There has been a lot of speculation about the possibility of Rutgers hiring Tom Bradley as their new defensive coordinator, and the majority of Rutgers supporters out there seem very excited about that possibility.

I am not excited at all by the possibility of Bradley joining Flood's staff.

First of all, let me explain that this has nothing to do with him as an actual coach, as I know he is terrific at his job.

Now, onto the reasons.

Bradley Wants to be a Head Coach- What's the point of hiring Bradley if the entire time he'll be looking out for other opportunities? Rutgers is a F.A.M.I.L.Y. and Bradley cannot be a part of that if he's half in and half out of the door.

Bradley Would Challenge Flood's Status- I worry that Bradley would challenge new coach Kyle Flood too much, to the point that Flood is focused more on keeping his job than actually winning games. Flood would likely know Bradley wants to be the Head Coach, so the added pressure is not needed.

Leave Us Alone, Penn State- I do not want any of Penn State's problems trickling into Rutgers territory. I don't know if he's clean, but if Bradley had anything to do with anything involving the Sandusky case, we're going to hear a lot about it. That's not going to be fun.

Keep It Inside- Rutgers hired their Head Coach from within, so why not hire the defensive coordinator from within? It all goes back to the F.A.M.I.L.Y. saying, if they really mean it they should promote from within.

According to an inside source, Angelichio, Fraser, Hafley and Cignetti (as well as Jay Butler) will be joining Schiano in Tampa Bay. Now, as a caveat, I'm not a beat reporter with a big circle of sources. But, I trust this one source a lot.

Quite frankly, I've never been this pissed about Rutgers football ever. I get it - Schiano left for a great opportunity that moved quicker than anyone could have hoped. But, this is deliberate disrespect from Schiano and those that are leaving with him. The recruits were sold on the belief that most of the staff would stay intact. And, for those that are leaving now, it's cowardly to wait until after signing day to make this move. For Schiano, it's one thing to take your own lumps. But, he's now complicit in allowing others to breach their own trust with others.

I just spoke to a 2012 signee who will remain anonymous. He just confirmed that he was completely unaware of any pending or potential moves. In fact, his exact words were "shocked" if this was true.

I personally think it's also an absolute shame that after what the recruits went through, no one reached out to the recruits to keep them in the loop. They're already signed. They're not gonna go anywhere if they heard the news now or next week. They deserved to be kept in the loop either by the coaches that left or the current program. Quite frankly, if there was one class that was composed of grown ups, this is it. Give them the respect to be treated as such.

Here's the silver lining to this. The signee confirmed that while he thinks his classmates will be similarly "shocked," the 2012 class didn't sign with Rutgers because of the coaching staff. Schiano's departure taught them there are no certainties with coaches in the college game. He emphatically stated that he and his classmates committed to play with each other, represent New Jersey, and be a part of turning Rutgers into a national power.

I suggest every single Rutgers fan cheer your asses off on every play for these kids. They deserve it, because they showed integrity in the face of cowards and adversity. They saved Rutgers football - no one else.

As a non-Rutgers alum, I laugh very hard at the faculty's hatred for the athletics department. I've seen the insides of a lot of America's biggest academic settings. Just some quick thoughts.

First, Rutgers - NB ranks number 8 (edit: of public universities) in the country in average salary for university professors at $140,100. The number one school? NJIT at $151,000. Notable both Rutgers-Newark (#6) and Rutgers-Camden (#10) both are also in the top 10. The rest of the schools in the top 10 - Michigan, Cal, UCLA, Ga Tech and UNC - all schools with significant football programs. The only schools without big time football programs on the list include: UMBC and the aforementioned NJ Schools (minus RU-NB).

Second, besides being top 10 in salary, the dirty secret of University funding is that the real money comes from faculty procured research grants and other endowments. Yes, tuition and other state subsidies are significant. But, most elite schools use these grants to go over the top. Yet, despite top 10 pay Rutgers NB only ranks 45th out of all public universities in total research funding. Notably, based on Arizona State's Center for Measuring University Performance, each of the schools ranked higher that Rutgers in research (except 1, UC-Davis) are Division 1 football programs.

Hey folks, I should probably introduce myself real quick. I'm Brandon C., the manager at the SB Nation Yankees site Pinstripe Alley, and a writer at the SB Nation Rangers site, Blueshirt Banter. I talked to Jon tonight and I'm going to be writing here about the basketball and football teams every once in a while.

Anyway, I am a Rutgers man, and when I heard the news of Greg Schiano's departure for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I couldn't believe it. I'm actually very happy for him, and I would have taken the job if I was him too. My immediate thought was "Rutgers is a "big" school now, we can get a "big name" coach. Then, after thinking it through, I made my decision.

I wanted the Interim Coach to get the job. And he did, as Kyle Flood was named the Head Coach of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.

The reasoning is simple.

Greg Schiano was not the program anymore when he left. The recruits came for the school, the programs, and more importantly the individual coaches. By hiring from within, Rutgers gets to keep the recruits.

Also, when I talked to multiple current players (didn't get the names) they all said they "want Flood, keep it in the family."

Rutgers is still a Family without Schiano. The hiring of Flood makes that a certainty.

A funny thing happened with Tim Pernetti's plan to hire Mario Cristobal; it fell apart at the eleventh hour, after the Florida International coach had reportedly agreed to terms. Interestingly enough, the exact same thing happened about a month ago with Pitt. They opted then to turn to a candidate who they thought would stick around for the long term. The same can be said for Kyle Flood, but there is one other strong, clear indication here as well: this was a move clearly designed to keep a top-ranked recruiting class in place, and on first glance should be judged by that criterion. It was not an insane, spur-of-the-moment over reaction ala Bill Stewart's elevation in Morgantown. This was a move of panic and desperation, albeit, reasoned panic. That does not mean it won't work out. Indeed, the growing trend in college football (see: Michigan, Clemson, Auburn, etc...) is that top-end coordinators can absolve a lot of sins.

Rutgers had to act fast and pick from a very small list with Greg Schiano departing a few days from Signing Day. Any resulting staff hires are different. Assuming that Rutgers will try to keep every assistant that it can, especially the ones important for recruiting - the goal then becomes to replace Schiano's role as defensive coordinator with an appropriate substitute. Give Scott Shafer from Syracuse a call, because they are leaving for the ACC for one thing, and it's not like Doug Marrone hasn't pulled out every negative recruiting trick in the book. Call Todd Orlando at FIU, just in case he wants to make the move back north that his current boss did not. Tyrone Nix, who was at Ole Miss last year, is still looking for work. Call Chuck Heater at Temple. Heck, former PSU defensive coordinator Tom Bradley and former Miami coach Randy Shannon (who has turned down a lot of recent offers) are still on the sidelines too.

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Despite snags with Cristobal, RU selected its next head coach with relative ease. IMO, Flood has been very professional about putting himself in this position. He helped bring calm to RU Nation after Schiano's departure. And, he made it fairly easy to negotiate a contract quickly even though he could have leveraged the post-Cristobal chaos.

I'll end here because Jon will Izenberg this better than me. But, use this post for discussions.

And that is we learned that Rutgers Football is now a program.

I started to develop interest in Rutgers football in 2005. I am not a Rutgers alum, but I was a college football fan living in New York City. I tried to pay attention to Rutgers in the past. It was just too pathetic to watch. But, it always piqued my interest because there was no game in town. Syracuse is not NYC's team. Notre Dame and Penn State were the most prominent, but NYC did not have ownership over those teams. Rutgers just made too much logical sense.

In 2005, the Brian Leonard hype was building. I started to hear more about Greg Schiano as the guy that might give the program a fighting chance out of misery. All I wanted was Rutgers to be mediocre just so I can feel compelled to follow and root for a single team. At that time, I was a young practicing lawyer. All my other colleagues had their teams from Michigan to USC to Texas. I wasn't interested in being any of them. I wanted to rep something for myself.

in 2006, I got more than mediocrity. NYC had excitement. And, in that magical November moment, Rutgers became the talk of the town. New Yorkers were willing to openly adopt for a moment Rutgers football as their team.

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This myth is continually repeated over and over again, even though it is just plain not true. Rutgers was very interested in Victor Cruz to play defensive back, and ultimately decided to sign a defensive back out of St. Joseph's High School instead. However, the back in question was Ron Girault, not McCourty.

A quick glance at Rivals confirms this. Cruz was part of the class of 2004, as was Girault. What's happening is that Cruz's former coach at Paterson Catholic, Benjie Wimberly, is probably mixing up Girault and McCourty because they both played defensive back for the same high school. Girault was an excellent player for Rutgers after being thrown into a starting job as a true freshman. He doesn't make for quite as good of a story as McCourty does though. Devin actually signed with Rutgers a year later, in the class of 2005, and also committed two months before signing day. The actual story with McCourty is interesting in its own right, as he was hurt late in his high school career, and thus did not attract as much recruiting interest as his twin brother, Jason. Both were seen as very talented athletes but extremely raw, and Rutgers was impressed enough to go for the package deal.

As for Cruz, believe it or not, Rutgers did make the right call with him. Like with Miles Austin, RU can't be expected to hit with every small school prospect. It would have been nice if they saw his budding talent, but even the best staffs can't unearth everybody. Plus, don't forget the fact that Cruz prepped for a year, and then had to leave UMass twice. Cruz didn't do a thing at UMass before his junior year in 2008, which is a very long time. Who's to say he even sees the field for Rutgers that year behind the likes of the entrenched trio of Kenny Britt, Tiquan Underwood, and Tim Brown? So really, it is all for the best that Cruz had to take such a roundabout path to stardom with the New York Giants. No one is rooting harder for the guy now, but it really is time to set the record straight on this point. There's no story here.