Step right up Rutgers, become the Big East's glamour team

NEWPORT, R.I. -- The reality hit Greg Schiano upside his ears. It had never been easy spending eight seasons dragging Rutgers out of the muck, but this was different.

This was personal.

They booed.

Despite the boos, former QB Mike Teel -- now a Seahawk -- was the MVP of Rutgers' December bowl win. (US Presswire)

Not just his Scarlet Knights but a specific player. Quarterback Mike Teel, prone to inaccuracy at times, let's just say was using every part of the field at that point in 2008. Combined with a 1-5 start, it was beginning to become a deal breaker with the fans in a relationship that had been taking off.

So they booed, and it was brutal at times. The Rutgers coach and his players had put the sweat equity into building once-laughable Rutgers into something respectable. Then came last season's frightening first-half back-slide.

Fresno State won the opener at Rutgers by 17 on national TV. There was a 32-point embarrassment applied by North Carolina. The Scarlet Knights lost the first two conference games by a combined 10 points. Still, those games were losses and maybe some evidence that the old Rutgers had returned.

"We're just a little bit off," Schiano said Tuesday at the Big East media day.

He compared the bad start to a sailboat that goes off course by one degree. Same with those Teel passes that whizzed over, under and past receivers. Either way, though, you're lost.

So they booed and it hurt because of the way Rutgers had tried to position itself. The State of Rutgers, Schiano called it. New Jersey, New York, you're all in the passion bucket. The block R sticker began popping up on cars at the Jersey shore. You don't tat up the SUV unless you're proud of your school.

Center Ryan Blaszczyk grew up an hour south of Rutgers in Medford Lakes, N.J. His high school coach Tim Gushue had been a big Penn State and Joe Paterno guy. Rutgers and Blaszczyk's success made Gushue split his allegiance.

"New Jersey has been looking for something to grab hold on, become a part of," Blaszczyk said. "Rutgers has really tied parts of the state together."

New Jersey has the players. Schiano had been recruiting the heck out of the state, but Manhattan was the ultimate target. You make it there and the Apple distributes your message for you.

The relationship frayed just a little bit. Schiano knew. You give the New York media a chance to ignore you and they will. Don't produce for the fans and it doesn't matter if you're A-Rod or Mike Teel. The difference is that booing is rare in college football for even the worst teams. But to boo a specific player?

"I get angry about that," Schiano said. "I didn't like it. But you don't get into a back-and-forth with the fans. That isn't smart.

"I understand their frustration. For so long they were starved and you get a taste and now, all of a sudden, you're 1-5. I guarantee you fans were saying, 'Oh no, we're not going back to this.'"

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The old Rutgers would have folded. It did that a lot from 1998-2004 when the program posted 15 non-winning seasons in 17 years. Schiano's Scarlet Knights rallied, though, winning seven in a row to finish 8-5 and win a third consecutive bowl game.

Still, 8-5 isn't 12-1 and New York is still waiting. If you were there that night in 2006 you would have swore the Scarlet Knights were about to win a national championship. They beat Louisville on a last-second field goal to go to 9-0. They were ranked in the top five. Rutgers Stadium was nuts. Jersey was nuts. New York was nuts.

But taking Manhattan? It hasn't happened all the way, quite yet. Rutgers is only 18-12 since that Louisville win. Back-to-back 8-5 seasons followed that 11-2 in 2006. Rutgers has progressed but it hasn't taken the next step.

"In Miami they will boo you in a heartbeat," said Schiano, who spent two seasons as the Hurricanes defensive coordinator. "In New York/New Jersey, you're going to get it. The highs are higher than anyplace else; the lows are lower than anyplace. That's what makes coaching and playing in our area so much fun.

"We set out to change the culture. I think we have. We're not there yet, but we've flipped it."

That 2006 Rutgers loss was Louisville's only one in league play. The Cardinals won the league and went to the Orange Bowl. In 2007, West Virginia won. Heck, UConn even got a share. Last year it was Cincinnati.

The highest finish under Schiano was a three-way tie for second last season.

"New York does need a team and I believe we're it," he said. "We won two bowl games after 2006. If we could have done better, we could have captured New York even more than we have. But you know what? Things don't always go exactly as you want."

There is a bigger picture than the one being painted in pastoral Piscataway. While the Big East has performed well lately, people are starting to ask exactly what separates it from the Mountain West. One league has automatic entry into the BCS each year -- the other has to scramble for table scraps.

The answer: Nothing. The Big East just happened to be on the right side of the ledger when the BCS was created. No, it's not fair but it's going to be that way for at least the next five years.

There is a chance that the MWC could gain automatic entry in 2012 and 2013 on a trial basis. That wouldn't eliminate the Big East's automatic bid but it would mean one less slot for the power conferences. Who knows what could happen if the MWC showed well prior to the expiration of the next BCS TV deal?

That's why the Big East needs a glamour team and Rutgers needs to be that team. The league owns the city in basketball. In football, New York is fragmented.

Poll Which team will win the Big East? 18% Pittsburgh   31% West Virginia   15% Cincinnati   12% South Florida   25% Rutgers   Total Votes: 3948

The fact that five teams could win the league this season in football isn't necessarily a plus. West Virginia has faded a bit. Pittsburgh is favored by some but hasn't won the league since 2004. Even then, it was only 8-4. Cincinnati can win all the titles it wants, it's still Cincinnati. South Florida has teased going undefeated the last two Septembers but finishing a combined 7-8.

It would help immensely if the Big East flagship was right up the Jersey Turnpike.

"We spent years at ABC trying to decide what the best team was to put on in New York," said Tim Pernetti, Rutgers' new AD who is about as plugged in as you can get on the issue. He is a former Scarlet Knights tight end, Rutgers radio color man and TV executive at both CBS and ABC.

"We could never figure it out," he added. "What [Rutgers' success] proved to us is that if you can stay on that track, you can do it. Our ratings for West Virginia and Louisville in 2006 were two of the top five highest-rated games on ESPN. People are now aware of what we're doing."

Rutgers is favored by some to capture its first Big East title. It's a soft endorsement, though, considering the preseason media poll picked Pittsburgh. Only 35 votes separated the top five. Rutgers finished fifth.

But you know what they say about opinions and a certain body part. Everybody has one. And what do those fans know anyway? Teel is now in the NFL with the Seattle Seahawks.

More help is on the way. Schiano won't say who it was but Rutgers received a notable commitment earlier this year. NCAA rules prohibit the coach from elaborating but the kid is from New Jersey.

In that moment, eight years slogging it out in South Jersey produced a shred of evidence that the State of Rutgers maybe was becoming a state of mind.

"We had our first kid tell me, 'It's been a dream of mine to play at Rutgers,'" Schiano said. "I did get goose bumps."