Who do you want us to be?

[vkj91]

all the coaching search talk got me thinking "what do we really want this program to be"? More importantly "what do you think it could actually become" personally, I would be ecstatic to become Iowa. 7-9 wins a year with the occasional 10 and 4 win seasons. To me, people who think we will ever become some NC contender year in and year out are crazy. NJ's culture simply isn't willing to accept what it takes. Thoughts?

 

[RUScrew85]

Worst thread title ever.

 

[vkj91]

Lol. Like him my fat fingers get in the way.

 

[RUGT]

all the coaching search talk got me thinking "what do we really want this program to be"? More importantly "what do you think it could actually become" personally, I would be ecstatic to become Iowa. 7-9 wins a year with the occasional 10 and 4 win seasons. To me, people who think we will ever become some NC contender year in and year out are crazy. NJ's culture simply isn't willing to accept what it takes. Thoughts?

Ceiling is absolutely NC contender. I am surprised you think otherwise, as Rutgers has nearly every built in advantage a school could ask for.

 

[ClassOf02]

A respected program. Consistent bowl appearances (not just Detroit or Dallas before Christmas), facility upgrades minimally on par with the Big Ten average, commitment to competitive coaching compensation, 7-9 wins most years with respectable performances in the losses (presumably to OSU, Michigan St, Michigan), occasional big time upsets, and maybe in the hunt for a Rose Bowl every 6-7 years or so.

Long term goal should be playoff contenders -- not every year, but not never either.

 

[Knight Shift]

 

[KJ_RU]

OSU, I know alot of folks are comfortable with being mediocre or middle of the pack...that mentality has given us Kyle Flood. I STRONGLY believe that this program can be elite. Yes, it's going to take a bigger financial commitment and the right coach but it can be done. If all we reach for is mediocrity then that's all we're going to get.

 

[ru8081]

Any RU alum who thinks that we only need to be competitive and settles for mediocrity when anyone can see that this university can be elite in both academics and athletics will get neither competitive or elite, they will get embarrassed.

 

[Caliknight]

UCLA is realistic.

 

[jlariv9]

I get annoyed when people use hyperbolic phrases like "Rutgers will never be a top-10 program" or "Rutgers will always be a mediocre program"

This thinking is the reason for why Rutgers hasn't done jack sh*t over the last 140+ years of football. "The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act" Rutgers can't get their sh*t together because the people who comprise it's alumni, faculty, administration, etc don't believe they can. Of course decades of small-time football mixed in with poor-to-mediocre performance in the big leagues will do that to the collective psyche, but I am pretty sure that our biggest hurdle is all in our heads (which affects what we do with our wallets). The thing that all of us who want Flood out understand is that if we truly desire to live up to our potential as a program (which IS a NC contender btw), then the commitment MUST be made to be great...not ok, not good, but GREAT. As stated above, all the pre-requisites for being a top program are there - except for the biggest pre-requisite which is believing in and investing in our program (State, RU admin, Fans). The self-loathing in NJ needs to stop for us to take the next step.

 

[vkj91]

Ceiling is absolutely NC contender. I am surprised you think otherwise, as Rutgers has nearly every built in advantage a school could ask for.

Please name me a NC winner or even contender who hasn't had a major scandal recently? NJ is going crazy of email gate........

 

[derleider]

Sounds reasonable - although realistically, we should be better than that - more recruits in the general area than in Iowa. So more 9-10 wins seasons and fewer 4-7 win seasons.

The flip side is - we will never outccompete OSU. There are just too many great palyers in Ohio

Any RU alum who thinks that we only need to be competitive and settles for mediocrity when anyone can see that this university can be elite in both academics and athletics will get neither competitive or elite, they will get embarrassed.

The university cant be elite academically. Not in its current location at least.

Athletically, we can be elite in select sports, including FB. We just need the right coach to get it started. I dont think we can be OSU. But we can be Michigan State with time and luck.

 

[ImBadRU]

Top 20 year in and year out, with stellar years when we are in the hunt for B10 titles...the Iowa of old, perhaps. Something realistic and does not require selling our soul completely.

 

[ru8081]

Der, yes it will be harder academically, but guess what. An elite Football/Men's Basketball programs will bring in tons of money into the university beyond the B1G payout. That money will be funneled back into Academics.

 

[ru8081]

Top 20 year in and year out, with stellar years when we are in the hunt for B10 titles...the Iowa of old, perhaps. Something realistic and does not require selling our soul completely.

Really? OSU and Michigan and the rest of the B1G "sell their souls"? Newsflash we are probably in the middle, academically, in the B1G. They are not selling their souls. Why can't we do it?

 

[RUGT]

Please name me a NC winner or even contender who hasn't had a major scandal recently? NJ is going crazy of email gate........

Okay, so? Who cares what NJ reports. They could report our HC drinks baby blood and clubs seals in between practices and it wouldn't matter at all if we are winning. Media is only a detriment if it negatively affects recruiting or revenue. If Flood was winning, nothing that has recently transpired would affect that. Barring some serious NCAA scandal or moral/ethical debacle, winning insulates you from a lot of criticism (and I think there are quite a few NC contenders who haven't had a major scandal).

I would also bet heavy money that the overall tone of NJ.com would change to be more positive, since it would be in there best interest to report positive things about a winning program.

 

[rutgersguy1]

We've said this before here and I think the consensus was that our potential over time is that we can be like MSU/Wisconsin and I agree with that.

 

[ruhudsonfan]

Elite programs have elite cultures that surround them--namely, complicity of the press and cooperation of the state legislature.

Ain't happening folks.

Can we experience a good 10 year run of very good results? Sure. But anyone who thinks RU can be a Top 10 fixture for better parts of the next 25 years, is bat shit crazy.

Too much of this centers around catching lightning in a bottle just go get there once. Staying there requires a 180 degree cultural shift by administration, the legislature and non die hard fans.

 

[DHajekRC84]

Elite programs have elite cultures that surround them--namely, complicity of the press and cooperation of the state legislature.

Ain't happening folks.

Can we experience a good 10 year run of very good results? Sure. But anyone who thinks RU can be a Top 10 fixture for better parts of the next 25 years, is bat shit crazy.

Too much of this centers around catching lightning in a bottle just go get there once. Staying there requires a 180 degree cultural shift by administration, the legislature and non die hard fans.

word.

 

[ru8081]

Elite programs have elite cultures that surround them--namely, complicity of the press and cooperation of the state legislature.

Ain't happening folks.

Can we experience a good 10 year run of very good results? Sure. But anyone who thinks RU can be a Top 10 fixture for better parts of the next 25 years, is bat shit crazy.

Too much of this centers around catching lightning in a bottle just go get there once. Staying there requires a 180 degree cultural shift by administration, the legislature and non die hard fans.

"complicity of the press and cooperation of the state legislature". These two entities need to be "leaned" on. We need a PAC to punish (Vote/Boycott) those that lie about events. We have 460K living alums plus many fans. If you allow those with an agenda to lie about the school the untrue will "seem" true.

 

[derleider]

Der, yes it will be harder academically, but guess what. An elite Football/Men's Basketball programs will bring in tons of money into the university beyond the B1G payout. That money will be funneled back into Academics.

No - for the most part they just roll that money back into sports because its a red queen thing. Youve got to keep moving just to keep up. We are decades away from that in either sport. Both sports have hundreds of millions in new facility spending to get up to the elite level where we would stop spending on sports and give some o it back to academics. Plus the other sports.

Even then, the amount put back by athletics is piddling compared to the BILLIONs in spending RU would need to be elite academically. For a school the size of RU in such an expensive area you are talking something like $3-5 billion in 10-15 to get us up into say the Wisconsin/Illinois range (top 45). Athletics is grain of sand on the beach of that kind of money.

 

[RU4Real]

Elite programs have elite cultures that surround them--namely, complicity of the press and cooperation of the state legislature.

Ain't happening folks.

Can we experience a good 10 year run of very good results? Sure. But anyone who thinks RU can be a Top 10 fixture for better parts of the next 25 years, is bat shit crazy.

Too much of this centers around catching lightning in a bottle just go get there once. Staying there requires a 180 degree cultural shift by administration, the legislature and non die hard fans.

This.

The Pennsylvania state legislature structured PSU in such a way as to protect the school from all manner of FOIA requests. Anybody see that happening in NJ?

Blaming pragmatism for the observation that Rutgers and New Jersey do not have a synergistic winning culture is stupid and myopic and, therefore, ironic. If New Jersey was serious about Rutgers having a winning culture, the state never would have appointed Bob Barchi as president of the university. If the university was serious about having a winning culture it never would have allowed Kate Sweeney to steamroll the AD search. And if anyone was serious about the football team developing a winning culture they wouldn't have doubled down on their penny-pinching two years ago when we fell half a million dollars a year short of hiring Dan Mullen.

 

[jlariv9]

Elite programs have elite cultures that surround them--namely, complicity of the press and cooperation of the state legislature.

Ain't happening folks.

Can we experience a good 10 year run of very good results? Sure. But anyone who thinks RU can be a Top 10 fixture for better parts of the next 25 years, is bat shit crazy.

25 years may be too near term - we may not be a top program in 25 years but can Rutgers be a top-10 program over the next 50 years when most of us will be dead? Yes.

 

[Caliknight]

Please name me a NC winner or even contender who hasn't had a major scandal recently? NJ is going crazy of email gate........

VK is right. As constituted, Rutgers doesn't have the stomach to do what it takes to compete for national championships. People of NJ and the press are too hostile towards athletics. The teams we would have to compete with don't have all of these barriers, including an administration that doesn't really care.

 

[ruhudsonfan]

25 years may be too near term - we may not be a top program in 25 years but can Rutgers be a top-10 program over the next 50 years when most of us will be dead? Yes.

No. Go out a 100 years. Go out until the next Ice Age if you want.

The sea change that would need to occur inside of NJ makes the probability of RU Football being a Top 10 team insanely remote.

I'd go so far as to say, depending on how the next 5 months play out, we have a better shot of returning to pre 2005 levels than ever sniffing being an annual Top 10 team.

Organizations have institutional momentum that is very, very difficult to change. It's like driving an aircraft carrier (although those have gotten better..lol). RU's institutional momentum is permanently set to "mediocre."

Some of that is budget constraints. But most of it is an imbedded culture that values things other than excellence. We value diversity (in and of itself not a bad thing, unless misapplied). We value accessibility. We value "trying." We value "nice guys." We value "cheap."

Michigan, as an example, values excellence. They value sane amounts of diversity. They value long term investment. They value student experience. They value killers over nice guys. They value their alums and their boosters.

When one looks at things, other than a glitzy Hale Center and Nike uniforms, we've become a fraud compared to our supposed peer schools. Greg was building this on a "rock solid foundation." It's taken Elmer Flood 3 years to have this teetering on the edge of shambles--and I'm not relegating that thought process simply to arrests and e-mails.

We're at a crossroads of what this state, administration, alumni base, donor base and current student body expect out of the athletics department. How they handle the next 5 months will tell you everything you need to know about the future of the program--5, 10, 20, 25 years from now.

Look at Purdue. Do you think it's not possible for us to be the East Division Purdue? Sure as hell possible from where I sit. And they have infinitely much more history and previous success than we have.

 

[PhDKnight]

VK is right. As constituted, Rutgers doesn't have the stomach to do what it takes to compete for national championships. People of NJ and the press are too hostile towards athletics. The teams we would have to compete with don't have all of these barriers, including an administration that doesn't really care.

Agree 100%. Can it be done? Sure in a generation or two with a complete turnover in the culture of the state and university. That's easy right?

 

[derleider]

This.

The Pennsylvania state legislature structured PSU in such a way as to protect the school from all manner of FOIA requests. Anybody see that happening in NJ?

Blaming pragmatism for the observation that Rutgers and New Jersey do not have a synergistic winning culture is stupid and myopic and, therefore, ironic. If New Jersey was serious about Rutgers having a winning culture, the state never would have appointed Bob Barchi as president of the university. If the university was serious about having a winning culture it never would have allowed Kate Sweeney to steamroll the AD search. And if anyone was serious about the football team developing a winning culture they wouldn't have doubled down on their penny-pinching two years ago when we fell half a million dollars a year short of hiring Dan Mullen.

You really think PSU structured the way it did to avoid FOIA?

 

[RU4Real]

You really think PSU structured the way it did to avoid FOIA?

Directly? No. But as a matter of convenient consequences, it's certainly worked out for them. My point is that would never happen in NJ, regardless of the reasons.

 

[MoobyCow]

all the coaching search talk got me thinking "what do we really want this program to be"? More importantly "what do you think it could actually become" personally, I would be ecstatic to become Iowa. 7-9 wins a year with the occasional 10 and 4 win seasons. To me, people who think we will ever become some NC contender year in and year out are crazy. NJ's culture simply isn't willing to accept what it takes. Thoughts?

I'd be fine with that. My problem now is the upside seems to be 7 wins and the downside much lower. Last year we won all sorts of close games with a senior QB and an experienced OL and scratched 7 regular season wins. That can't be the upside. Hell, I'd be OK if last year was the norm and we had that most of the time, with some better some worse, but I don't see anything about this team or staff which leads me to believe that last year is anything other than the best we could expect with most years being worse.

 

[j10oreo]

The Big 10's Stanford.... I don't expect to win them all, but I'd like to be a program to be feared also maintains a strong level of integrity (sorry KF).

 

[ruhudsonfan]

The Big 10's Stanford.... I don't expect to win them all, but I'd like to be a program to be feared also maintains a strong level of integrity (sorry KF).

Yeah pick the best university in America.

Stanford's football results are not Stanfordesque without Top 3 academics...

 

[Caliknight]

Agree 100%. Can it be done? Sure in a generation or two with a complete turnover in the culture of the state and university. That's easy right?

That's the crux. Can culture the size and depth of Rutgers actually be changed? Maybe. But it will take a long time and full shift in philosophy. It is possible, but highly unlikely.

 

[StyleKnight]

I'm sure Iowa wakes up every day and says, "I can't wait to not aspire to be the best today, slightly better than mediocre is just fine for me."

 

[brgossRU90]

If rutgers football was ever truly great and won something meaningful you might be surprised at how things could change in favor of the university in all sorts of places.

 

[Caliknight]

If rutgers football was ever truly great and won something meaningful you might be surprised at how things could change in favor of the university in all sorts of places.

Chicken egg. You can't win big without those other things in place. And with those things in place, it isn't a guarantee that you will win big.

It is simply a pre req. to even compete.

 

[ru8081]

To answer the OP Question: It is criminally incompetent for RU not to be where IOWA right now. Competence, not even excellence, would get us past Iowa easily.

 

[jlariv9]

No. Go out a 100 years. Go out until the next Ice Age if you want.

The sea change that would need to occur inside of NJ makes the probability of RU Football being a Top 10 team insanely remote.

I'd go so far as to say, depending on how the next 5 months play out, we have a better shot of returning to pre 2005 levels than ever sniffing being an annual Top 10 team.

Organizations have institutional momentum that is very, very difficult to change. It's like driving an aircraft carrier (although those have gotten better..lol). RU's institutional momentum is permanently set to "mediocre."

Some of that is budget constraints. But most of it is an imbedded culture that values things other than excellence. We value diversity (in and of itself not a bad thing, unless misapplied). We value accessibility. We value "trying." We value "nice guys." We value "cheap."

Michigan, as an example, values excellence. They value sane amounts of diversity. They value long term investment. They value student experience. They value killers over nice guys. They value their alums and their boosters.

When one looks at things, other than a glitzy Hale Center and Nike uniforms, we've become a fraud compared to our supposed peer schools. Greg was building this on a "rock solid foundation." It's taken Elmer Flood 3 years to have this teetering on the edge of shambles--and I'm not relegating that thought process simply to arrests and e-mails.

We're at a crossroads of what this state, administration, alumni base, donor base and current student body expect out of the athletics department. How they handle the next 5 months will tell you everything you need to know about the future of the program--5, 10, 20, 25 years from now.

Look at Purdue. Do you think it's not possible for us to be the East Division Purdue? Sure as hell possible from where I sit. And they have infinitely much more history and previous success than we have.

Sorry, but this post makes little sense and contradicts itself. First you say that Rutgers will never "get there," not in our lifetime and not even before the next ice age, but then later say that the next 5 months are critical for the future of the program. Really? Like I said above, it's exactly this type of thinking that keeps us down. One regime change at the top could change the whole direction of the school, the athletic dept, and the football program. The culture surrounding Rutgers athletics could easily change with 10-15 years. It's happened at dozens of other schools with a quarter of the resources and talent that we have and in less time! It's this defeatist attitude that destroys us.

 

[brgossRU90]

You can win big with less than many think but it involves taking some risks. Our last hc choice, and the coach he was up against, however, was the absolute antithesis of risk taking.

 

[RUSK97]

Elite programs have elite cultures that surround them--namely, complicity of the press and cooperation of the state legislature.

Ain't happening folks.

Can we experience a good 10 year run of very good results? Sure. But anyone who thinks RU can be a Top 10 fixture for better parts of the next 25 years, is bat shit crazy.

Too much of this centers around catching lightning in a bottle just go get there once. Staying there requires a 180 degree cultural shift by administration, the legislature and non die hard fans.

Truer words have never been spoken, but damn the truth hurts.

 

[RU4Real]

Sorry, but this post makes little sense and contradicts itself. First you say that Rutgers will never "get there," not in our lifetime and not even before the next ice age, but then later say that the next 5 months are critical for the future of the program. Really? Like I said above, it's exactly this type of thinking that keeps us down. One regime change at the top could change the whole direction of the school, the athletic dept, and the football program. The culture surrounding Rutgers athletics could easily change with 10-15 years. It's happened at dozens of other schools with a quarter of the resources and talent that we have and in less time! It's this defeatist attitude that destroys us.

I started going to every Rutgers home game 30 years ago and became a season ticket holder 26 years ago.

In those early days, tailgating in an empty Scarlet lot, we used to have this debate with folks who are undoubtedly dead now. "How long will it take? Where were Rutgers be in 10, 20, 50 years?"

The reality is that the culture around Rutgers and Rutgers football hasn't experienced a fundamental change during that time. We've successively jumped to bigger conferences, but with each move we find ourselves at the bottom of the heap.

The only glimmer of light was under the reign of Bob Mulcahy. He got the first major stadium expansion done, he brought in Greg Schiano, he lined up the first major sponsorship agreements in the team's history, he singlehandedly strong-armed the folks in Trenton and got them to play ball.

For his trouble, he was disgraced by the media, abandoned by the administration and run out of town.

You might want to reflect on that for a while.