Rutgers football needs out of Big Ten as soon as possible

While most teams manage to fit into their conferences rather well, the same cannot be said about Rutgers football of the Big Ten.

Looking at the Power Five, some conferences are clearly better than others. That should not come off as much of a surprise, though, as multiple factors play into what makes a league good or bad.

The biggest/simplest of said factors is the number of successful teams that a league possesses. For example, the SEC is held in a much higher regard than the Pac-12 due to how many more bowl programs and, more importantly, title contenders the former currently has.

But just because a team struggles does not mean that it has no business playing in the conference that it does. Rather, that is a situation that, luckily, very few Power Five programs find themselves in today.

When thinking of the ones that are dealing with such a dilemma, the minds of most fans will probably lead to one squad, in particular, a college football program that fails to add anything positive to the conference that it is affiliated with. That program is Rutgers of the Big Ten.

Now yes, Rutgers definitely struggles, as the Scarlet Knights haven’t experienced a winning record since 2014 (the school’s first season in the Big Ten). However, their complete inability to fit in with league competition goes far beyond that.

Not only are the Scarlet Knights in undesirable shape right now, but they are also showing very little signs of improving. This can easily be seen when inspecting the recruiting hauls that they have had to settle for in recent memory.

Just how unfavorable is Rutgers looking?

According to 247Sports, the Scarlet Knights have not had a recruiting class rank higher than eighth in the Big Ten in their time as an official member. And when looking at the teams who are always beating them in the race, they have virtually no shot at ever being a “top” recruiter in the conference.

Rutgers should be given credit where it is due, though, as their ranking of eighth in Big Ten recruiting came from their 2022 haul, not to mention that the five wins in 2021 gave them their most in a season since 2014.

With all of that said, it can be argued that the Scarlet Knights are on a “rise” of at least some severity, but how far is that very steady climb going to get them in a league as cutthroat as the Big Ten — one often revered as the toughest in the land outside of the SEC?

And that is where the problem comes in: many teams underperform, but they have either a good reason to not relocate and/or still have the means to succeed; Rutgers has neither. For example, Vanderbilt can’t keep up with its SEC foes, but it is a founding member of its conference nonetheless — that, if nothing else, would make a school feel less driven to leave.

Another power that the aforementioned statement applies to is Nebraska. The Cornhuskers are a historically-dominant program with a devoted fanbase, so their brand is big enough to succeed in any league. In other words, jumping ship wouldn’t help them too much, as their issues lie elsewhere.

But as for the Scarlet Knights, they are tied with Maryland for the title of the newest addition to their conference and lack a brand like Nebraska’s that could win many stars over. This all makes their move to the Big Ten look like a decision made more out of desperation than logical thinking.

If I were Rutgers, I would take advantage of this conference realignment that college football is currently in the middle of and try to make my way over to the ACC. Not only would it be geographically convenient, but with the ACC being down (and their “rival,” the SEC, soon growing bigger than ever before), it is as good of a time to win them over in expansion talks as any.