Rutgers Football: 3 reasons Big Ten should part ways with Scarlet Knights
By John Scimeca
Rutgers football played the first college game in 1869 — a 6-4 victory over Princeton — but the Big Ten is better off without today’s Scarlet Knights.
The latest, frenzied realignment jigsaw puzzle of the college football’s top level took place in the first part of the 2010s, and its aftershocks are still being felt. The SEC added Missouri and Texas A&M and swelled to 14 teams, the ACC absorbed the old Big East (adding Pittsburgh, Miami, Boston College, and Syracuse), the Big 12 and Pac-12 debated a semi-merger but decided against it.
The Big Ten, though, decided to expand its footprint out of the Midwest by adding Maryland and Rutgers. It wasn’t a move for more quality football; instead, it was clearly aimed at adding the populous East Coast media markets to a lucrative TV or media rights deal for the conference. Piscataway, New Jersey is now associated with Ann Arbor, Michigan and Columbus, Ohio on Saturday mornings.
Now that we’re at the end of the decade, looking back, was adding Rutgers the right move for the Big Ten?
The Big Ten was on a mission to prove that it was not just adding a mid-major program to its league for access to a sizable media market. After six seasons with Rutgers as a member, however, it’s time to admit that the Scarlet Knights simply don’t belong.
For example, Rutgers football’s average attendance for the 2018 season was 37,799 fans per game. The Big Ten average was more than 65,000.
Does Rutgers really deserve to be called a “power conference” team at the expense of programs such as Central Florida, BYU, and Boise State?
TCU and Utah are two notable success stories of schools that have jumped to college football’s top tier from the Mountain West to the Big 12 and Pac-12, respectively. Both were competitive programs as non-major conference members, and both have continued to remain relevant as “Power Five” members today. Rutgers is the opposite; the Scarlet Knights have gotten worse since joining the Big Ten.
Read on about why Rutgers and the Big Ten should part ways.