http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/10/8/13214664/michigan-rutgers-final-score-stats-2016
Academic scholarships are forfeited due to poor/miserable performances. Why not athletic scholarships? Or are they?
Rutgers should not even be D1, or at least not in the BIG10. That scoreline was the most embarrassing I’ve ever seen.
D1 football scholarships are not guaranteed from year to year.
This is a good point…
D1 scholarships are now 4 year scholarships in the B1G 10.
Why shouldn’t they be forfeited? Because no one person on the team lost the game, and it is one game. Should a school pull all the music scholarships because a few recipients flunked out, because they performed poorly in a concert? Should the ‘music team’ be punished because the school recruited some pianists that really aren’t the best, that the best pianists wanted to go to Michigan instead?
Several years ago, at their first Big10 meeting, Rutgers beat Michigan. I’m sure there are Mich alum who wanted scholarships pulled for that, too. Thankfully, that’s not how it works.
(Michigan grad here, live in NJ with Rutgers grads in the family. Wish they were not now in the same conference. A little uncomfortable for everyone.)
I don’t think the NCAA would permit that. Also, it would be counterproductive for Rutgers to have that policy. They would recruit few athletes if the players had to fear cancellation of their scholarship due to a bad game.
Not only that, but can you imagine how hard it would be to recruit a very good player unless the coach/team already has a winning record? A recruited player would be thinking, “I may be a top player and I will do MY JOB, but what if my team members are flakey? I’ll lose my award!”
The NCAA has only allowed 4 year scholarships for the last few years, and they are not mandatory. Some of the schools have their own rules, some conferences do too, but the majority of NCAA scholarships are still for one year. There are some appeal rights that a student whose scholarship is not renewed or is renewed for a lesser amount have, but I think more often than not if a scholarship is not renewed the student just moves on. Who wants to appeal and have to play (not that there would be much playing time) under a coach who doesn’t want you?
But in any case, it is not the individual players on the Rutgers team who lost the game. Rutgers has had recent issues with the Athletic Director. they aren’t attracting the best talent in the US.
Rutgers was a bad sports addition to the big 10, and it’s selection was mostly based on TV revenues in the NY market. That game was payback (especially the 2 point conversion) for the temerity of coach Ash to hold a Rutgers/OSU camp at the same time Harbaugh held his camp, denying NJ kids the chance to sample both camps and coaching styles. That’s exactly what he deserved for an appalling lack of concern for NJ football recruits.
You can’t blame the players for the poor coaching. Maybe coach Ash will rebuild the team to at least be competitive. Otherwise he needs another job. But you can’t punish scholarship players by taking away their scholarships unless they refuse to play, like at Missou.
Michigan used to win many games by 50+ points when I was in college. Don’t feel bad…
The strength of a big 10 football team is squarely on the coaching staff’s ability to recruit and retain a strong team. Rutgers is in the big time now. Recruiting strong students and strong athletes is a hallmark of the teams they will be playing going forward. Sometimes colleges need to rebuild but that is on the staff. The students who are holding up their part of the scholar athlete equation should not be punished.
The Rutgers football team is effectively starting over after a, to put it mildly, troubling 2015 (numerous players kicked off team for legal offenses, former head coach Flood disciplined for pressuring a professor to improve a player’s grade). It will take Ash a few recruiting cycles to possibly get the team on solid footing.
Also, while the Big Ten guarantees four year scholarships, it doesn’t mean you will be on the team all of those years. It just guarantees you a 4 year opportunity for a free education (which should be the point of all this but clearly is often not the case).
New Jersey has long been one of the biggest exporters of college students in the country. Exact same thing applies to high school football players.
NJ is a top 10-15 state when it comes to producing D1 college football players. But many of those Jersey kids leave to play at schools with more football juice than Rutgers. Penn State has 19 Jersey kids on its current roster; Michigan has 9.
Regrettably for Rutgers, they had over 100 potential recruits on hand to witness the game.
Harbaugh only called three passes in the second half, I believe. They just couldn’t stop Michigan, and they couldn’t move the ball.
I never even heard of the Big East or the ACC conference or whatever they were before joining the Big 10 
Pac 12, yes. Big 10 yes, SEC yes…Rutgers will have a ways to go I’m sure before they can get the caliber of students needed to compete in football. It takes leadership in the coaching, strong student athletes, a loyal student body that loves their team and strong alumni to build a Big 10 team. It’s also tons of fun to go visit your kid for parents/students tailgating and go to the game on a football Saturday in the fall and see all the kids hoofing over to the stadium. Rutgers is ‘big enough’ to have D1 football, the question is the NE ready for the football traditions of the rest of the country. Once they get that, I think they will attract kids and coaching that want to be part of that tradition.
17,000 empty seats at a Rutgers game is telling of the cultural gap to the midwest roots of the Big 10. It will be interesting to see if they can build the culture over time. I’ve always loved that the union at UofM has an athlete looking toward the athletic fields on one side of the building and an academic student looking toward the central campus. The tradition of the scholar athlete is deeply rooted in the midwest. Not so sure about student athlete traditions in the east outside of the smaller Ivy League conference.
Ruth’s Chris had a promotion whereby however many points Michigan won by, diners would receive that percentage off their meal (capped at 50%). Harbaugh was probably just trying to get himself and their fans a cheap meal.
Rutgers is happy to share in the TV revenues of the B1G 10. When Nebraska joined the conference a few years ago, it was a sorry sight to see, but now they are doing better.
A lot of teams schedule the big schools because they make so much money off the games that it almost doesn’t hurt to lose. When the coach left Colorado State for UFlorida, part of the buy-out package was that UF would schedule CSU for a game next year. It’s worth something like $1M.
Sure but no body like to go to a game where one team is getting a drubbing…and Rutgers is off to a miserable start this year. I feel sorry for the team and the students.
Does Oregon feel much better? And they have history, $$$, support and some talent. Hopefully RU can compete better with Purdue and other weak BIG teams for now.
I was surprised at attendance but it rained I believe.
But others are having unexpected bad seasons–Stanford, Michigan State, Notre Dame, LSU. Losing is losing. Ash is a good coach. Just needs more players and a truce with UM. (Ash came from tOSU too)