MORGANTOWN - When Courtney Green decided to go to Rutgers in 2005, he was committing himself to a program that was not exactly among college football's elite.
The numbers, in fact, were scary bad:
The Scarlet Knights had just finished a 4-7 season, which was actually one of their best in more than a decade.
Rutgers had won all of seven Big East games in the previous nine years and had never finished higher than sixth place in the eight-team league.
A school that had been playing football for as long as any in the country (Rutgers and Princeton played the first college game in 1869) had been to exactly one bowl game in all those years.
Enter Green, who immediately won the job as Rutgers' starting free safety as a true freshman and has been there ever since.
The first year the Scarlet Knights were 7-5, the second 11-2 and the third 8-5. They played in bowls after every season.
A coincidence?
"Well, I wouldn't say I'm the reason,'' Green said. "But we have been better.''
Oh, sure, others were no doubt just as responsible or more so. Ray Rice certainly had a hand it the resurgence, as did guys like Brian Leonard and Eric Foster. Rutgers has had five players drafted by the NFL in just the last two seasons, so obviously the talent level has increased.
But face the facts. Rutgers was awful before Courtney Green arrived and good as soon as he showed up. If nothing else, he could at least gloat a little bit that coincidences like that just don't happen very often.
But he won't.
"No, I think it was a team effort,'' Green said. "I think Coach just drilled into our heads that [all of that success] was our goal. Our goal was to get better every day. Whether you're going to bowl games or not, the idea was just to get better every day and take it from there. And that's our goal this year, too.''
It hasn't quite worked out that way this year, though, at least from a won-lost standpoint. The Scarlet Knights might be getting better every day, but they still bring a 1-3 record into Saturday's noon game with West Virginia (2-2) at Mountaineer Field.
Rutgers didn't win until last weekend, a 38-0 whitewashing of lower-division Morgan State. Prior to that there were home losses to Fresno State and North Carolina in marquee television matchups (Labor Day and a Thursday night) and a 23-21 loss two weeks ago at Navy.
It's not quite the Rutgers of old, the teams that between 1980 and 2005 had all of four winning seasons. But the slow start has to be depressing for a fan base that lived through all those lean years.
Green, though, didn't live through that while growing up in New Rochelle, N.Y. When he went to Rutgers it was simply because he believed in coach Greg Schiano and wanted to be a part of a grand revival.
"It was just the excitement of coming here,'' Green said. "You have to believe in your coach and he sold it to us that we had a chance to do some great things at Rutgers.''
Green is not without fault in Rutgers' 1-3 start, of course. In fact, he is the free safety in a veteran secondary that has, at times, underperformed. Both Fresno State and North Carolina threw for big yards and/or made key completions. The secondary got a break the past two games playing a Navy team that doesn't throw the ball (although the Midshipmen did complete a touchdown pass) and a Morgan State team that was in over its head.
Green was also flagged for a penalty against Morgan State for a personal foul on a hit far away from the ball.
But he has also started 42 consecutive games and is sixth on the school's list of all-time tackle leaders, so he has had something to do with Rutgers' success, even if he is reluctant to admit it.
"This was built by guys like Brian Leonard and Eric Foster,'' Green said. "They're the ones who get all the credit.''
nn
Both the Big East and the NCAA confirmed Wednesday what the Gazette reported a day earlier, that WVU linebacker Reed Williams can play in both the Rutgers game this week and against Syracuse next and remain eligible to apply for a medical redshirt should his injured shoulders force him to sit out the rest of the season.
NCAA by-law 14.2.4 states, among other things, that in order to be eligible to apply for a medical hardship waiver, a player cannot compete beyond the first half of the season (six games in football) and may not have participated in more than 30 percent of the team's scheduled games (30 percent of 12 is 3.6 and the NCAA rounds that up to four games).
Williams has played in only two games so far and so can play in the next two without exceeding the four-game limit or going beyond the first half of the season. If he then decides to sit out the rest of the season and apply for a fifth year, WVU would petition the Big East for the waiver after the season. It would not go to the NCAA unless the Big East denies the petition.
It may be a non-issue because Williams apparently plans to keep playing. But WVU coach Bill Stewart said Tuesday that Williams is doing so in pain, and Stewart isn't convinced he can do it for the rest of the season.
Reach Dave Hickman at 348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.
MORGANTOWN - When Courtney Green decided to go to Rutgers in 2005, he was committing himself to a program that was not exactly among college football's elite.
The numbers, in fact, were scary bad:
The Scarlet Knights had just finished a 4-7 season, which was actually one of their best in more than a decade.
Rutgers had won all of seven Big East games in the previous nine years and had never finished higher than sixth place in the eight-team league.
A school that had been playing football for as long as any in the country (Rutgers and Princeton played the first college game in 1869) had been to exactly one bowl game in all those years.
Enter Green, who immediately won the job as Rutgers' starting free safety as a true freshman and has been there ever since.
The first year the Scarlet Knights were 7-5, the second 11-2 and the third 8-5. They played in bowls after every season.
A coincidence?
"Well, I wouldn't say I'm the reason,'' Green said. "But we have been better.''
Oh, sure, others were no doubt just as responsible or more so. Ray Rice certainly had a hand it the resurgence, as did guys like Brian Leonard and Eric Foster. Rutgers has had five players drafted by the NFL in just the last two seasons, so obviously the talent level has increased.
But face the facts. Rutgers was awful before Courtney Green arrived and good as soon as he showed up. If nothing else, he could at least gloat a little bit that coincidences like that just don't happen very often.
But he won't.
"No, I think it was a team effort,'' Green said. "I think Coach just drilled into our heads that [all of that success] was our goal. Our goal was to get better every day. Whether you're going to bowl games or not, the idea was just to get better every day and take it from there. And that's our goal this year, too.''
It hasn't quite worked out that way this year, though, at least from a won-lost standpoint. The Scarlet Knights might be getting better every day, but they still bring a 1-3 record into Saturday's noon game with West Virginia (2-2) at Mountaineer Field.
Rutgers didn't win until last weekend, a 38-0 whitewashing of lower-division Morgan State. Prior to that there were home losses to Fresno State and North Carolina in marquee television matchups (Labor Day and a Thursday night) and a 23-21 loss two weeks ago at Navy.
It's not quite the Rutgers of old, the teams that between 1980 and 2005 had all of four winning seasons. But the slow start has to be depressing for a fan base that lived through all those lean years.
Green, though, didn't live through that while growing up in New Rochelle, N.Y. When he went to Rutgers it was simply because he believed in coach Greg Schiano and wanted to be a part of a grand revival.
"It was just the excitement of coming here,'' Green said. "You have to believe in your coach and he sold it to us that we had a chance to do some great things at Rutgers.''
Green is not without fault in Rutgers' 1-3 start, of course. In fact, he is the free safety in a veteran secondary that has, at times, underperformed. Both Fresno State and North Carolina threw for big yards and/or made key completions. The secondary got a break the past two games playing a Navy team that doesn't throw the ball (although the Midshipmen did complete a touchdown pass) and a Morgan State team that was in over its head.
Green was also flagged for a penalty against Morgan State for a personal foul on a hit far away from the ball.
But he has also started 42 consecutive games and is sixth on the school's list of all-time tackle leaders, so he has had something to do with Rutgers' success, even if he is reluctant to admit it.
"This was built by guys like Brian Leonard and Eric Foster,'' Green said. "They're the ones who get all the credit.''
nn
Both the Big East and the NCAA confirmed Wednesday what the Gazette reported a day earlier, that WVU linebacker Reed Williams can play in both the Rutgers game this week and against Syracuse next and remain eligible to apply for a medical redshirt should his injured shoulders force him to sit out the rest of the season.
NCAA by-law 14.2.4 states, among other things, that in order to be eligible to apply for a medical hardship waiver, a player cannot compete beyond the first half of the season (six games in football) and may not have participated in more than 30 percent of the team's scheduled games (30 percent of 12 is 3.6 and the NCAA rounds that up to four games).
Williams has played in only two games so far and so can play in the next two without exceeding the four-game limit or going beyond the first half of the season. If he then decides to sit out the rest of the season and apply for a fifth year, WVU would petition the Big East for the waiver after the season. It would not go to the NCAA unless the Big East denies the petition.
It may be a non-issue because Williams apparently plans to keep playing. But WVU coach Bill Stewart said Tuesday that Williams is doing so in pain, and Stewart isn't convinced he can do it for the rest of the season.
Reach Dave Hickman at 348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.
