Politi Nails It - RU Kills Big-Time Football Dream with Greg Schiano Fiasco
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I never cut/paste whole articles, but I will make an exception here. Read this and tell me Hobbs shouldn't be fired and that Barchi shouldn't just hire Schiano directly.
For decades now, the tweed-jacket detractors at Rutgers have demanded that their university give up on big-time athletics. Go back to playing Lafayette and Lehigh, they’d rail after every blowout. Stop wasting money on a losing football program that is clearly out of its league. Just give up already.
Turns out, all these years later, they were right. Rutgers doesn’t belong in the Big Ten. It doesn’t have the stomach for big-time athletics. It is a small-thinking, decrepit corner grocery store run by incompetent middle managers trying to compete in a world with Walmart and Target, doomed to fail before it even opens its doors to customers.
That’s the reality in the wake of the stunning news that it couldn’t reach an agreement with Greg Schiano to resuscitate its embarrassing football team. Patrick Hobbs and Greg Brown, the Abbott and Costello team running this search, had two months to hammer out a deal with the one candidate who could light a fire under this fan base and finally stop the parade of New Jersey’s best recruits from leaving the state.
Any hope of that ended on Sunday afternoon when, after two weeks of haggling behind the scenes, Schiano withdrew his name from consideration. It is telling that, within minutes, a national website had a story had a “source” doubting whether or not the 53-year-old New Jersey native was “all-in” for the job.
“You can’t take this position with ‘the glass is half empty’ culture. Rutgers fans deserve more,” that source told Brett McMurphy of The Stadium.
Can you imagine? After four years of watching a football team that can barely tie its laces properly, someone in the athletic department -- and we can all take a wild stab at who that someone is -- would have the audacity to suggest that Schiano is the one bringing the glass-half-empty view? The glass isn’t half empty, folks. It’s shattered on the ground, scarring the feet of anyone who walks near it.
Schiano, according to multiple sources familiar with the Nov. 5 meeting between the two sides, came armed with a scouting report of the current roster that stunned people in the room and a list of more than 100 potential targets in the transfer portal to jumpstart the rebuild. He had already started recruiting, behind the scenes, to salvage a 2020 class that looks like a hopeless cause now.
Now Rutgers is going to try to smear him by insisting that he would have walked away like he did after a few months with the New England Patriots, that he was too negative with his criticism of a program on a 20-game Big Ten losing streak, that, besides, he was asking for soooo much. It’s nonsense.
Schiano did not make over-the-top demands. He didn’t set the market for a Big Ten head coach. That eight-year, $32-million salary that’s giving everyone sticker shock would have landed him in the bottom quarter of conference salaries. That $7.5 million pool for assistant coaches and football-office staff is still a full $5 million less than Ohio State and Penn State. He was taking things off the table over the past two weeks, two sources confirmed, not making additional demands.
He wasn’t worried about padding his bank account. He wanted assurances that he would have the facilities, the infrastructure and the resources he needed to win. Rutgers fans deserve more, that anonymous source insists, but the team will always compete with less, less, less.
You know what Rutgers fans deserve? A real athletic director, that’s what, not one who fought hiring the best available candidate because it would diminish his own star power in Piscataway. Hobbs was too consumed by his own trailer-park-sized ego to consider bringing anyone here who would challenge his standing and take any control of his underachieving department, so he fought this every step of the way.
But, hey, give the guy credit. He won a power struggle despite the football dumpster fire of his creation, an investigation into abuse allegations in his softball program and potty-mouth tongue-lashing of a reporter that led multiple state lawmakers to call for his job. Now the boosters are jumping overboard, too. Rutgers picked a lame duck AD over the long-term solution for its football program, which is gives new meaning to the phrase Rutgers gonna Rutgers.
This isn’t all on Hobbs. This was Greg Brown’s baby, too. Brown, the Motorola CEO and Board of Governors leader, who failed to get this done. Brown loves to play the role of the generous benefactor, but if our very own T. Boone (Slim) Pickens wanted to get this deal done he’d have gotten his hands dirty. He’d have found the BOG votes. He’d have opened his own wallet. But now he can slink back to his corner office and Chicago and try again in three years.
It is the beaten-down alums, and New Jersey overall, that have to live with the embarrassment. The men who hired Chris Ash will now enter the Plan B phase with B-List candidates like Chris Creighton, Anthony Campanile and Jedd Fisch. Maybe Butch Jones will get another call. Does it matter? The fan base, the high school coaches, the recruits -- they all are going to feel like Rutgers is settling for second rate.
The only winners are the athletics haters who tsk-tsk-tsked as Rutgers tried to compete with other similar universities in the college football arms race. They were mostly silent a decade ago when Schiano had this program winning bowl games, but now, they will crawl out of the woodwork and tell the world that Rutgers should have just stuck to playing Lafayette and Lehigh and given up this fruitless pursuit.
Good luck trying to tell them that they’re wrong.
For decades now, the tweed-jacket detractors at Rutgers have demanded that their university give up on big-time athletics. Go back to playing Lafayette and Lehigh, they’d rail after every blowout. Stop wasting money on a losing football program that is clearly out of its league. Just give up already.
Turns out, all these years later, they were right. Rutgers doesn’t belong in the Big Ten. It doesn’t have the stomach for big-time athletics. It is a small-thinking, decrepit corner grocery store run by incompetent middle managers trying to compete in a world with Walmart and Target, doomed to fail before it even opens its doors to customers.
That’s the reality in the wake of the stunning news that it couldn’t reach an agreement with Greg Schiano to resuscitate its embarrassing football team. Patrick Hobbs and Greg Brown, the Abbott and Costello team running this search, had two months to hammer out a deal with the one candidate who could light a fire under this fan base and finally stop the parade of New Jersey’s best recruits from leaving the state.
Any hope of that ended on Sunday afternoon when, after two weeks of haggling behind the scenes, Schiano withdrew his name from consideration. It is telling that, within minutes, a national website had a story had a “source” doubting whether or not the 53-year-old New Jersey native was “all-in” for the job.
“You can’t take this position with ‘the glass is half empty’ culture. Rutgers fans deserve more,” that source told Brett McMurphy of The Stadium.
Can you imagine? After four years of watching a football team that can barely tie its laces properly, someone in the athletic department -- and we can all take a wild stab at who that someone is -- would have the audacity to suggest that Schiano is the one bringing the glass-half-empty view? The glass isn’t half empty, folks. It’s shattered on the ground, scarring the feet of anyone who walks near it.
Schiano, according to multiple sources familiar with the Nov. 5 meeting between the two sides, came armed with a scouting report of the current roster that stunned people in the room and a list of more than 100 potential targets in the transfer portal to jumpstart the rebuild. He had already started recruiting, behind the scenes, to salvage a 2020 class that looks like a hopeless cause now.
Now Rutgers is going to try to smear him by insisting that he would have walked away like he did after a few months with the New England Patriots, that he was too negative with his criticism of a program on a 20-game Big Ten losing streak, that, besides, he was asking for soooo much. It’s nonsense.
Schiano did not make over-the-top demands. He didn’t set the market for a Big Ten head coach. That eight-year, $32-million salary that’s giving everyone sticker shock would have landed him in the bottom quarter of conference salaries. That $7.5 million pool for assistant coaches and football-office staff is still a full $5 million less than Ohio State and Penn State. He was taking things off the table over the past two weeks, two sources confirmed, not making additional demands.
He wasn’t worried about padding his bank account. He wanted assurances that he would have the facilities, the infrastructure and the resources he needed to win. Rutgers fans deserve more, that anonymous source insists, but the team will always compete with less, less, less.
You know what Rutgers fans deserve? A real athletic director, that’s what, not one who fought hiring the best available candidate because it would diminish his own star power in Piscataway. Hobbs was too consumed by his own trailer-park-sized ego to consider bringing anyone here who would challenge his standing and take any control of his underachieving department, so he fought this every step of the way.
But, hey, give the guy credit. He won a power struggle despite the football dumpster fire of his creation, an investigation into abuse allegations in his softball program and potty-mouth tongue-lashing of a reporter that led multiple state lawmakers to call for his job. Now the boosters are jumping overboard, too. Rutgers picked a lame duck AD over the long-term solution for its football program, which is gives new meaning to the phrase Rutgers gonna Rutgers.
This isn’t all on Hobbs. This was Greg Brown’s baby, too. Brown, the Motorola CEO and Board of Governors leader, who failed to get this done. Brown loves to play the role of the generous benefactor, but if our very own T. Boone (Slim) Pickens wanted to get this deal done he’d have gotten his hands dirty. He’d have found the BOG votes. He’d have opened his own wallet. But now he can slink back to his corner office and Chicago and try again in three years.
It is the beaten-down alums, and New Jersey overall, that have to live with the embarrassment. The men who hired Chris Ash will now enter the Plan B phase with B-List candidates like Chris Creighton, Anthony Campanile and Jedd Fisch. Maybe Butch Jones will get another call. Does it matter? The fan base, the high school coaches, the recruits -- they all are going to feel like Rutgers is settling for second rate.
The only winners are the athletics haters who tsk-tsk-tsked as Rutgers tried to compete with other similar universities in the college football arms race. They were mostly silent a decade ago when Schiano had this program winning bowl games, but now, they will crawl out of the woodwork and tell the world that Rutgers should have just stuck to playing Lafayette and Lehigh and given up this fruitless pursuit.
Good luck trying to tell them that they’re wrong.
BOOM!
Perfect Summary.
Never thought we'd be in such seriously violent agreement on anything, lol...
Thank you Steve for telling the truth about what Rutgers just did.
If this is true, Hobbs days are numbered. Shame he thought he was bigger than the school.
Only the gross, epic incompetence of RU can bring us together so well.
[cheers]
Politi hit the nail on the head here and I am not a fan of him overall but he is 100% correct on all points.
I wear Scarlet colored glasses too, Nuts. But the ineptitude in this case is egregious.
Hopefully , this is the article that rallies alums and gets rid of the interim Seton Hall law dean as our AD, and hastens the departure of football hating Barchi.
Great article by Politi. Fan interest will be even lower. I know lots of people that are giving up completely on Rutgers football. What a let-down.
Wow? Politi is an idiot and huge attention whore.
Pat (I want to go to the Rose Bowl) Hobbs should be fired. The only way he is getting to the Rose Bowl is to buy a ticket. Brown needs to resign from the board and then we need to find a new conference. Today Rutgers proved we do not belong in the Big 10
My god, people thinking Politi is telling the truth! We are now officially playing Calvinball.
Politi is wrong as usual. G.S. demands were outrageous and somebody needed to take a stance. Good for the BOG and Pat Hobbs!
Don't let facts get in your way--He was the full time dean of Seton Hall Law School.
Love this part. If true and have no reason for doubt it isn’t, this is why he should have been hired. He knew what needed to be done. Instead RU just wants a bunch of yes men.
Schiano, according to multiple sources familiar with the Nov. 5 meeting between the two sides, came armed with a scouting report of the current roster that stunned people in the room and a list of more than 100 potential targets in the transfer portal to jumpstart the rebuild. He had already started recruiting, behind the scenes, to salvage a 2020 class that looks like a hopeless cause now.
Schiano, according to multiple sources familiar with the Nov. 5 meeting between the two sides, came armed with a scouting report of the current roster that stunned people in the room and a list of more than 100 potential targets in the transfer portal to jumpstart the rebuild. He had already started recruiting, behind the scenes, to salvage a 2020 class that looks like a hopeless cause now.
Politi is spot on
Hobbs is a failure of epic proportions....our worst ever and that is truly saying something
Hobbs is a failure of epic proportions....our worst ever and that is truly saying something
If Hobbs killed this, then his fundraising success is not enough to keep him. This is Fred Gruninger level screw up !!!
Seeing the initial two media stories that seemed to be issued by each of the competing camps, I needed more information to see which end of the spectrum the actual truth occupied.
I must say that the anecdote about the recruit/transfers in the Politi article sure seems to expose the angle that “Schiano didn’t really want the job” as a complete lie.
I must say that the anecdote about the recruit/transfers in the Politi article sure seems to expose the angle that “Schiano didn’t really want the job” as a complete lie.
Hobbs is a clown...this is only the latest example. Surprised he hasn’t killed the basketball program yet.
And i am to start calling out fans here who think $4 million a year is some insanely high salary. The fact is the issue wasn't the salary anyhow
Let the academics have their way...I hope they go broke doing it. I’d want nothing to do with the university
Poor Politi. He is just pissed that he has to throw away his article about Rutgers wasting NJ Taxpayers money on football.
If it was just Politi, I wouldn't be so pissed off. I posted a few times (as have others) over the past few weeks, about how I had heard (from someone who knows him well) that Hobbs really didn't want Greg and was an absentee AD, so this story simply confirms my worst fears and, basically, what I had been hearing.
Listen, if the BOG/Hobbs steps up and hires a better coach then this is silly article. Now we know they won't but lets give them the benefit of the doubt.
Schiano was made a generous offer with I'm sure assurances to extend if he did what even most of his detractors thought he could do. The fact that he turned it down isn't on the BOG or Hobbs.
The next offer is on the BOG and Hobbs. And we're all sure that it will be middling and short sighted.
THATS when we hate Hobbs and the BOG. For now they are right. We will see if that stays that way on the next offer.
Which I agree with you all will be some half asses Al Golden type offer.
But for now they aren't wrong. The offered Gary more than he was worth.
Have fun at BCU you half-assed HS coach.
Schiano was made a generous offer with I'm sure assurances to extend if he did what even most of his detractors thought he could do. The fact that he turned it down isn't on the BOG or Hobbs.
The next offer is on the BOG and Hobbs. And we're all sure that it will be middling and short sighted.
THATS when we hate Hobbs and the BOG. For now they are right. We will see if that stays that way on the next offer.
Which I agree with you all will be some half asses Al Golden type offer.
But for now they aren't wrong. The offered Gary more than he was worth.
Have fun at BCU you half-assed HS coach.
Yeah, this is the part that caught my eye. You don't go through all that effort before the meeting if you aren't serious about the job.
Good work Hobbs. May as well just rehire Chris Ash. We're already paying him.
He's not an idiot and never has been. He is an attention whore, but that's kind of his job. More importantly, based on all the things I've heard, he's right. And are you telling me you don't blame Hobbs at least somewhat for this for not at least knowing what Greg wanted months ago and despite that, still pursuing Greg? Hobbs should've just said Greg wasn't a candidate if he knew he wouldn't agree with Greg's demands for facilities (which are NOT unreasonable compared to the rest of the B1G).
