I guess Brazinski to UPenn is a done deal.
Less than 24 hours after Immaculata High School center Mark Brazinski de-committed from Rutgers, the Knights found his possible replacement: Center/guard David Osei of Abington (Pa.) High School, who gave the Knights a verbal commitment on Friday according to Scout.com.
Osei, a standout wrestler, boosts the recruiting class for 2009 to 19 verbal commitments.
Coach Flood works in mysterious ways. There were several names that I thought might receive an offer soon on the OL, but I have never heard of Osei.
Reminder: the annual kickoff celebration is being held on Sunday from 5-7 pm.
Kudos to "gene 0" at Rivals for spotting this:
Rutgers will pay KSU $750,000 in 2012 to play a football game at its soon-to-be renovated stadium. That's an unusually big payday to play at Rutgers, but the Scarlet Knights apparently can afford to pay larger guarantees thanks to a $102-million renovation that will increase the capacity of their Piscataway, N.J., stadium from 41,500 to 56,000.
UNC just added a top recruit to their 08 class.
Dwight Jones has decided to play football at North Carolina and will join the program on Saturday, his mother, Deborah, said this morning.
Jones, who is attending Valdosta State in Georgia, decided yesterday to return home and play for UNC. He learned earlier this week that he was academically eligible for NCAA Division I-A play because of a mixup in applying the NCAA academic rules.
Mrs. Jones said she considered the turn of events a miracle and was glad that her son would be closer to their Burlington home. Valdosta State is an NCAA Division II school.
"I guess he feels like I do: I'm still pinching myself to make sure that I'm not dreaming," Mrs. Jones said.
"He said he worked hard for it. He said he was coming back to claim what belongs to him."
He's getting a late start, but Jones might be good enough to make an impact this fall as a freshman.
Ray Rice did not have the greatest debut last night (hopefully Leonard and others will do better this weekend). Here's a photo, wherein Jerod Mayo proves who really is the best player in the NFL with a food-themed surname.
Between Gannett, the Star-Ledger, and the Bergen Record, the local press is really overboard in its excessive criticism of Rutgers athletics. If you have an opinion, fine, but you should probably check your facts first.
Fiscal responsibility is absent at Rutgers. And state officials refuse to rein in the excesses. While these same officials argue for reductions in benefits for state employees and a reduction in state spending, they allow Rutgers to spend and borrow millions of dollars for its football program.
Money that that comes from student fees, not taxpayers. Rutgers football was actually 5m in the black in 2007. The university as a whole is in the mess because they've lost a considerable amount of funding during the past few budget sessions.
Bob Mulcahy was certainly right about the fact that the athletic department was an absolute pariah 8 years ago. The Record is going into a tizzy over a potential conflict of interest with a contract that no sane person would have wanted.
Ben Doody echoes my incredulousness at the New York Times and their lazy, hackjob of piece that they published this morning. How about some more stories about what a great human being Tiquan Underwood is?