As further evidence that the South Carolina storyline of "Rutgers would instantly admit him, we wouldn't" was utter nonsense, Tom Luicci and Brendan Prunty are reporting that any decision on Givens is a week away.
Now, I implore you all, please do not overreact to this report. The only sources claiming that Givens had been given a blank admissions check were the same reporters that were wrong every step of the way on this story. Let's see, how do I say this without divulging premium info; this news is not in any way, shape, or form, a big deal in its own right. What matters: Givens wants to attend Rutgers, and hopefully will arrive on campus with his coach later today to hamper out the details.
Lamb spoke to me as he was driving to pick up Givens and travel to Piscataway, N.J., to meet with Coach Greg Schiano and his staff."He might have a decision later today," Lamb said, noting that the Scarlet Knights were among Givens's top choices before he picked Penn State.
For those curious, that same Washington Post report indicates that Givens was all set for PSU until last week. Therefore, it's a reasonable bet that his issues with related to credits and not his GPA or test scores, and therefore admitting him is not that big of a deal, standards-wise. The bottom line: this story isn't over until it's over. Nothing is. Wait until camp starts next week, and then, wait until we hear about how everyone is looking. Those February recruiting rankings that had Givens as a Penn State commit aren't worth bupkis now. How about the USF and WVU commits, like say, Deon Long, that ended up not qualifying? I am happy enough seeing that RU's entire February class is on campus at this time. Givens would just be the icing on the cake.
That's not all; Keith Sargeant has an update from Newport about Dom Natale and Kordell Young. Even though there had been positive speculation about Young lately, I always had a bad feeling with him because knee issues tend to reoccur. My guess is that Rocket will be third string this fall. Needless to stay, check back in with both of the big two media blogs throughout the day for more updates. D'Imperio, Blaze, and McCourty were in attendance, and undoubtedly had much to say.
What else is going on? Rutgers placed fifth in the official preseason BE media poll. That's too low, but not really worth getting concerned about. I'd be mildly curious to see all of the ballots. There were a couple skeptical voters like UConn's Desmond Conner who think RU will come out flat this year. I think it's interesting that USF had three first place voters, but barely finished above Rutgers. Glad to see I'm not the only skeptic of the Bulls (I was the lone dissenter on that point in the blogger poll).
Oh yeah, couple of other things. How great of an endorsement is it for Ray Lewis to say that "Ray Rice, to me, is just one of the most exciting players to watch play football"?
Tom Savage can't wait for practice to start next Tuesday.
I saw a post on Rivals this morning about Moody's downgrading their assessment of New Jersey's credit rating outlook, which is very bad news on multiple fronts. Bloomberg has the details.