Nitt Picks is All About Commitment

by BSD on Apr 29, 2008 1:43 PM EDT in News Comment 13 comments

Big news today as Penn State landed their second verbal commitment for the class of 2009, Maryland safety Malcolm Willis.

"Penn State was at my school yesterday and after they left I told my coach that I want to be a Nittany Lion," Willis said.

Willis stands 6 feet tall and weighs 210 pounds. Last year he recorded 95 tackles and 3 INT. He also played quarterback but is projected to play safety for Penn State.

Irish Arrogance

You may have heard a few days ago that Notre Dame and Rutgers were working on a deal to play in football. The deal fell through, and the the New York Times explains why.

How humble of Notre Dame to have visited Ronald Reagan in the Rose Garden at the White House on Jan. 18, 1989, resisting all temptation to call for a meeting at a neutral site more to its grandiose liking.

As you may already know, the university is a member in good standing of the Big East Conference for athletic competitions it does not consider to be part of the religious experience. For the divine game, football, league opponents were long ago brainwashed to bow and accept the Notre Dame credo: Too sainted to play in your conference, too special to step into your house if it does not meet our dimensional specifications. That is, until Rutgers stood up last week, walked away from a proposed six-game series, refused to move its home games an hour north to the Meadowlands just for the privilege of playing in a stadium that would be half-filled with Notre Dame fans.

This way to Piscataway, Rutgers said, or don't bother coming to Jersey at all.

"We feel Rutgers home games should be played on campus," the university's athletic director, Bob Mulcahy, said in a statement.

Mulcahy briefly expounded on this touchy subject on Monday, saying in a telephone interview, "Notre Dame has been very helpful to the conference, but we are in the position of undertaking a $100 million expansion on our stadium, and if we are going to play a major nonconference game, we feel it has to be played there."

Bravo to Rutgers. Notre Dame continues to play this game where they keep one foot in the Big East and out foot out the door. They'll take advantage of all the Big East has to offer for their other sports programs, but they insist on keeping their television deal for themselves. When they go to a BCS bowl game they won't share the revenue with the other Big East members, but when a bowl committee is looking at Big East teams Notre Dame gets lumped in.

I'm glad to see someone in the Big East telling the Irish to go shove it. It takes a lot of nerve to walk into a self respecting school like Rutgers and request a six year deal where half the games will be played in South Bend and the other half will be played at a neutral site. But it doesn't seem to bother the Irish too bad.

"We love Rutgers," White said. "We're really close to them. It doesn't make sense for them. It makes sense for others. So we just moved on. I think we had somebody else in 10 seconds. We had an instant verbal, as they say in the business, a euphoric verbal."

Ten bucks says it's Syracuse or Temple.

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I wish we were in those shoes.

Let's face it, we all wish we could command such a deal that Notre Dame has asked for. We are as guilty by demanding 7 home games each year.

I don't see it as Irish Arrogance as much as Irish Intelligence.

Until the NCAA or some other body regulates a max of 6 home and 6 away games these deals will be in demand.

Bottom line: Too bad we didn't think to ask first.

by PSU1986 on Apr 29, 2008 2:04 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Good and bad for Rutgers

Good for Rutgers that they stood up to the once-mighty ND. This is one of the many reasons I dislike ND - Who do they think they are that they can tell an opponent where to play a home game?

But this is also bad for Rutgers because of the 6 missed opportunities to have RU football on national TV. With the departure of Ray Rice, RU isn't expected to have the magical seasons of the past few years. The exposure of playing a team like ND could have helped a bunch.

by NJ lion on Apr 29, 2008 2:52 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

When were they scheduled to play ND?

Why don't we play them those dates? Or play ND, either way is fine.

by PSU Nick on Apr 29, 2008 3:16 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Penn State/Rutgers

I think you'd find that Penn State is also not interested in playing three games on campus at Rutgers. Back when we played them every year, they always played us at the Meadowlands. I don't think they got a strict home and home with us either, though I didn't look it up.

For the Glory National Champions 1982, 1986, 1994,

by jesse. on Apr 29, 2008 4:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It is UCONN

Looks Like the Huskies will take the neutral site!!
http://connecticut.scout.com/2/749147.html

by KatManDuww on Apr 29, 2008 3:40 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

And CT State Legislators Almost pulled a Rutgers..

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/04/24/christ-overruled-as-connecticut-legislature-permits-uconn- to-pla/

Being from connecticut it makes me sick seeing this crap and bowing down to ND. The state of Connecticut owns "The Rent" yet they won't see any revenue from it. Let alone the students having to drive atleast 1.5 hours to see their football team. It will probably help expose Uconn to a national audience but what a sham for the Husky Fans.

Best guess on Stadiums.. The Razor or new Giants possibly.

Chris

by cmdpsu15 on Apr 29, 2008 4:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

This is already in the books

I believe the first two are in Foxboro and the last couple are in NYC. I fyou dig a little you'll find it.

For the Glory National Champions 1982, 1986, 1994,

by jesse. on Apr 29, 2008 4:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Reason # 1,000,001...

to hate ND. Making a team agree to play it's "home" games not just off campus, but OUT OF STATE! Is UConn really that desperate?

by NJ lion on Apr 29, 2008 4:38 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I hate...

ND, but not because they have the good sense to take advantage of their position in the market place.

If the big ten wanted ND as a member, we could almost certainly do it by having all big ten teams (including Michigan, MSU, and Purdue) refuse to play them (or to sign new contracts) unless they joined. Of course, that's not going to happen.

In any event, I think we're seeing the end of the Irish empire. I like to mess with my ND friends by telling them that in twenty years, ND will be just like Army and Navy, a once-great football school regulated to mediocrity and tradition.

by spakajewia on Apr 29, 2008 5:08 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

But then

Notre Dame jumps in the Big East for basketball. Maybe Louisville, Syracuse, Georgetown,UConn, Pittsburgh and West Virginia should do the same thing in their basketball games, or kick their a** out of the Big East

by WPIALkid22 on Apr 29, 2008 8:14 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Don't be so quick to dis ND

I don't intend to apologize for Notre Dame, but like most things there are two sides to this story.

What everyone seems to have forgotten is that Notre Dame agreed to the Big East's request to play three conference schools a year because three of the league's strongest football schools - Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech - left for the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Big East asked Notre Dame for the commitment in an effort to stabilize the conference at a time when a further fracturing of the league - if not wholesale collapse - seemed possible. Notre Dame agreed to such a commitment in May 2006 and at that time mentioned hopes to play several of the Big East games at the Meadowlands.

So, while in appearance it seems like Notre Dame is being "arrogant", in actuality they were following through on their promise to the Big East. I have no problems with that. Too bad other schools (SEC for example) don't have the same level of committment.

by PSU1986 on Apr 30, 2008 8:10 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Good stuff

This strikes me - as someone noted above - as not too dissimilar from PSU's situtation, especially with respect to Pitt. Here in Pittsburgh, PSU takes a lot of heat for not agreeing to a home and home series with the Panthers, but why should we? We get sell outs no matter who comes to State College, whereas Pitt only gets sell outs IF we or Notre Dame come to town. They should be greatful for a guaranteed sellout every three years; it's more than they have now. Same with Rutgers, even if it's a sellout at the Meadowlands. Take your money and move on.

Beating Michigan during the Bush presidency would be nice.

by kijana32 on Apr 30, 2008 11:17 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs