Big East Picks: Can Punters Get PTSD?
Each week FanHouse Big East writer Brett McMurphy will preview the Big East and make his weekly predictions.Excuse Connecticut senior punter Desi Cullen if he's having trouble sleeping this week and having flashbacks to last year's nightmare game with North Carolina.Last year against the Tar Heels, Cullen had three punts blocked -- all in the second quarter, all by UNC's Bruce Carter -- as the Tar Heels routed the Huskies.UNC visits UConn Saturday and bad news for the Huskies and Cullen, Carter is back for another run at Cullen.And according to Carter's bio on UNC's official Web site, his New Year's resolution "was to work twice as hard as he did in 2008." Good grief, has anyone ever blocked six punts in one game?To Cullen's credit, he has maintained his sense of humor. On Tuesday when meeting with Connecticut reporters, he happened to be the last UConn player to show.Cullen came from his psychology class, he told the Hartford Courant. "Which is good for this week," he said.Cullen probably wanted to visit a psychiatrist after last year's game.Then, a few weeks before playing in last year's International Bowl, Cullen underwent an emergency appendectomy, the Courant reported. That pain probably wasn't anything like what Cullen experienced last year against UNC.Cullen, though, persevered and ended up finishing second in the league with a 39.5 average.Saturday's game marks the first time the Tar Heels have visited UConn since 2005. That year, UNC pulled out a seven-point win (77-70) and went on to win the national championship. What? OK, so that was in men's basketball, but history repeats itself Saturday: UNC leaves UConn with another seven-point win, covering the 4½ points. USF at Western Kentucky: Speaking of national championships, with little fanfare last week, USF captured its first national title in the program's 13-year history by winning the Fulmer Cup. The coveted title, as determined by EveryDayShouldBeSaturday.com, awards points to football programs based on their players' alleged violations with law enforcement. USF's newly crowned 2009 Fulmer Cup champions visit Western Kentucky Saturday. Last week, Fulmer's old school, Tennessee, could have been charged for assault after pistol-whipping the Hilltoppers, 63-7. The Bulls, who likely will be suffering from a Fulmer Cup title hangover, get the easy victory, but the Hilltoppers manage to stay within the 24½ -point spread.Syracuse at Penn State: Syracuse QB Greg Paulus played admirably last week in his first competitive football game in five years. But it wasn't quite enough in the overtime loss to Minnesota. At Duke, Paulus played in his share of tough road environments, but how will playing North Carolina at the Dean Dome compare to his first football road start before 105,000 fans in Happy Valley? After a strong first half last week, Paulus was 0-for-5 on third down passes in the second half and overtime. This will be a new experience for him and beating Penn State would be a unique experience for SU coach Doug Marrone. From 1983-85 when Marrone played at SU, the Orange went 0-3 against Penn State, losing all three meetings by a combined 33 points. Coming off an OT loss, Syracuse will be fortunate to stay that close to the Nittany Lions. Penn State covers the 28½ points.East Carolina at West Virginia: WVU coach Bill Stewart called last year's 24-3 loss to East Carolina a "thrashing." I'm not sure if he was referring to the game or the reaction from WVU's Board of Governor members and donors when Stewart's six-year contract was announced days after the defeat. The following game, WVU went to Colorado and lost with ESPN's Erin Andrews remarking the Mountaineers' sideline was "mass confusion." By the way, how is that search for weapons of mass confusion coming? Confusion reigns as the TD favorite Mountaineers escape on a Tyler Bitancurt field goal. .fanhouseButton {margin:2em 0;} .fanhouseButton a:link, .fanhouseButton a:visited, .fanhouseButton a:hover, .fanhouseButton a:active {background-color:#dd2829;color:#FFFFFF;font-size:18px;padding:0.3em 0.6em;text-decoration:none;} .fanhouseButton a:hover {background-color:#000000;}
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Pittsburgh at Buffalo: The Bulls are coming off a road win at UTEP. Ah, El Paso. True story: at the 2007 Sun Bowl, a friend and I walked across the border into Juarez. The first words we heard upon stepping onto Mexican soil were "Amigos, you want to see Donkey show?" We declined. Saturday will be the "Dion Lewis Show" as Pitt's freshman RB goes for his second consecutive 100-yard game. With a dominating defense, Pitt covers the 13½ points.Howard at Rutgers (no line): The National Football Foundation recently reported that 17 colleges, including Vermont's Castleton State College, the University of Incarnate Word in Texas and South Dakota's Presentation College, are starting up football programs in the next five years. Interestingly, Rutgers already has scheduled a game with each new program through 2026. Rutgers 38-6.Southeast Missouri State at Cincinnati (no line): Like last week's laugher at Rutgers, Cincinnati QB Tony Pike will finish this game watching from the sidelines. Cincinnati 41-17.The gory detailsLast week and season: 6-1 straight up; 0-3 against the spread (Unlike the ACC, at least my losses involved strictly FBS teams)Big East Picks: Can Punters Get PTSD? originally appeared on NCAA Football FanHouse on Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:00:00 EST . .
Nothing worse than a planned construction project running headlong into a recession. Financing shrinks, credit gets tighter and there is just less money available. It does not matter if it is for a private project or a public deal. Rutgers was dealing with just that problem as they started to expand their stadium. The plans were not quite grandiose, but they did have a lot of extras beyond simply expanding the seating capacity. There were suites, expanded facilities, all sorts of amenities that have become standard in modern stadiums. Of course, with New Jersey facing a major budget crisis, donations running way behind projections, layoffs on the academic side of the university, tuition hikes and even cutting some sports from the athletic department the expansion of Rutgers Stadium was suddenly limited to expanding the seating.That is until Rutgers was given $5 million by two private donors earmarked for one specific extra feature in the stadium. A "recruiting lounge."The Brown Football Recruiting Lounge and Welcome Center will be named for one of the donors, Motorola CEO and Rutgers alumnus Greg Brown. The second donor, also an alumnus, requested anonymity, officials said. They said both donors explicitly directed the money toward the recruiting lounge, whose project budget is estimated at $4.85 million.Board members voted in December to scrap the lounge -- along with other extras such as locker rooms and media facilities -- when faced with a $30 million shortfall in the $102 million project that will add 11,500 seats. The lounge will feature a private elevator to access the lounge, plasma TVs, along with other features. It will be able to accommodate about 300 people -- or roughly a big recruiting weekend including the family and friends of the potential recruits. An extravagant, but nice extra that did not add to the public cost of the expansion. At most places, that would be the end of it.
Instead, there has been a small but vocal contingent outraged by the money being given to a specific item that Rutgers Coach Greg Schiano had been lobbying to be restored to the project. Some wanted the money used for the general stadium expansion debt, restoring lost athletic programs, or even giving it back rather than use it this way. All in all, some rather comical bloviating and inability to comprehend the idea of specifically targeted donations, coaches that don't stop agitating for the things they think are necessary to help them, Added bonus, neither of the donors were elected officials in New Jersey or Rabbis in the NY/NJ area.Rutgers Stadium Expansion Gets Lounge, Whining originally appeared on NCAA Football FanHouse on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:32:00 EST . .
One team started the season 1-5 and was widely considered to be regressing back to the way things had long been. The other started 5-0, was ranked in the top-10, and everyone was once more singing the praises of a coach that didn't just build but created the football program at the school.Yeah, it's safe to say that a lot has changed for both teams since then. Rutgers, with the 49-16 road whipping on USF. has gone 4-0 since. It includes a 20-point road win over top-20 Pitt. Rutgers has rediscovered its offense and QB Mike Teel has something resembling touch on his passes once more. The defense has remained consistent through most of the season which has helped.For USF, it is a second straight year of a second-half collapse. This time, a 1-4 stretch where the offense has shot itself in the foot continually with turnovers, penalties and not getting into the endzone. The defense has likewise been sloppy and inconsistent. This game was a microcosm for both teams in the second half stretch. Rutgers' defense was putting constant pressure upfront that completely harassed Matt Grothe and kept him contained. They forced 6 turnovers. The offense was all about the pass as Teel had just under 300 yards. For USF, six turnovers and 10 penalties for 100 yards. The Bulls threw for over 300 yards, but could only get two touchdowns from the offense. The defense was continually burned for big plays.As strange as it may seem, both teams could end the season 7-5, but Rutgers could finish Big East play 5-2. That record would likely have them finish second in the conference, but it isn't out of the possibility that they could end up finishing with a share of first place in the Big East.Rutgers And USF Continue to Travel in Opposite Directions originally appeared on NCAA Football FanHouse on Sat, 15 Nov 2008 15:51:00 EST . .
In the world of college football coaches, Greg Schiano's name continues to be one of the hottest. He has been pursued for the Miami and Michigan jobs. He is at the forefront of every speculative story on "who will be the next coach at Penn State when the Zombie King is has salt poured into his mouth and his lips sewn shut Joe Paterno retires?" So it shouldn't be a surprise there are lots of interesting little extras in his latest contract to keep him happy in New Jersey.A salary boost that could pay up to $2 million with bonuses? Check. More money for his assistant coaches? Check. Free and unlimited use of a helicopter and jet for recruiting visits "university business?" Check. How about another $250,000 not actually disclosed? Yep. In the addendum to his contract, dated July 2, 2007, the university arranged for Nelligan Sports Marketing, the exclusive marketing agent for Rutgers, to pay the coach the additional $250,000 -- keeping the payments off the school's payroll.The money was deducted from sponsorship revenues collected on the university's behalf by the marketing firm, but the amount was guaranteed by Rutgers. It was listed as a payment for "personal services" and was made to a limited liability company established by Schiano.Rutgers Athletic Director Robert Mulcahy considered this being "a little resourceful" in coming up with extra money to pay Schiano. Not that they were trying to keep it off the books or anything.Sure looks like it, though. The athletic department is getting less money from the marketing firm. Shifting that money to Schiano's LLC. The only difference is that the athletic department is directly paying Schiano that money. Cutting out the middleman?It also turns out that Schiano had a "Jeff Tedford clause" in the contract.Rutgers University made a secret deal allowing the head football coach to walk away from his contract without penalty if it did not complete a major expansion of its football stadium by 2009. Under his current agreement, Greg Schiano is required to pay $500,000 for breaking his 10-year contract if he leaves following the 2009 football season. However, an addendum to that contract, never divulged by Rutgers, releases him from those same damages if the construction is not completed on time.Rutgers school president has apologized over the "lack of transparency" to Schiano's contract and now has regrets over the way it was handled. Considering Rutgers is a state school and facing budget issues as the whole state of New Jersey is in a budget crisis, this information is a bit embarrassing to the school and a potential annoyance. Especially since it, unsurprisingly, has resulted in politicians calling for investigations into the matter.It does, however, explain why the athletic department was so gung-ho about getting the stadium expansion underway, even in the face of a money crunch. And why they are pushing forward as the potential to go significantly over budget looms.Greg Schiano Has a Lot of Extra Clauses in His Latest Contract originally appeared on NCAA Football FanHouse on Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:58:00 EST . .
What? A construction project in New Jersey is having problems staying within costs? Go on? Really? We can't have that feeding into typical stereotypes. First it was being reported that the expansion of Rutgers Stadium was looking to go significantly over budget. Then, the Athletic Director vehemently denied that. While the rising cost of fuel, steel and concrete has resulted in some higher-than-expected bids on the second phase of the stadium expansion, Mulcahy insisted that plans to add a total of 13,000 seats in the north and south end zones, to put in a new scoreboard and a lounge for recruits for the start of the 2009 season would not be changed."Let me put it this way, I am going to do this thing for $102 million," Mulcahy said. "I'm going to have seats in the south end zone and I am going to have the scoreboard and I am going to have the club done."Of course, that insistence may have had just a little to do with the revelation that Rutgers tied the buyout of Coach Greg Schiano to the completion of the stadium expansion.The problem for Rutgers is that they find themselves looking at a significant gap between what they have been able to raise and what they are planning to spend for the expansion of Rutgers Stadium from 42,000 to 55,000. State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), a long-time Scarlet Knights booster involved in the $30 million fundraising campaign spearheaded by Gov. Jon Corzine, expressed doubts that any more than $10 million could eventually be raised and acknowledged nowhere near that amount of money has been raised, but could not say how much. "This was far more difficult than we could have thought. It really didn't get off the ground," he said. "It's just tough circumstances." It turns out those pesky ethics laws about politicians calling up people for donations still apply when the politicians are calling to suggest they give money to Rutgers stadium expansion project as well as election campaigns. To say nothing of the economic recession in the country that tends to tighten the gift giving. Why it's enough to make a clergyman serving on Rutgers board, take his lord's name in vain. The Rev. M. William Howard, chairman of Rutgers' board of governors, acknowledged the university may need to take on most of the cost itself because the fundraising campaign is falling short."We're looking at everything. I mean, Jesus, that's what prudent leadership is required to do," Howard said.That goal of making the Athletic Department self-sufficient does not appear to be happening anytime soon.