Remember when this story got national coverage. On the Basketball Board, it was said he was a walk on who played 3 games in 2012-13, for a total of 3 minutes and an accumulated state line of just 1 assist in garbage time.
I think that Rutgers hook increases the interest in the story by 10X. So I don't think they can avoid noting that.
It doesn't, really. During Schiano's first stint at RU, the worst hatchet jobs from the NJ media happened after RU started having winning seasons and going to bowl games, and eventually caused Mulcahy to resign. As I recall, some posters took out a full page ad in the Star Ledger refuting their false anti-RU reporting.
Even with all that, if RU doesn't blow a 2TD lead to a Louisville team led by an injured Teddy Bridgewater at home, he goes to the Orange Bowl and is probably here for at least 7 years.
Sportswriters rarely - if ever - write their own headlines.
I doubt that the narrative would have changed even if Schiano won more. The agenda of the Star Ledger and other NJ media isn't to just criticize RU athletics when they aren't successful. It's to poison the environment to the point where no success can ever happen. This is why the narrative morphed from Sid Dorfman's "Rutgers belongs in the Ivy League because they can't compete with the football factories" wet dreams to inaccurate and often untrue "investigations" of athletics spending. Once Schiano proved that RU could compete and win, it didn't shut the critics up. It just changed the subject of the criticism.
If you'd ask somebody who actually is a beat writer - not forming wildly-inaccurate opinions based off of the foolishness that somebody who isn't one told you - you'd know that beat writers generally work through any in-season holidays regardless of whether the team is the defending champion or winless. Christmas, New Year's, Easter, etc. Only real difference of course is there might be a few weeks added leeway for days off if the team doesn't make the playoffs (or bowl game, etc).
I don't read the drivel on NJ.com, mostly because it is behind a paywall and partly because I don't care what they write, and I can't stand listening to Politi, so I will not listen to the podcast. IMO, there is much better content out there, including what is written here on this site, onthebanks, app.com (same as northjersey.com and mycentraljersey.com) and elsewhere.
Fair enough, though it should be noted that most podcast listeners are probably not tuning in for the same reason that one would read the articles from the sources you are comparing them to.
The one done by the Gannett crew (app.com/northjersey/mycentral Jersey) has not been bad. It is called "The Chop." The link says: New episodes are available every Wednesday throughout the season. Be sure to follow The Chop on iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Cool - I didn’t know about this one. Always on the hunt for new ones to kill the time in traffic. Lately I’ve been checking out the national ones a bit too to see if we get a mention here and there.
The guys here, @Richard Schnyderite and @ChrisNalwasky did one that was on YouTube/ last week that was terrific too. They had Gio on.
He’s not a fan but his job is much more enjoyable and interesting if he’s writing about a competitive team. Not sure why some people have such a hard time grasping that.
I mentioned this in the other thread, but it bears repeating that "our vaunted NJ newspaper" didn't cite Rutgers in the headline. In the Ledger, it was:
Yes, but that was not the sports guys, who supported RU. It was the news reporters.
Reporters don't work for RU, why would their goal be to build the program?
I'm confident that's not the only reason he wants the team to be competitive. He's a Nutley native, no matter where he did his undergrad.
This. But he and Sarge have also been covering RU for so long that it’s unimaginable that the 2 of them don’t genuinely want to see RU have a marquee season during their tenure. Just human nature at this point. Anyone would.
