one reason why RU doesn't have more non-alum fans

[RUsSKii]

You can cherry pick stats to support your position and so can I:
Defeated Michigan (when did u think RU would ever do that?) and Arkansas twice. Both of these teams had much higher recruit rankings than RU.
Has recruited an Elite 11 QB for next year (who will probably go to PState if Flood leaves).
Never had a losing record until this year.
Was competitive against Mich St. this year and PU last year.
Players love him.
Had his best defensive player lost for the season and best offensive player for the majority of it. Playing an inexperienced secondary and a new QB.
And you want to get rid of him? Nuts.

Rutgers finished with a losing record, 6-7, in 2013. Or do bowl games suddenly not count for that statistic?
And many of us want or get rid of for the academic transgressions and player arrests/dismissals alone. The poor coaching and results should just further seal his fate,

 

[OC Knight]

I never understood the point of rooting for a college sports team of college that one didn't attend.

Grew up in NY and loved college football as a kid. Rooted for USC back then (and still do ) long before going to RU.

 

[thad23]

Curious--why? I am somewhat with you, but I'll give whoever Rutgers hires as head coach a chance.

I just don't like him and think he's an awful coach. I'll watch, but I wouldn't be able to give 110% as a fan. I'd give anyone else a fair shake though.

 

[Scarlet Shack]

IMO, Rutgers has such enormous potential as a college football program. Being in the media capital of the world and a heavily populated state that doesn't have another major college football program, it's a unique situation that few (if any) schools have. So, why do people in the Garden State grow up rooting for schools like Notre Dame, Penn State, and Miami?

One reason is that those schools wouldn't have someone hired as head coach with the idea that he could learn and grow into the position of head coach. And they wouldn't keep a guy on the job simply because he was a nice guy.

This may not sound like much, but do you realize how many kids growing up rooting for a school may ultimately attend that school? If non-alums followed the program as fans, their kids would likely grow up as fans. When it came time to choose a college, RU would be on their radar. Ever wonder why so many people from Jersey go to Penn State? Partly it's because they see the college experience on TV with games shown from Beaver Stadium. It looks like a fun place to go.

Between merchandise sales, ticket sales, and future RU students, there is quite a lot to gain from being popular with those who aren't alums.

I wonder how many people became fans of the NY Jets when Rich Kotite was coach. That's what RU has now. A coach that is bringing the program down. Does it really make a difference if he winds up beating 3 teams that have less than 3 wins on the year (Kansas, Army, Maryland) ? If beating Indiana is your best win of the year? Is that all you aspire to be?

Some people here say RU can't be expected to beat teams like Ohio State or Michigan State or even Michigan, Wisconsin, or Nebraska -- in other words, there are people who basically think RU should not be expected to beat any decent or good Big Ten team. I think those people are living in the past. Games against Ohio State are not the highlight of our season schedule anymore -- they are annual games. These teams are conference and division foes. RU NEEDS to expect to be competitive in those games.

Other than being a nice guy, what does Flood have going for him? "Oh, but the players like playing for him." -- I NEVER heard any of my teammates ever say one bad thing about the coach (while he was coaching) even when we hated playing for him. It's rarely done.


I still believe the people in charge will do the right thing. Look at Flood's body of work, look at the recruiting and team depth, and look at the arrests. The right thing is a change at coach.

Actually....if you look at our growth in the past 30 years where we have gone from averaging 20-25k a game to 45-50k it's pretty solid

It's just that many of the established programs got more established and entrenched in the past 30 years (after already being established)!while we were just starting

I think the bigger question is does the growth continues or not over the next 30 years

That all depends on if the school is committed to winning to help us catch up on schools with a 30-50 year head start

This is where that phrase "institutional commitment" comes in

The guy writing the op-ed article could not be further from correct

 

[Trekology]

"we don't have a media center," and on and on is not what matters. Winning matters.

While I agree with you that winning matters, the local media issue is not an insignificant one, and not only affecting Rutgers. I can guarantee that more people who live in northern and central NJ know who the mayor of NYC is and probably have an opinion on his job performance, than who the mayor of their own town is, let alone if he/she is doing a good job or not.

 

[Andy117]

I never understood the point of rooting for a college sports team of college that one didn't attend.

If college sports was limited in appeal to just alums it wouldn't even be on TV.

 

[seels2662]

I never understood the point of rooting for a college sports team of college that one didn't attend.

The college I graduated from didn't have a football team and (at the time) didn't have a D1 basketball program. I went to NJIT for a bunch of reasons, one of which was I was good enough to play Division III baseball, but not good enough to play Division I.

 

[beaced_rivals]

Get a Top notch Coaching Staff. Win games. Keep winning and attract Alums and Non Alums alike.The Fan base growth is linked to WINS.
SL can't pump negativity when the Team keeps winning consistently.

The college I graduated from didn't have a football team and (at the time) didn't have a D1 basketball program. I went to NJIT for a bunch of reasons, one of which was I was good enough to play Division III baseball, but not good enough to play Division I.

Were you there when Swanson was AD and Paul Fischer was on his Staff?

 

[RUinPinehurst]

If college sports was limited in appeal to just alums it wouldn't even be on TV.

True enough, but. . . if Rutgers cannot get its alumni base to better support the school and athletics financially, well, that shows that something is amiss with school leadership, as well as the alumni base. It all starts with the alumni; if the graduates are not "on board," you have work to do before you can realistically expect to build a strong and lasting non-alumni fan base. RU leadership needs to lead. And get alumni energized and contributing.

 

[mdk02]

SL can't pump negativity when the Team keeps winning consistently.

Wanna bet????

 

[seels2662]

Get a Top notch Coaching Staff. Win games. Keep winning and attract Alums and Non Alums alike.The Fan base growth is linked to WINS.
SL can't pump negativity when the Team keeps winning consistently.

Were you there when Swanson was AD and Paul Fischer was on his Staff?

No, but another NJIT great Gene Schmid was my head coach.

 

[new jersey1_rivals661559]

Wow, we have a lot of non alumni Rutgers fans.

I'm a big non-alum RU fan and season ticket holder for 10 years now. The NJ college (now a university) I attended, where I competed intercollegiately in an Olympic sport, does not have a football team at any level. But even if it did, it would not be a division 1A football program, let alone a power 5 and B1G program. My attraction to RU is that it is the flagship university in NJ competing at the highest level of intercollegiate sports. As such, it should be a source of great pride to most New Jerseyans.

 

[srru86]

A real issue but a daft reason why.

 

[Upstream]

True enough, but. . . if Rutgers cannot get its alumni base to better support the school and athletics financially, well, that shows that something is amiss with school leadership, as well as the alumni base. It all starts with the alumni; if the graduates are not "on board," you have work to do before you can realistically expect to build a strong and lasting non-alumni fan base. RU leadership needs to lead. And get alumni energized and contributing.

That may be true, but it isn't an issue that is fixed overnight.

Prior to 1950's, Rutgers was essentially a small private college. People who attended then don't necessarily recognize Rutgers today. Those are the alumni who are in their 80's today, and are remembering (or not remembering) Rutgers in their wills.

From the 1950's through the 1990's, Rutgers saw a whole bunch of growth as a state university. A lot of the growth was haphazard, and Rutgers tried to operate as a hybrid small college and large state university (but they did so by combining the worst aspects of small colleges and worst aspects of big universities). Student experiences were fragmented and inconsistent, and a lot of these alumni are not inclined to donate. These are the alumni who are in their prime earning years.

You can't go back and change the student experience of alumni who are potential donors. All you can do is show them the improvements Rutgers is making and show the vision of what Rutgers can be. This seems to be somewhat successful, as Rutgers just completed a $1 billion fundraising campaign, the largest in the University's history.

 

[seels2662]

That may be true, but it isn't an issue that is fixed overnight.

Prior to 1950's, Rutgers was essentially a small private college. People who attended then don't necessarily recognize Rutgers today. Those are the alumni who are in their 80's today, and are remembering (or not remembering) Rutgers in their wills.

From the 1950's through the 1990's, Rutgers saw a whole bunch of growth as a state university. A lot of the growth was haphazard, and Rutgers tried to operate as a hybrid small college and large state university (but they did so by combining the worst aspects of small colleges and worst aspects of big universities). Student experiences were fragmented and inconsistent, and a lot of these alumni are not inclined to donate. These are the alumni who are in their prime earning years.

You can't go back and change the student experience of alumni who are potential donors. All you can do is show them the improvements Rutgers is making and show the vision of what Rutgers can be. This seems to be somewhat successful, as Rutgers just completed a $1 billion fundraising campaign, the largest in the University's history.

There is some real food for thought there Upstream. Great post.

 

[mdk02]

This seems to be somewhat successful, as Rutgers just completed a $1 billion fundraising campaign, the largest in the University's history.

"Somewhat" is the operative word. In September, Harvard announced they had passed the $6 billion mark in their $6.5 billion capital campaign. I'm not saying Rutgers can or should match the Harvard goal, but it should be able to do better than 1/6th.

 

[RUforJERSEY]

Think about what you wrote ,if you were serious.RU is the ONLY DIV I School in the State. The only one that you can physically go an see play in the flesh.The only one that you can go to and experience that awesome in the crowd feeling that FB brings.I hope that I have been helpful.BTW,I did attend RU for 3 months and was graduated from a non football school.

I agree. That was a very stupid comment.

 

[derleider]

IMO, Rutgers has such enormous potential as a college football program. Being in the media capital of the world and a heavily populated state that doesn't have another major college football program, it's a unique situation that few (if any) schools have. So, why do people in the Garden State grow up rooting for schools like Notre Dame, Penn State, and Miami?

One reason is that those schools wouldn't have someone hired as head coach with the idea that he could learn and grow into the position of head coach. And they wouldn't keep a guy on the job simply because he was a nice guy.

This may not sound like much, but do you realize how many kids growing up rooting for a school may ultimately attend that school? If non-alums followed the program as fans, their kids would likely grow up as fans. When it came time to choose a college, RU would be on their radar. Ever wonder why so many people from Jersey go to Penn State? Partly it's because they see the college experience on TV with games shown from Beaver Stadium. It looks like a fun place to go.

Between merchandise sales, ticket sales, and future RU students, there is quite a lot to gain from being popular with those who aren't alums.

I wonder how many people became fans of the NY Jets when Rich Kotite was coach. That's what RU has now. A coach that is bringing the program down. Does it really make a difference if he winds up beating 3 teams that have less than 3 wins on the year (Kansas, Army, Maryland) ? If beating Indiana is your best win of the year? Is that all you aspire to be?

Some people here say RU can't be expected to beat teams like Ohio State or Michigan State or even Michigan, Wisconsin, or Nebraska -- in other words, there are people who basically think RU should not be expected to beat any decent or good Big Ten team. I think those people are living in the past. Games against Ohio State are not the highlight of our season schedule anymore -- they are annual games. These teams are conference and division foes. RU NEEDS to expect to be competitive in those games.

Other than being a nice guy, what does Flood have going for him? "Oh, but the players like playing for him." -- I NEVER heard any of my teammates ever say one bad thing about the coach (while he was coaching) even when we hated playing for him. It's rarely done.


I still believe the people in charge will do the right thing. Look at Flood's body of work, look at the recruiting and team depth, and look at the arrests. The right thing is a change at coach.

Did you really need a two page post to state the obvious - teams gain non-alum fans for two reason - 1) the team wins alot and 2) there arent other local options, so the college team becomes the de facto pro team in the area.

Obviously for RU its the worst of both - we havent been good, and we have a TON of local pro competition in multiple sports, many with championship pedigrees.

So yes - basically - we need a coach who can win in order to gain more fans (alums and non-alums).

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

It is really a media issue. We do not have a supportive media that can help brand Rutgers as New jersey's team. Instead they report on Rutgers as an unnecessary expense to New Jersey taxpayers.

Add to this problem is that New Jersey pumps out a lot of college students.. far too many for Rutgers to take, especially given that Rutgers actually works hard for the disadvantaged in-state students (too hard where it comes to illegal aliens.. though I suppose that's a long term play for when they are the majority voters in this state). So the wealthiest students look for the elite private colleges, the religious students go the the Catholics (elite or not), the sports-oriented go tot the name brand sports schools and Rutgers takes the best of the rest. So many people have direct and family ties to other schools that Rutgers really is just an expense item for their taxes.

Big Ten membership will help this a lot. Wait and see.

 

[ecojew]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the absence of in-state network TV. We're the only state without it. Having local network TV means being able to have dinner each evening while watching the news about your sports teams. That means all week long, not just listening for the scores after the games are played. You can't do that in NJ. This, in addition to the demographic situation noted above, contributes to the lack of state identity. NJ is a Big 7 immigration state and none of those people come here with any tradition of university sports.

 

[mdk02]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the absence of in-state network TV. We're the only state without it. Having local network TV means being able to have dinner each evening while watching the news about your sports teams. That means all week long, not just listening for the scores after the games are played. You can't do that in NJ. This, in addition to the demographic situation noted above, contributes to the lack of state identity. NJ is a Big 7 immigration state and none of those people come here with any tradition of university sports.

I get Time-Warner Cable in Bergen County. Worse than the absence of in-state network TV we get, as part of the sports package, the Syracuse network. Before the B!G network, you had a better chance of seeing a Syracuse game than a non-ESPN Rutgers game.

 

[RUich]

When I was graduating from HS in '63, I certainly knew about Rutgers and a few of my classmates were going there. At that time, they were simply nowhere on the sports radar. They were small time football, which was OK, and nowhere near the big boy schools.
As someone who attended other schools for my degrees, I became a fan of Rutgers due to state pride. Still, many of my friends were fans of schools with much higher profiles who you could see on TV. Meanwhile, I had difficulty even hearing their games on radio when I moved to Sussex County.
It is certainly a truism that NJ has too many other sports options for fans. Not only are we surrounded by states with much bigger names in sports, we are also loaded with professional choices as well. It is certainly not like some places where you have one choice to root for.
GS showed that if you put a good product on the field, the fans would come. It really is that simple!

 

[derleider]

That may be true, but it isn't an issue that is fixed overnight.

Prior to 1950's, Rutgers was essentially a small private college. People who attended then don't necessarily recognize Rutgers today. Those are the alumni who are in their 80's today, and are remembering (or not remembering) Rutgers in their wills.

From the 1950's through the 1990's, Rutgers saw a whole bunch of growth as a state university. A lot of the growth was haphazard, and Rutgers tried to operate as a hybrid small college and large state university (but they did so by combining the worst aspects of small colleges and worst aspects of big universities). Student experiences were fragmented and inconsistent, and a lot of these alumni are not inclined to donate. These are the alumni who are in their prime earning years.

You can't go back and change the student experience of alumni who are potential donors. All you can do is show them the improvements Rutgers is making and show the vision of what Rutgers can be. This seems to be somewhat successful, as Rutgers just completed a $1 billion fundraising campaign, the largest in the University's history.

This is very true. Look at Bernie Marcus. Went to RU - but it was in Newark, in a program that ultimately got moved to NB. What connection would he possibly feel for RU-NB FB (or even academics) when the program which he graduated from has changed so much. He's obviously the most prominent example, but Im sure hardly the only one.

People should read the McCormick book on Rutgers history. Its eye opening how many issues RU has had fundraising through the years (closed twice, almost merged with Princeton, I think twice, had to beg the state for money until it officially became the state U) for a variety of reasons and how those issues lead to poor decisions which made fundraising that much more difficult.

 

[SkilletHead2]

While I agree with you that winning matters, the local media issue is not an insignificant one, and not only affecting Rutgers. I can guarantee that more people who live in northern and central NJ know who the mayor of NYC is and probably have an opinion on his job performance, than who the mayor of their own town is, let alone if he/she is doing a good job or not.

That's true, and btw, I stand second to no one in my dislike of the SL, and news media in general.

 

[RU Husky]

I think the bigger and better question is why are so many RU alums non-fans?

 

[Perricone7]

1A.) Rutgers has been a lackluster program for decades. It will take a conference championship or run of a few good years (Wisconsin) to attract non-students/alumni.
1B.) So many pro teams/cities nearby. There's alot more going on here than around some other B10 locations.

I honestly think it's as simple as that.

 

[Perricone7]

Many on this board agree with you that he's "abysmal" obviously, but after an 8-5 record, winning a bowl, respect and love from his players and coaches, I just don't get the hate for him. It can't just be that RU had some bad losses. That would be idiotic. So what makes him "abysmal"?

1. He's a horrific recruiter
2. He's a bad coach
3. He's stubborn beyond belief when he gets his mind set on something
4. He has embarrassed this University with his off the field actions
5. He has no control over the team
6. Our players don't seem to progress
7. Did I mention that he can't recruit NJ?

 

[srru86]

I think the bigger and better question is why are so many RU alums non-fans?

Actually that is a much better question

 

[Kbee3]

1. He's a horrific recruiter

Maybe the product he's selling has something to do with it.
Besides, which Rutgers coaches have recruited better than him ?
Schiano ? Shea ? Graber ? Anderson ? Burns ? Bateman ?
Maybe the first one. But nobody has exactly torn it up trying to keep New Jersey's talent home playing for their state university. Maybe it can't be done.

 

[derleider]

Maybe the product he's selling has something to do with it.
Besides, which Rutgers coaches have recruited better than him ?
Schiano ? Shea ? Graber ? Anderson ? Burns ? Bateman ?
Maybe the first one. But nobody has exactly torn it up trying to keep New Jersey's talent home playing for their state university. Maybe it can't be done.

And which one preceded him and had the most similar resoucres to him. Essenitally RU is just now completing the final part of its transition to being a full P5 level school. Most p5 schools did that decades ago - while RU was still playing Lehigh. We started the final phase under Schiano - and lo and behold, being a non-terrible recruiter in a state full of recruits, he was actually able to make some headway.

I mean seriously. I would bet that even Terry Shea had more NJ top 15 players in his first four recruiting classes than Flood (which I think right now stands at either one or two).

It can be done. Its actually not that hard. Schiano did it in a Big East that was on the verge of becoming AAC level. All it takes is a coach who can sell his vision and has at least some resume to back that vision up.

 

[Perricone7]

Maybe the product he's selling has something to do with it.
Besides, which Rutgers coaches have recruited better than him ?
Schiano ? Shea ? Graber ? Anderson ? Burns ? Bateman ?
Maybe the first one. But nobody has exactly torn it up trying to keep New Jersey's talent home playing for their state university. Maybe it can't be done.

Yeesh i guess we should just shut down the program. College Football has it's cycles. Look at what one good coach did for Michigan State and Baylor. Now they are more than holding their own with recruiting. We're a B10 program in a largely populated, very good football state. Schiano proved that this program is more than capable of getting top 30 classes. It kills me how low some people set their expectations around here.