Big 10 expansion seems to be the only thing I write about these days. When the league expanded last time, Penn State was an obvious choice as it was superior in all categories. The issue this time is aside from Notre Dame, every candidate has a downside. That is why I've l like Missouri as the 12th team because it is a safe choice and the Big Ten tends to be a bit conservative. Which is the riskiest? Rutgers. Why? Rutgers football has been on par with the MAC for most of its history and it could be argued that their greatest moment occurred at their first game. So why is the Big 10 interested? Money. Sing it with me ... "Start spreading the news ... I'm leaving today.... I want to be a part of it...." You know the rest....
First a little history: Rutgers played the first collegiate football game in history on their campus in 1869 and won vs Princeton 6-4. Princeton won the rematch a few weeks later so they were (somewhat humorously) co-national champions that year. Over the next 50 years Rutgers football played mainly vs local rivals and struggled to a record of 104-172-22 through 1912. The period 1913-1923 was a shining spot under coach George Sanford and the addition of two time All American, Paul Robeson (Follow the link if you don't know the name -- he was truly an amazing man and you'd have to mix Bo Jackson, Denzel Washington, and Barack Obama together to recreate him today). These two men lead the Scarlet Knights to a 7-1 in 1915 and 7-1-1 in 1917. Sanford also increased the difficulty of the schedule bringing in schools like LSU, West Virginia and Nebraska to play in the Polo grounds. The team went back to mediocrity for most of the next decade before building Rutgers Stadium and going 7-1-1 in 1938. Rutgers had many fine teams during the war years due to the influx of servicemen but returned to mediocrity in the 50s. They have remained independent throughout much of their history but were in the Middle Three Conference from 1948 to 1951. Rutgers was invited to play in the Ivy League when that league was formed in 1954 but they declined wanting instead to remain independent (I have had a bit of trouble confirming this but if true I wonder if they regret that decision). In 1958 they joined the Middle Atlantic conference and won it 3 of the next 4 years, capping their success with an undefeated 9-0 1961 campaign and ranked 15th in the final AP poll. One of the issues with Rutgers at this time was the strength of their competition and I can help but think that is why they left the Middle Atlantic after the 1961 season. In their undefeated year their schedule was filled with schools like Princeton, Bucknell, Colgate, Lehigh, and Columbia which certainly affected their final ranking. Unfortunately during the next 30 years the team still struggled to gain respect as an independent most notably shown by their bowl snub in 1976 despite another undefeated season. The school renewed its commitment to football in 1984 with an investment of $3 million for a new practice facility, coaches offices and weight rooms but had little to show for it on the field. The next step was taken when the Big East decided to add football in 1991 and Rutgers joined as a member. As part of the increased commitment to football, Rutgers spent $28 million in 1994 to renovate Rutgers Stadium which increased the seating capacity from 31k to over 42k seats. The move to the Big East meant they were now playing tougher opponents and the result on the field was dismal over the next decade (33-55-1). They hired Greg Schiano in December 2000 and the team has steadily improved since that time, the high point being his 11-2 2006 team that finished 12th in the rankings. The university has continued to invest heavily in the team with another $102 million investment in the stadium taking the capacity to a little over 52k while adding club seats and updated the scoreboard, bathrooms and other facilities.
If you compare Rutgers football history with Penn State, it certainly is unimpressive but there is no doubt that the university has made huge efforts to join the ranks of the national football powerhouses. The Northeast part of the United States lacks any true football powerhouse and that is in part because many of the football powers in the middle of the 20th century decided that the game was overshadowing academics so they decided to stop offering athletic scholarships. Today if you take New England and add the states of Pennsylvania, Deleware, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia you would get a total of 11 Division I-A/FBS teams (Boston College, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Penn State, Buffalo, and Temple). That means that while this region makes up over 23% the total population of the United States it only has about 9% of the top level football teams. Using the same states as before and taking the number of 2* recruits or higher from the recruiting services you get 1,260 recruits of the total 8,895 or 14.1% are from this area. The biggest concentration of recruits are in Washington DC (274), NY/N NJ (258) and Philadelphia/Camden (148). For comparison the top states on the list are California (1,348), Texas (1,304), Florida (1,080), Ohio (636), then Georgia (484). I am in no way saying that the Northeast is a hotbed of college football but with 23% of the population and 14.1% of the talent it seems that this area is underrepresented in terms of Division I-A football (As a point of comparison there are 8 of the 32 NFL teams in this area). Of the 11 teams listed earlier only Penn State could be considered an elite program. That is one of the reasons why 5* recruits like Dominique Easley or Sharrif Floyd end up at programs like Florida instead of staying at home. There is no question that the South and Midwest are much bigger hotbeds for football talent due to better participation/interest/coaching but there is enough high school talent in the Northeast to improve the quality on the field. Rutgers should be able to tap into that given enough resources.
The same could be said for many of the other schools in the Northeast so why is the Big 10 looking at Rutgers if it doesn't have the tradition of Pittsburgh or Syracuse? The answer is simple - location. Rutgers is located in New Brunswick, New Jersey and is about a 20 minutes drive to Staten Island in New York. Its proximity to the biggest TV market in the country certainly is inviting to any conference which is why I'm pretty sure the Big East took a chance on them in the early 90s. The question for the Big 10 is whether they feel that by adding Rutgers that eventually the New York cable service providers would eventually be forced to carry the network on their basic package similar to what currently occurs in the Midwest. If Rutgers were to join the league tomorrow the Big Ten would only see a minimal amount of additional money because not all Rutgers games are shown live on TV today and it isn't like Scarlet Knights fans are beating down the doors to make this happen (the best I can tell 4 game were shown on ESPN and 2 on SNY locally). Initially the only additional money the Big 10 would get would be their portion of the money of increased subscribers from Cablevision sports package that shows the Big 10 network and I am highly doubtful that would increase much due to the addition of Rutgers. If you speak with a New Yorker they laugh at the notion that Rutgers football mean anything to anyone in New York that isn't an alumni and that is the risk (some say look at Northwestern as an example - how much of the Chicago market do they have?). Could Rutgers build themselves into a national contender in football and win a portion of the New York market? That is the question the Big 10 is trying to figure out.
Like I said earlier ... other than Notre Dame there is no clear choice for the 12th team for the Big 10. I think Missouri is the safest because you get 2 small TV markets with very little risk. Pittsburgh is a nice school but it adds little other than its natural rivalry to Penn State. Rutgers could be a huge win but the best case scenario is it would be a long term project which is why I think that they, like Pittsburgh, only join if the league adds multiple teams. The risk is just too great otherwise.
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