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What a difference a year of college can make. Devin and Jason McCourty came to Rutgers at the same time, Jason – younger by 27 minutes – the more highly touted recruit, Devin the one with only one Division I-A offer. Devin redshirted that first year, Jason played and last year, as a fourth-year senior, he was drafted in the sixth round by the Titans.

This year, as a fifth-year senior, Devin had one of the most decorated years of any Rutgers athlete. He was a captain (like his brother before him), he was an all-league corner (like his brother before him), he was a frighteningly fast receiver (again, like his brother) and now there’s chatter he could work his way into the first round.

Rutgers CB Devin McCourty (5-11, 186)

Teams threw away from McCourty and he still had 10 pass break-ups and 80 tackles. Oh, and he notched his sixth blocked kick this year. His sixth.

McCourty learned in watching his twin Jason go through the process a year ago that special teams versatility could be as much a ticket to the NFL as corner play. And so, he rarely took a play off (he notched 111 at UConn, a game where he returned a kickoff for a score), he was Rutgers’ gunner on punts too and NFL Network draft expert Mike Mayock said he’s “been a very pleasant surprise.”

He mixed it up with some of the country’s best receivers down in Mobile this week, the experts at Draftinsiders.net wrote that he “physically beat down Mardy Gilyard on a number of instances,” and CBSSports.com’s Rob Rang said he “has the agility and straight-line speed for man coverage. He breaks on the ball quickly and has the active hands to rip away passes at the last moment.”

Mayock called him “a very quick, tough kid” and said as of now, he seems McCourty as a solid second round pick. And perhaps rising.

Rutgers recruiting coordinator Joe Susan left for Bucknell’s head job today. Greg Schiano’s not worried about that affecting recruiting and he’s not quite sure he’ll even have a coach serving as recruiting coordinator going forward. Read on…

Greg Schiano didn’t want to underrate Joe Susan. But after 10 years, he sure wasn’t going to cop to any unease either. Even if he is losing his recruiting coordinator just one week before Signing Day.

“It will have no impact,” Schiano confidently said Wednesday, just hours after Susan accepted the head coaching position at Bucknell.

Susan’s departure ends a nine-season run alongside Schiano at Rutgers. He was one of only three remaining staffers from the start of Schiano’s reclamation project – strength coach Jay Butler and head trainer Dave McCune being the other two – and he was one of only three current Schiano assistants who grew up in New Jersey.

“Certainly Joe’s an integral part, just as all our coaches are, in recruiting,” Schiano said. “It is late in recruiting. But the guys that Joe is directly recruiting we’ve had great relationships with, they’re strong and they (chose) Rutgers. Joe just happened to recruit them. I don’t think it’s a big issue.”

The bigger issue may be replacing Susan. Read the rest of this entry »

Part of doing the roundup every morning is getting to read the different things beat writers note. Two months ago, the St. Petersburg Times’ Greg Auman did what I thought was a cool story on the proliferation of players with a Haitian heritage at South Florida. The Times took that fabulous picture, to the right, and Sabbath Joseph’s spirited pride came through clear in Greg’s story.

This past weekend, as I watched Jonathan Vilma and Jacques Cesaire’s PSA asking for relief funds, I of course thought back to the Bulls. With students back on campus yesterday, South Florida’s administration generously put me in touch with a few of these young men whose families hail from Haiti. Take a read:

Every spring, Sabbath Joseph scans South Florida’s recruit list for Haitian names.

When Mistral Raymond came in from Iowa, Joseph cornered him in the Bulls’ locker room, welcomed him as a zoe (read: Haitian) and carried out an ersatz knighting.

Joseph tosses out Creole on the Bulls’ game field and he regularly harasses his teammates of less distinct bloodlines, “You’d run faster if you were Haitian.” He talks a mean game of nationalistic pride and redshirt freshman Jon Lejiste always thought it was a trip. Until this week.

When it became a saving grace.

“It’s all our parents’ homeland,” Lejiste said. “We always joke about our own little Haitian circle, but now, we really see how close-knit we are.” Read the rest of this entry »

PISCATAWAY  – Hamady Ndiaye folded his 7-foot frame onto the thin little bench in Rutgers’ track locker room.

Jonathan Mitchell had pretended he didn’t hear the booing. Mike Rosario had sworn he didn’t. Freshman Dane Miller had admitted the catcalls at his coach hurt and then changed the subject and Ndiaye, with a turned ankle too big to slide into his boot, could’ve done exactly the same.

But after logging 108 games as a Scarlet Knights, after yet another demoralizing, oh-so-close loss – this one an 81-65 setback to no. 5 Syracuse – Ndiaye wasn’t taking any easy route. He looked straight at the television camera, he smiled at the four people arced around him and the senior from Senegal said there’s no shying away from the truth.

“We’re going through some crisis right now,” he said. “There’s a lot of words going around about us, the coaches, the team. It’s hard on the team but at the same time we have to learn how to deal with it. No matter what people say outside, it’s not about that right now. It’s about us coming out and giving it our best.”

For a while there Wednesday night, the Scarlet Knights really seemed to be. It’s been a brutal week, from supposed cornerstone forward Gregory Echenique requesting a release from his scholarship to former forward JR Inman’s ranting diatribe against coach Fred Hill on Facebook. The calls for Hill’s dismissal have turned into a chorus, chatter has made a Rosario departure seem like a fait accompli and then came the introductions at Rutgers Athletic Center, when the boos rained down on Hill.

And yet, after falling into the usual ugly halftime hole (this one was 18), the Scarlet Knights kept clawing. 

Keep reading right here.

The Big East’s Top Five Teams of the 2000s, Five Greatest Games of the 2000s and Five Most Major Off-Field Moments of the 2000s are all up. What’s left but the players who made the league.

I won’t lie: this one was the hardest: Antonio Bryant or Andre Johnson or Mardy Gilyard? Sean Taylor or Adam “Pacman” Jones? Michael Vick, who had just two years in the decade, or Pat White, the first quarterback ever to win four bowl games? There were very few no-brainers on this one. So please, feel free to argue.

 The Big East’s All-Decade Team of the 2000s

Offense:

QB Pat White, West Virginia

RB Ray Rice, Rutgers

RB Willis McGahee, Miami

WR Larry Fitzgerald, Pittsburgh

WR Andre Johnson, Miami

TE Kellen Winslow, Miami

OL Bryant McKinnie, Miami

OL Dan Mozes, West Virginia

OL Jake Grove, Virginia Tech

OL Rob Petitti, Pittsburgh

OL Jeremy Zuttah, Rutgers Read the rest of this entry »

We’re looking back at the decade that was in the Big East. We started with The Big East’s Top Five Teams of the 2000s. We’ll bring you the Five Most Major Off-Field Moments and the All-Decade team in a little while. But now, The Big East’s Five Greatest Conference Games of the 2000s.

In chronological order…

Oct. 15, 2005 – West Virginia 46, Louisville 44 (3 OT)

Louisville had Heisman candidates Brian Brohm and Michael Bush, and a 17-point lead at the start of the fourth quarter. West Virginia had Steve Slaton. The freshman ran for a league record six post-halftime touchdowns, the Mountaineers pushed the game to overtime and in the third extra session, Eric Wicks’ tackle kept Brohm from a two-point conversion. West Virginia went on to an 11-1 year and an upset of SEC-champ Georgia in a Georgia Dome Sugar Bowl.  Read the rest of this entry »

There was 2001 Miami.

There was Dwight Freeny.

There was the ACC raid, West Virginia’s Sugar Bowl stunner and the undefeated Bearcats. Officially launched in 1991, the Big East Football Conference’s second decade was one of transition. Twelve teams called the league home at one point and nine won at least a share of a league title (Temple lost its chance forever, Rutgers and South Florida are still waiting theirs’).

Of the current eight members, seven have been nationally ranked while in this configuration. Seven have won bowl games and three have had to twice make coaching changes (Cincinnati, Louisville, Syracuse).

This last year of the decade suggests the Big East has stabilized, and may be on an ascension that sticks. But that won’t be certain till Jan. 1, in what will formally be a new decade. So before then, let’s take a look at the decade that was in Big East football.

First, The Big East’s Top Five Teams of the 2000s.

Read the rest of this entry »

PISCATAWAY – It was after a game, fairly early in what would be that magical 2006 season.

He was leaning up against a wall, across from the Rutgers locker room, wearing a black jacket. He looked like he could’ve shouldered the whole building with that one lean and so I asked him his name.

“Anthony Davis,” he said, quietly, but politely too.

Without any brush off, and with him still looking at me patiently, I asked him how old he was. He said 16, I said something about my high school not growing them that big and then I asked him if he was coming to Rutgers.

“I’m thinking about it,” he said.

“If you do,” I said, “you’ll get to talk to me for the next four years.”

“Three,” he said, showing me for the first time that impish grin I’d soon spend – yes, three – years smiling back at.

Davis announced Tuesday he’ll forego his senior season and enter the NFL Draft, making official what just about every Rutgers follower had to know. No lobbying would’ve made a difference, no promise could’ve kept him, no, Davis said, nothing could put off his dream any longer. Read the rest of this entry »

Confusion crossed Zaire Kitchen’s face.

Standing in Rutgers’ practice bubble, a day before the Scarlet Knights left for St. Petersburg, Kitchen shook his head. He looked down at the scar on his right knee, he looked at the two on his left knee and then the senior safety said, “I forgot. I forgot which one came first.”

They’ve defined him and they’ve branded him, these three complete knee reconstructions he had in a five-year span. They’re a testament to every cell of his character and they’ve been the stirring model for every Scarlet Knight who’s undergone any kind of surgery. And Zaire Kitchen can’t even remember their most basic details.

“Hey, I’m more than just the injury guy,” he said, laughingly protesting. Seeing the raised eyebrow, he laughed again and said, “Well, I want to be more than the injury guy.”

Read the rest of this entry »

South Florida’s administration is moving quickly – and forcefully – to review some pretty ugly charges against head coach Jim Leavitt.

To recap: Monday, former Bulls beat writer Brett McMurphy wrote on AOL Fanhouse that Leavitt grabbed sophomore walk-on Joel Miller by the throat and then hit him twice in the face during halftime of South Florida’s Nov. 21 game against Louisville. McMurphy wrote that five witnesses corroborated that allegation and he quoted Miller’s father Paul, a former Tampa police officer as saying, “You do something like that (on the street), you put them in jail. Somewhere (Leavitt) crossed the line.”

Tuesday, current Bulls beat writer Scott Carter wrote in the Tampa Tribune that Leavitt told him the allegations were “untrue and completely false.” Carter wrote that Paul Miller also refuted the original AOL story, and said Leavitt only grabbed his son by the shoulder pads and did not strike him in the face.

“That’s absolutely not true,” Paul Miller told Carter of the AOL allegations. “As a father, that’s absolutely not true. That’s all I can really tell you. Joel wasn’t having a very good game. I guess Coach Leavitt noticed he was just sitting there all by himself and wasn’t responding.”

Now, today, USF President Judy Genshaft told her school’s board of trustees that the school’s associate VP of human resources, Sandy Lovins, and private labor lawyer Tom Gonzalez are going to spearhead a review of the AOL piece’s charges. President Genshaft told the board Leavitt met with Lovins and Gonzalez at 9 a.m. yesterday and that the pair would be conducting other interviews.

I’ve said it several times before and I’ll say it again: an assault that happens in the halls of a football complex or the bowels of a football locker room is still an assault. I’ve also said that in our generation, it’s become far too much of a reflex to question the credibility of a writer when the news reads unfavorably. I know I certainly wouldn’t write something so explosive, and so potentially damaging, if I didn’t have complete faith in my sources. However… and it’s a big however… I am not so naive as to think reporters don’t get stories wrong. I am not so naive as to think people, emboldened by the spotlight, don’t sometimes embellish stories to reporters. I am not so naive to think all these allegations may have somehow been misconstrued and that’s why Jim Leavitt’s career hangs in the balance.

Ultimately, our reputation may be our most valuable possession. The first report has already done untold damage to Leavitt’s reputation. It’s attacked his character and questioned his fitness for the position he currently holds. If that’s deserving, then the report carried out one of our most noblest charges as journalists: to expose ills and abuses. If it’s not deserving, if the report isn’t correct, then it’s just as ugly an assault as the one it alleged.