2007 Navy vs. Rutgers

Colleges and Universities A-Z Naval Academy - Annapolis
61

<p><a href="http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/RobertKnight/2007/09/14/rutgers_fans%E2%80%99_abuse_of_navy_players_elicits_media_yawn%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/RobertKnight/2007/09/14/rutgers_fans%E2%80%99_abuse_of_navy_players_elicits_media_yawn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
It pays to be on the media’s approved victims list. </p>

<p>After Don Imus made his “ho” comment about the Rutgers women’s basketball team on April 4, the media went into a feeding frenzy. In the first week after the story broke, the three major networks aired a total of 19 segments. On cable, CNN had 60, with Fox News at 21 and MSNBC at 13. </p>

<p>The New York Times ran 12 articles, USA Today and The Washington Post each ran nine, and Newark, New Jersey’s Star-Ledger ran 11....

[/quote]
</p>

62

<p>Rutgers runs it up
By
Matthew Zemek
Collegefootballnews.com</p>

<p>Greg Schiano padded Ray Rice's stats late in a win over Navy on Sept. 7. But after being criticized for a bush-league move, the Rutgers head coach only seemed even more determined to rub it in the face of an opponent.</p>

<p>Saturday against tiny Norfolk State, Schiano called a bevy of timeouts in short succession while his team held a 45-0 lead at the end of the second quarter. NSU coach Pete Adrian had a right to be upset, and the fact that the controversy was the lead item in the Associated Press' (usually) bland game report shows you how much this story matters. It overshadowed anything and everything that Rutgers might have achieved in this game.</p>

<p>Okay, coach Schiano, it's time to throw down some tough talk: before this season, you did the right things in the right way for all the right reasons at Rutgers. After several years of hard work ‹ and justified patience from your athletic director ‹ you've gained the right results as well. You were a model for all other coaches in every possible way.</p>

<p>But now, after two straight weeks of stat-padding, with one of them coming in a classic paycheck game, all the goodwill and political capital of Rutgers University's football program are being thrown out the window. This on-field controversy involving Schiano's methods (and motives) accompanies the off-field developments concerning the unruly and unbecoming behavior of the Rutgers student body at home games in Piscataway, N.J.</p>

<p>Coach, your reasoning after the Norfolk State game was pretty lame. You said that as long as your starters are in the game, you play the way you coach: all-out, with a complete focus on performance and excellence. That statement leaves a lot to be desired for a number of reasons.</p>

<p>First, you can justify leaving your starters in the game far longer than they should. If Ray Rice is on the field, you think you can do whatever you want. So you leave Rice in the game, and you do whatever you want. Twisted logic, to say the very least.</p>

<p>Secondly, one would think that with backups in the game, you would actually work harder as a coach. When first-string players are competing against a grossly inferior opponent, you don't need to trick up your playbook or complicate your game plan. With dominant players, you can do the simplest things and still score points. If that happens, then you can't be accused of stat-padding.</p>

<p>But with backup players who need exposure to live-action game management situations, it's justifiable to provide trick plays and special strategies.</p>

<p>Second- or third-string players deserve the right to work with the gadgets, exotics and wrinkles normally reserved for the first-teamers. If your bench-warmers get a full playbook and a complex offensive package, no opposing coach could argue: second-stringers don't get much work, so they need exposure to everything. The logic is clear and convincing.</p>

<p>Long story short, you can't have it both ways, Mr. Schiano: either you keep your first string in the game and don't call the timeouts, or you put in your backups and call the timeouts. If you were a really nice guy, you'd put in second-stringers and not call the timeouts, but we'll be reasonable and ask for only one action, not both. But you did neither; you kept in the first-team offense AND called the three timeouts in a 45-point game against a paycheck school whom you should treat with a little more respect. It's not just Pete Adrian who should be angry at you; it's an entire college football community that suddenly doesn't feel that Rutgers is a feel-good story anymore.</p>

<p>Not with the embarrassing way in which you're conducting yourself on gamedays, Mr. Schiano.</p>

<p>^^^^^
Coach Schiano is a great football coach but he has no class.</p>

63

<p>By
Bill Wagner
Annapolis Capital Navy Blog</p>

<p>Most members of the media were taken aback by the controversy that arose this past week involving the poor behavior of some Rutgers University fans. According to Mark Di Ionna of the Newark-Star Ledger, a contingent of Rutgers students sitting in the new bleacher section at Rutgers Stadium, booed Navy when it took the field then directed chants such as "You Suck!" toward the team. At one point, the students began chanting "F*** You Navy" over and over.</p>

<p>Working in a glass-enclosed press box, none of the Navy reporters on hand heard any of the offending booing, cursing or chanting. In fact, many of us left the stadium that night impressed with the class displayed by a large contingent of Rutgers fans, who gave the Navy team a standing ovation as it departed the field following the game.</p>

<p>A group of about two hundred fans gathered around the tunnel and clapped heartily as the Navy players filed off the field and yelled such encouraging words as "Beat Notre Dame" or "Thank you for your service." One can only presume those fans were older, working folks who appreciate what members of the military do for the United States and understand that members of the Navy football team will soon be defending this great country of ours.</p>

64

<p>By Bob Ford</p>

<p>Inquirer Columnist</p>

<p>Among the many questions Greg Schiano and the Rutgers football program have to answer this season - the season after the season that was - is whether a college team can really win national attention without forfeiting its soul.</p>

<p>The Bowl Championship Series, that Ponzi scheme perpetrated by the royal families of Division I football, isn't designed to foster sportsmanship or values that might exist outside the cold calculus of its computer rankings. It is designed, essentially, to protect the franchise of the six conferences that dominate the postseason bowls and are always assured of having the national champion emerge from their ranks.</p>

<p>There are occasional ladders being hoisted on the castle walls these days. Boise State came frighteningly close to scaling the parapet last season, and Michigan's loss to Appalachian State wasn't a ringing endorsement for the sanctity of big-time football, either.</p>

<p>If this keeps up, all those jackals calling for a playoff system might actually get it, and what then?</p>

<p>Probably things wouldn't be much different from now, although a few more small fry might grab crumbs from the table, a prospect that would be good for the overall health of the college game, but one that displeases the greedy grumps of the big conferences.</p>

<p>They don't share well, and, judging by what Rutgers did to Norfolk State recently, they don't play well with others, either.</p>

<p>Not that the Scarlet Knights were out of line by the standards of the BCS. The system might stink, but Rutgers didn't invent it.</p>

<p>Still, when a ranked team leading a Division I-AA opponent by 45-0 calls all three of its time-outs near the end of the first half to get the ball back and score again, that seems a touch over the top.</p>

<p>Schiano did exactly that against Norfolk State in Rutgers' most recent game. The Knights had already scored 42 points in the second period against the overmatched Spartans, who were only there for the $275,000 guarantee. The six touchdowns were accomplished in just 11 plays and a total of 91 seconds. So it's fair to say that Norfolk State didn't have many answers for Rutgers quarterback Mike Teel or tailback Ray Rice, a Heisman Trophy candidate.</p>

<p>That didn't stop Schiano from using his time-outs on Norfolk's final possession of the half, trying to squeeze in one more possession of his own.</p>

<p>"If your starters are in there, you play the game the way you coach it," Schiano said afterward, as if someone else had decided that the starters were still in. "I'm comfortable, very comfortable, with the way we went about it."</p>

<p>Norfolk State coach Pete Adrian, whose head was so spun around that he
didn't even get the score right, wasn't as sure as Schiano.</p>

<p>"Forty-eight-zip and you're calling three time-outs at the end?" Adrian said. "Hey, if that turns you on, it's fine."</p>

<p>In some ways, this was just a normal outgrowth of the mating dance that occurs between big programs that need guaranteed victories and smaller programs that need cash to support themselves. The Norfolk State athletic department knew exactly what it was getting into against Rutgers, although that doesn't mean its football players deserved to be intentionally embarrassed. For the record, Schiano didn't play Rice or Teel in the second half of what became a 59-0 final score. What a guy.</p>

<p>No bad deed goes entirely unrewarded in the BCS, and Rutgers has climbed to No. 10 in the Associated Press poll. What is ironic is that Rutgers was the feel-good story of 2006, the gutty little team that finally got its act together after decades of underachieving. (The feel-good story of 2007 is, of course, Notre Dame, doing its best to make a prophet out of Charlie Weis, who promised to turn the program around and appears to be doing so. Too bad he's only under contract through 2015.)</p>

<p>When Rutgers rose to No. 7 in the polls after winning its first nine games last season, that was great. When the Knights lost that incredible three-overtime game against West Virginia with an Orange Bowl invitation on the line, that was heartbreaking. And when Rutgers romped past Kansas State in the Texas Bowl for its first bowl win, that was a kiss and a promise for the 2007 season.</p>

<p>Now that the little guy is a big guy, though, he isn't quite as cute. Rutgers fans had to be chastised after yelling obscenities at Navy players earlier in the season. Then there was the handling of the Norfolk State game.</p>

<p>But apparently what matters is that Rutgers is up where it wants to be, playing the same crooked game as the big boys. Sure hope it's worth it in the end.</p>

<p>Contact columnist Bob Ford at 215-854-5842 or <a href="mailto:bford@phillynews.com">bford@phillynews.com</a>. Read his recent work at <a href="http://go.philly.com/bobford%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://go.philly.com/bobford&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p>