add some quality walk-ons down the line.
Coincidentally, James just closed out his Rutgers career this past weekend against Maryland when he led the team with 71 rushing yards on 17 carries. James talked about what it was like to close out his RU career.
"It was emotional in [the locker room]. For me, it was emotional. It was my last game here, my last game at Rutgers with this team. It was very emotional. It hurt a lot, not being able to get a win out there. But there is stuff to look forward to. These guys have another year to look forward to, I have a brighter future to look forward to."
James finished the season with 544 yards on 99 carries and five touchdowns.
"It was a difficult season from the beginning," James said. "It was a lot of adversity we got hit with. Like I said before, I feel like the team did a great job of dealing with that adversity, a lot of things just happening week after week. Things like that weren't really helping us out, but the guys stuck together on the team."
For his career, James averaged 5.6 yards per carry, which is the second-highest mark in school history with a minimum of 100 carries. He totaled 1810 career rushing yards on 323 carries.
Wrestling on the rise
While all of the coaching news dominated headlines over the weekend, there was another big RU wrestling victory out in New York. Head coach Scott Goodale’s team beat its fourth top 25 opponent of the season when the Scarlet Knights knocked off No.7 Cornell by a final of 21-13. Now ranked No.14, Rutgers also defeated George Mason 47-0.
“Duals are important to me and duals are important to this staff,” head coach Scott Goodale said in a statement released by RU communications. “We want to wrestle the best teams, we want to go to different environments, and we want to wrestle programs like Cornell. It’s important to wrestle these big matches. There’s a long way to go, we’ve just got to keep getting better.”
The win was RU’s first over Cornell since 1998 as the Scarlet Knights moved to 9-1 on the season. Next up for Rutgers is a road match against No.2 Iowa on Dec.10th.
