This news update was going to wait until Monday, but it's moved up by the announcement that the Rutgers football team is going to play Eastern Michigan in 2013. Once again something like this has come from the other side and not Rutgers. The 2012 game with Ohio was announced the same way, and Rick Neuheisel (UCLA) and David Cutcliffe (Duke, for now) let the cat out of the bag early, although the Duke series was never confirmed. Rutgers absolutely needs to play one mid-major per year for the 7 home game model to work, so this was absolute essential, and needed to be secured years in advance. The real challenge remains to find good OOC teams for home and home series matchups.
H/T to Mike Vorkunov for this one. According to RU alum Brian Lewis at the NY Post, the last two seasons of Fred Hill's contract are not guaranteed. Make sure to check out Mike's new podcast episode with Jerry Carino.
The negative early buzz about Anthony Davis continues. Unlike with Kenny Britt last year, there probably won't be as many Rutgers fans rushing to AD's defense.
Additional sources have told us that while Rutgers offensive tackle Anthony Davis grades out as a top eight pick based on physical talent, his reputation for not being a hard worker could push him into the middle of round one.
From reading around all the Virginia sports sites last week, it seemed like the general impression was that their soccer coach was just leveraging Rutgers for more money in an extension. That's the vibe from the new Ledger article on the subject.
It's Rice vs. Brackett this weekend in Indianapolis. Oops, forgot to link this Jack Corcoran interview on Thursday. Brian Leonard's blog is back too, with a plug for his upcoming charity event in march.
Today is the deadline for juniors to declare for the NFL Draft. Noel Devine is coming back for his senior season at West Virginia?
No, Jim Leavitt probably is not going to be a head coach again any time soon. Joel Miller doesn't exactly have much credibility either given his recent about-face. Now the Bulls are moving forward with Skip Holtz as their new head coach. Considering how ECU has done everything short promising to sell their firstborn children for Big East membership, and USF football didn't even exist while Steve Logan was having great success in the mid-90s, this has to be like a complete punch to the groin for them. I know people who follow USM and Houston, and their one united common cause is mutual loathing/jealousy for the Bulls.
I was honestly happier to hear about the latest setback for the Xanadu mall this morning than any news about receiving a verbal commitment from Maryland safety Lorenzo Waters (which was pretty good in and of itself).