"is actually the ceiling for next year"-- so now you're not just assuming or predicting but telling us what actually will happen-- as I said go to Vegas with your retirement $ and bet it all. Like anyone,you have no idea what will happen but continue to profess you do -- sorry but you also can't determine " miracles".
The pessimism here is way overdone
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You’re right we don’t know what will happen… just like Duke could go 10-20 next year technically because miracles happen… the New York giants would win 13 games next year too technically
There’s always a chance that’s the beauty of sports
Nobody wants Rutgers to do poorly next year heck I re-upped my season tickets so of course I’m hoping they’ll win 11 big ten games
It is. But to be fair, I don’t think comparing the achievement of bowl eligibility to the achievement of being in the bubble conversation that far off.
it’s worth noting that there are only 134 FBS colleges vs 355 D1 colleges and we’re only allowed to play one FCS school max a season and we almost never play less than 10 out of 12 “real” games 9 league games and either 1 good mid-major or major conference team. In basketball, we go out of our way to schedule around 9 Q4 net home games (i.e. def not top 134 schools and as close to automatic wins as you can get) - last year tougher than normal.
So if we consider 18 wins pre- BIG tourney the bubble threshold vs 6 wins for football to be considered for a bowl its a 58% win rate (18-13) for BB vs 50% for football (6-6). It’s not miles off when you consider the higher percentage of basketball games being in the near automatic bucket 9 of 31 vs 2 of 12.
Personally I think it's harder to make the tournie than make a bowl.
I think best way to do it is just look at the B1G. In football you get three cupcakes that should get you three wins. Which means you really only have to go 3-6 in conference to get to a bowl.
In hoops you have to go .500 in conference unless you have a tough OOC schedule that you do well in. And if you do struggle in non conference you probably have to be better than .500.
I think best way to do it is just look at the B1G. In football you get three cupcakes that should get you three wins. Which means you really only have to go 3-6 in conference to get to a bowl.
In hoops you have to go .500 in conference unless you have a tough OOC schedule that you do well in. And if you do struggle in non conference you probably have to be better than .500.
Imagine if the basketball post season worked the way the football one does.
You only need to get to .500 to secure a spot. So that's basically 16 wins for the season.
1/6 of your wins can come over teams in a lower division with lower scholarship limits. So you can count 2-3 wins over Div-IAA.
There's no committee to impact selection, just a win count, so you can schedule 7-8 More games against Q4 schools. The quality of wins doesn't matter only the number of them.
That takes you to 10 wins before conference play, where you can afford to go 6-14 to safely qualify for the postseason. You could even go 5-15 if you can win a game in your conference tournament.
It is much harder to get to the postseason in basketball.
Or flip the script, and have football work the same as basketball's postseason selection.
CFP gets expanded to 24 teams. The 10 conference winners get automatic spots, and the remaining 14 teams get picked by a committee (which would mean even some Top 25 teams would get left out). 12 more teams get selected for six lower tier consolation bowls that fans don't really care about. All other bowl games are canceled.
CFP gets expanded to 24 teams. The 10 conference winners get automatic spots, and the remaining 14 teams get picked by a committee (which would mean even some Top 25 teams would get left out). 12 more teams get selected for six lower tier consolation bowls that fans don't really care about. All other bowl games are canceled.
That’s true but teams shouldn’t be rewarded for finishing 6-6 or 7-5 neither of those records equivalent in basketball warrant post season inclusion
Peer Big Ten Football schools are much better capitalized than Rutgers. This is especially why it’s difficult to win football games. Rutgers basketball has beaten Wisconsin and Ohio State in basketball. We haven’t come close in football.
It's not easier to win basketball games than football games; each basketball game and each football game has one winner and one loser.
It IS true that the inferior team wins more often in college basketball than it does in college football, but that's not particularly relevant if you are discussing how difficult it is to make the postseason.
If we focus on power conference teams (i.e. SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, Notre Dame for football, and Big East for basketball) the results are, for 2025:
Basketball (make NCAA tournament)
SEC 14/16
Big Ten 8/18
Big 12 7/16
Big East 5/11
ACC 4/18
Total 38/79 (48%)
Football (make bowl game)
SEC 13/16
Big Ten 12/18
Big 12 9/16
ACC 13/17
Notre Dame 1/1
Total 48/68 (71%)
A far higher proportion of power conference teams make bowl games as compared to the NCAA tournament.
It IS true that the inferior team wins more often in college basketball than it does in college football, but that's not particularly relevant if you are discussing how difficult it is to make the postseason.
If we focus on power conference teams (i.e. SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, Notre Dame for football, and Big East for basketball) the results are, for 2025:
Basketball (make NCAA tournament)
SEC 14/16
Big Ten 8/18
Big 12 7/16
Big East 5/11
ACC 4/18
Total 38/79 (48%)
Football (make bowl game)
SEC 13/16
Big Ten 12/18
Big 12 9/16
ACC 13/17
Notre Dame 1/1
Total 48/68 (71%)
A far higher proportion of power conference teams make bowl games as compared to the NCAA tournament.
An additional 15 power conference teams played in alternate postseason basketball tournaments; including them would bring the percentage to 67%... meaning that making any postseason tournament as a power conference school was still less likely than making a bowl game.
Overall, receiving an invitation to any postseason tournament, including the NIT/Crown in basketball seems to be a "feat" roughly on par with receiving an invitation to a bowl game in football, for a power conference school.
Overall, receiving an invitation to any postseason tournament, including the NIT/Crown in basketball seems to be a "feat" roughly on par with receiving an invitation to a bowl game in football, for a power conference school.
Absolutely nothing to look forward to next season. Team won't be competitive, and the decent young players (if they show something) will be probably transfer out anyways
You’d be singing a different tune if basketball only played 12 games instead of 30+ games.
Well I mean saying “It’s hard to win D1 football games” isn’t quite breaking new ground. It hard to win games. Period. I don’t know why that guy needed to say it like he was parting a sea with his wisdom.
LOL I got you. Don't compare it to other sports but also don't poo poo what the great and powerful Greg Schiano did.
An opinion about what the cutoff should be for postseason is different though from comparing a 16-16 record to a 6-6 record. You can’t just look at the record and say both teams had the same success in a season without looking at who they played.
The answer could change year over year but the main difference is that any way you try to spin it, until last year, a 500 record was much harder to achieve for Rutgers football every single year.
When you only play 12 games and 3 of them were perennially against top 10 teams and you almost always play 2-3 additional top 25 (sometimes also top 10) teams, that’s already half your entire schedule against ranked opponents. We basically had to be perfect the rest of the way.
In basketball, Pike never entered any tournaments until last year so historically we didn’t play anyone better than the bottom feeders of the BIG out of conference and most OOC games were against pure cupcakes - 10 out of 32. Unless SHU was good or we happened to get a tougher draw in one of the Challeneges which we usually didn’t. So going 500 meant finding 6 wins among the other 22 games. Now consider that, as mentioned previously, upsets are much more likely on any given day in basketball because injuries and off days for any one guy have a way bigger impact (and the reverse - one guy having a can’t miss type of day) because less players play at a time. Even ranked teams - you really cannot compare at all. Consider how few games Michigan, OSU, PSU football lost to anyone other than each other in total through the years. Now consider how many losses to non ranked teams the top BIG teams in the conference generally have in basketball. 500 is simply not the same accomplishment.
Perhaps its shifting to more of an even playing field now if Pike is going to consider to put us in the Vegas thing or comparable OOC tournaments and RU doesn’t play in the BIG east anymore.
We didn’t go 2-3 against top 25 teams we went 0-1 and we had 1 win against teams with a winning record
The year prior was hardly better
You don’t need to be any type of good to be 6-6
This isn’t gonna to make sense to anyone else but here it goes anyway.
CFB you can be a good “bad team” and make a bowl. 3 OOC wins against bad teams (1-AA and 2 low level teams) then squeak out 3 conference wins out of 8 or 9 games.
CBB it seems you need to be at a minimum a bad “good team” to make the NCAA tournament.
Even if you go 8-2 OOC, still need 9-10 wins (.500) in conference to make the NCAA tournament.
CBB you can be a good “bad team” and be “on the bubble”. But “on the bubble” has different meanings for different people.
Come on. The year prior we went 4-2 in 50 / 50 games and 2-0 against the cupcakes. Then won the bowl game against Miami (another 50 / 50 game).
The 4 other games were at home against OSU (only lost to the National Champ Michigan) and on the road against 3 ranked teams including the national champs.
You can’t under any circumstances say that if Rutgers 2023-24 or 2024-25 basketball won one more game the seasons would’ve comparatively been equally successful to this at 16-16. Every game is realistically winnable in basketball as evident by 15 and 16 seeds pulling off upsets. The 3 point shot is an equalizer on any given day. It is much MUCH easier to do what Rutgers did going 7-13 and not lose to Kennesaw than it was for the 2023-24 football team to go 5-2 (including Miami) vs every team with a pulse that they had a realistic chance to beat.
And no - I’m not trying to say football did anything great. I’m simply saying that basketball performed worse.
Yup ,he's a great coach for RU football. Cultivates NIL $, puts players into the NFL,graduates players, does well in the portal ,loved by NJ high school coaches,has great name recognition,and by the way has winning seasons .
You’re not factoring in the talent differential. We’ve been competitive with Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan in basketball. Haven’t even come close in football because the money they’ve invested in football is much more than they’ve invested in bad basketball. This is why they are much better capitalized and the talent differential is close to insurmountable.
Don’t think of it as a reward rather a structure that give a little bit of meaning (i.e. reason to play for) beyond the first few weeks of the season for 80%+ of the teams.
Maybe not in terms of what he thinks “deserves” should mean. But yeah, the reality is a football structure where only 24 teams make the post season would result in way too many teams not having anything to play for after only a few games.
Even if that’s true - there has to be some goal for teams that pick up a few early losses are continuing to play for in football. Basketball has the conference tournaments and winning games in the regular season conference games gets you a better seed for that. You can’t do something like that for football. Maybe you could reduce the number of bowls but eliminating them entirely isn’t realistic.
Part of getting to bowl games is gaming the system.
One of the things Schiano did when he came in was schedule more winnable games OOC, and he got added benefit of a rule change in 2006 that allowed 12 games every year instead of every other year (and bowl eligibility at 6-6)... allowing 4 OOC games a year (including one FCS). Then the Big East fell apart, and we ended up getting 5 OOC games from 2007-2012.
The Big East falling apart also took games against Miami, VTech, and Boston College off the schedule, making the road to bowl games easier.
Then we got put in the murderer's row B1G East division in 2014, and the B1G went to 9 conference games in 2016.... and "gaming the system" went out the window. Got one bowl game in a year with a down Michigan/PSU, and didn't see .500 again until a slightly weaker slate of opponents in 2023 (beat VTech (7-6), Temple (3-9), Wagner OOC... and Northwestern (8-5), MSU (4-8), Indiana (3-9)).
With the elimination of B1G divisions and lower frequency of seeing Top 10 programs, we should be able to go back to playing "Schiano-ball"..... FCS win, 2 easier OOC teams, and beat the weakest 3 B1G teams on our schedule.
One of the things Schiano did when he came in was schedule more winnable games OOC, and he got added benefit of a rule change in 2006 that allowed 12 games every year instead of every other year (and bowl eligibility at 6-6)... allowing 4 OOC games a year (including one FCS). Then the Big East fell apart, and we ended up getting 5 OOC games from 2007-2012.
The Big East falling apart also took games against Miami, VTech, and Boston College off the schedule, making the road to bowl games easier.
Then we got put in the murderer's row B1G East division in 2014, and the B1G went to 9 conference games in 2016.... and "gaming the system" went out the window. Got one bowl game in a year with a down Michigan/PSU, and didn't see .500 again until a slightly weaker slate of opponents in 2023 (beat VTech (7-6), Temple (3-9), Wagner OOC... and Northwestern (8-5), MSU (4-8), Indiana (3-9)).
With the elimination of B1G divisions and lower frequency of seeing Top 10 programs, we should be able to go back to playing "Schiano-ball"..... FCS win, 2 easier OOC teams, and beat the weakest 3 B1G teams on our schedule.
That’s nice, but it isn’t relevant. We are talking about going 6-6, not winning the national championship.
Pick any B10 school you want, and they are spending more money on football by a wide margin, then basketball. Maryland blew $300M on their football Fieldhouse recently. It’s definitely harder to be more successful in football than basketball because it’s a football conference. Football drives the bus in this conference.
Fake news.
We have more football talent than Notre Dame and Alabama.
Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan should be no match for our football talent.
Certainly not close to insurmountable.
Thread 'GREATEST Rutgers Football Team EVER Assembled'
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/threads/greatest-rutgers-football-team-ever-assembled.279346/
I am fine with the Buchanan pick up relative to some of the others and am less concerned about the drop in stats last year. What concerns me much more and what I think will potentially be a major adjustment for him is that he does all of his scoring around the rim. He is now coming to a team with one real 3 point threat in Zrno, who is completely unproven at this level, so everyone is going to be packing the paint against us, and if Buchanan is unable to diversify his offensive game, he could really struggle.
Over 70% of power conference teams made bowls vs <50% making the ncaa basketball tournament. You can type as much other nonsense as you want; it is demonstrably easier to make a bowl game.
The fact that everyone (incl Rutgers obviously) spends more on football, the fact that there are more games in basketball, the relative upset frequency in the sport, the fact that the sun sets in the west.. none of those change the underlying reality stated above.
Yes agreed. The more reasonable comparison would be to compare making a bowl to making either the tournament or the NIT (pre-dating Vegas thing. Now it’s a joke and they have to beg teams to play in either). Percentage wise, more football teams still made it, but there are proportionally more “awful” D1 teams in basketball so that’s not really fair either to use percentage as a metric. In football, those same teams are in FCS and at least for Rutgers, only one game against those types of teams is allowed per season.
I think there was one kid who they said we were the top offer. I don’t remember the name. Then there was the Quinnipac kid who decided to stay put. We clearly offered more. It’s actually possible that was the kid who they said we were the lead bid. I’m pretty sure it was all discussed in one podcast.
That QU kid was Amari Moore, who was basically going to come to us if he stayed in the portal and got enough from QU to stay home where he was comfortable. There was also Jadrian Tracey who apparently had a big offer from us but went to VcU to be with his former coach. Neither didn’t pick us because of style of play which is what the original poster was saying because he’s mad about last year.
Now that OOC play is over, we can clearly say the pessimism WAS NOT overdone.
Good find...all the concerns proven true and also proven true is a segment of the fanbase refusing to be anything but optimistic. They will have Pike 18-13 next year because Kelli finds him $$$Now that OOC play is over, we can clearly say the pessimism WAS NOT overdone.
Long way to go before having that discussion. Still need to know how much Keli raised first to determine what expectations should be.
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