Even though it seems as though Shamar Graves should have been granted a fifth year by the letter of the NCAA's redshirt rule, his request was formally denied yesterday. This is a peculiar situation - the school didn't make light of the issue until late in the year, so they had to have been working under the same assumption that's obvious from a clear and intuitive reading of the rule. Something just doesn't add up. It's a shame, because this will hurt the 2010 offense, and Graves really could play in the NFL if he had more of an opportunity to prove himself. He may get a few workouts now, but this ruling unfortunately will likely severely curtail his chances at the pros.
The item I was expecting to lead with today was the hire of George MacDonald as the new receivers coach. His resume as a position coach looks very good (almost too good, you wonder whether he'll jump back to the NFL in a year). I took one look at his bio and saw "California" and admittedly was surprised. However, then I saw this link on Rivals detailing MacDonald's successes in recruiting Florida and Virginia while he was at Minnesota. Guess David Kelly was a bust, because he was supposedly talking to Arkansas a few days back, and then they ended up hiring someone else.
The decision to hold concerts and other revenue events at Rutgers Stadium is pretty much a no-brainer now that the expansion is finished. Shouldn't they have done more of that in the past? Some of the talk on the boards about that mentioned a supposed non-compete clause with the (soon to be demolished) Giants Stadium, I don't have any idea though. And is there any movement at all on the stadium naming rights front? For the record, if J&J isn't an option, I'm fine with American Standard Field (they're the biggest company headquartered in Piscataway), if it means more revenue for the athletic department.
Welp, basketball...at this point, my only wish is that they beat up the Big East's teacher's pet in Providence.
Tom Savage beat out Matt Barkley, Andrew Luck, B.J. Daniels, and Tate Forcier for a spot on the FWAA Freshman All-America team, and Scott Vallone received a well-deserved roster spot too. What, no Sanu or Beauharnais?
USF's Jason Pierre-Paul is leaving for the NFL. Guess we're still waiting on Pitt's juniors. This article was floating around over the past few days, and includes a rather strange comment.
But a veteran member of the UConn athletic department, who didn't want to say this publicly, said recently that if UConn's football program were as advanced in 2004 as it is today, the ACC would have bypassed BC and gone straight for UConn."And we would have gone to the ACC in a heartbeat," he said.
Where'd Brian Bennett get his 9,600 RU tickets sold for St. Pete Bowl figure from? The number first floated was 8k - does the 9.6 number count donations? That'd be very nice if true. BTW, ratings were down 7% this year for the Pizza Bowl.
Jets LB David Harris says that Brian Leonard hurt him with an illegal hit. C. Vivian Stringer sent Ray Rice a basket of fruit.
I missed this earlier, but former RU assistant Phil Galiano has been let go as the FIU defensive coordinator by Mario Cristobal.
Brian Cook followed up his discussion of bad pizza by responding to my screed from Wednesday in his latest UFR column. Just part of a candid discussion. On that note, I am hoping that Jevon Snea has a better NFL career than Tebow and McCoy if only to infuriate and confound the blogosphere.
Outgoing New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine appointed outgoing statehouse speaker Joe Roberts to the Rutgers BoG yesterday. He's likely to be concerned with Rutgers-Camden. Former state senator Gordan MacInnes is joining the BoG too.