There may have been no one cheering harder for Ohio State on Monday night then Kyle Flood, the Rutgers head coach. With a 42-20 win over Oregon to claim the national championship, the Buckeyes helped Rutgers continue to win the perception battle. Now it isn’t a farfetched idea for recruits, those coveted four-star and five-star athletes who play in New Jersey, to stay home and not only play in an elite conference but potentially win a national championship. It won’t happen overnight and it will take more than one or two recruiting classes staying in-state and playing for Rutgers to get to that level but Monday night showed that the pathway is there. This wasn’t always the case, of course, for Rutgers.
They were in the wilderness of college football just a couple years ago, a place called the Big East that morphed into the horribly named American Athletic Conference. There was no chance at a national championship, with a schedule just difficult enough in conference play to make running the table difficult but with so little respect for the conference that it made it impossible to see a road the serious national title talk ever materialize. Now in the Big Ten, that isn’t the case. An emphatic win for the Buckeyes showed a program that is truly elite. Similarly good performances in bowl games by the likes of Michigan State and Wisconsin as well as Rutgers shows the depth of the conference. It also underscores the pitch to potential recruits that they don’t need to go far from home to play big-time college football. When recruits in that coveted 2016 class such as Paramus Catholic’s Rashan Gary (the No. 2 player in the nation according to Rivals.com) and Bergen Catholic’s Jarrett Guarantano (a four-star recruit and one of the top quarterbacks in the nation) begin to weigh their college choices, they can begin to dream of a run at the national championship. Rutgers has already developed a strong pipeline to the NFL, with players such as the Anthony Davis, Devin and Jason McCourty, Jeremy Zuttah, Kenny Britt and even Ray Rice established in the league, there’s no doubt that Rutgers players get looks at the next level. National championships, however, always seemed a far-fetched idea in the Big East days. But now in a conference that saw a national champion crowned, they can sell a vision of piecing together a team to do that same thing. If they keep those blue-chip recruits home from that mythical ‘State of Rutgers’ then they can do that. New Jersey and New York as well as eastern Pennsylvania make for fertile recruiting turf. Sprinkle in Maryland and Florida, favored recruiting hotspots for the program, and very few schools are in an area loaded with so much talent. The potential is there and as Ohio State showed, the conference’s name and reputation cane get them to the platform. Now Rutgers just has to convince that top talent to stay home and play. Easier said then done but the school should be attractive to top recruits.
It is, after all, just a short trip to the ‘Birthplace of College Football’ for most elite athletes in New York and New Jersey. Piscataway, and the electric atmosphere on display in games against the likes of Penn State and Michigan this past year, are part of that package. To bring a national championship home. To the tri-state. On a team full of boys from Jersey and New York. In front of their cheering family and friends. It can happen for Rutgers.
It isn’t so far-fetched now, thanks to the Buckeyes.
Kristian R. Dyer is the sports columnist for Metro New York as well as their Jets beat reporter. He can be followed on Twitteror emailed atKristianRDyer@yahoo.com
Dyer: Buckeyes title helps Big 10, Rutgers
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