Before I start, the Mom and
Dad Barr and Mr. Pilch were there. They got a nice warm round of applause.
After Deb Norman gave the
overview, talking about the Tenn trip and giving away some T-shirts with some
Trivia, the meeting got of to a pretty aggressive start with Bob Mulcahy. The
following comments are all over the place (shotgun) so please forgive the lack
of "flow".
He immediately announced
to the group that, through the BE commissioner's office, RU has sent a tape
to the SEC highlighting 7 outrageous, preposterous, ridiculous calls that went
against RU. He was obviously disgusted by the officiating in that game and said
that he didn't want to harp on it but it was bad. He also said that they sent
tape into the BE on some of the AWFUL calls for the PITT game, and the BE said
it was one of the worst officiated games they had seen.
MY NOTE: Kudos to these
guys for not taking this lying down. Many of us RU faithful feel like we get
the screw pretty often so maybe this will make refs think twice before they
so obviously blow a call against us.
Mulcahy then read an article
from a Conn paper with several pertinent quotes from the UCONN BOG president.
The bottom line there was that successful athletic programs are crucial to helping
a large university become/stay first class. I am summarizing a long article
but that was the gist. UCONN has gotten two bills/referendums from their state
legislature totaling 2.3 BILLION (yes Billion) dollars (I think over 10 years).
The article implied that there was no way UCONN gets this money without the
success of the men's and women's Bball teams. Furthermore, this all pales in
comparison to what could be accomplished by a successful Fball team - that is
the grandest of grand stages.
Other tidbits from Mulcahy:
- Mulcahy has met with
Samuels (interim pres) and he was very happy with the meeting. HE feels that
Samuels very much understands what he is trying to accomplish and he feels
that Samuels is "in his court".
- Just this week, Mulcahy and Schiano met with the editors of the local papers
(Home News, Bergen) regarding positive coverage of Rutgers sports. He did
not specify details.
- When someone in the crowd stated that the Rutgers coverage in the Tenn papers
was so much better than the coverage in our own SL, BM stated that in the
past the SL was a paper which looked to try and help the state further it's
success (or something like that). He said, now, the SL is basically the NJ
version of the Daily News. He said that many of the writers were former Daily
News writers so they are writing about what they believe will increase their
readership. He also stated that he was very blunt with the SL and has told
them this.
- The only way to change things at this point (other than winning which would
make all of these papers jump on our bandwagon) is to write to the editors.
- Mulcahy has raised $24M (I think this was the number but don't quote me
please) to date and is looking to raise another $10M.
- He said that the Hale Center renovations clearly indicate to recruits that
RU is serious about being a BIG TIME SUCCESSFUL PROGRAM.
On to Coach Schiano
- Believes now more than
ever, that this will get turned around
- Piz will be snapping left-handed. When asked about a backup if he falters/gets
hurt, he said:
o If the trainers determine that Piz is done for the year or out for a long
time, then they burn Vogt's RS since there are 7 games left. Vogt has been
taking most of the second team snaps
- Starting with the Army game, Coach Ferraro came into GS' office and told
GS that he would like to go "upstairs" to the booth because he feels
more comfortable up there and can lay out all of this "stuff". DB
coach Scott Lakatos is on the field now. GS indicated that Ferraro has a great
rapport with his staff so he feels very comfortable with this. Bottom line:
he feels that this has helped the team.
- We are in with many top notch kids regarding recruiting. "Difference
makers" he called them. He said that for some of them, we are on "their
fence" but we are in good with them which is very important in this whole
process.
- Teams are only allotted 56 official visits so they must be used wisely.
You can't bring in too many kids who we have virtually no shot with (or we
are praying for a verbal) since it will most likely be at the expense of getting
other solid kids.
- He indicated that we have many top notch kids scheduled for the first 2
weeks of recruiting which is huge in his mind as getting a verbal early is
huge. Many kids don't even make it to the final weekends so getting the early
visits are HUGE.
- We have "6 or 7, I think it's 7" verbals. He didn't give specifics.
- Injuries: we are in excellent shape. Duffy and Blackwood would play. Only
major dings are Moses and Grant
- Regarding the Peterson suspension (last night, there was NO mention of Clark),
he said that he hated to do it but had to. The kids have to understand that
there are rules they must stick to. He told the team that having injuries
was bad enough - shooting themselves in the foot was plain stupid on their
part
- Try and bring as many people to the games as possible. He said he can hear
people in the stands shouting encouragement and we have no idea how much that
helps. And it DOES impact recruits. Same goes for the negative stuff, although
he (personally) blocks out the negative comments.
- Didn't really talk about the WVU game except for the following:
o AC is awesome. Will be a challenge to stop him
o The QB can make plays also - need to be careful