You want to have a good overall athletic program – Rutgers needs to work on that
Rutgers has a pretty good wrestling program. Its rowing program is nationally ranked, and has been for several years. There are other sports “on the banks” that have also been reasonably successful in recent years: men’s golf, field hockey, women’s lacrosse, women’s soccer, gymnastics.
And they’ve done well, despite the fact that they haven’t necessarily gotten the support – financially or otherwise – that they need. But Keli Zinn has made it clear that those poor support days are over.
“Our absence
in that space [NIL]. Over the past three or four years, I do believe it has had a direct impact on where you see some of our Olympic sports performing right now. We needed to fix that, and our Olympic coaches heard back in the fall, me tell them, hey, this isn’t just about football and basketball, it’s going to be about you too.”
In honor of this year’s World Cup games, Andrew posted a piece on Rutgers Soccer – men and women – showing a proud and highly successful history. The operative word being history, as in not recently.
And, as often happens, reality can smack you up side the head: that would be the Directors’ Cup standings for 2025-26. And it showed that of late, Rutgers just hasn’t quite cut it in too many areas.
Which brings me back to an article in The Athletic (beware possible paywall), an article that some folks viewed as just another hit piece bashing Rutgers sports. Andrew put out a post on it, and it drew a number of comments. I disagreed that it was a hit piece. But, if it did bash RU, it also bashed Maryland as well. And that’s what I want to use as my starting point.
In the original article in The Athletic, the new AD at Maryland, Jim Smith, talked about wanting to keep support for their successful sports, not just football and hoops. Like Rutgers, Maryland has had some historically good programs, such as field hockey, lacrosse, and soccer. Smith feels that they need to be supported on a comparable level as football, at least in terms of keeping them successful and relevant. “There’s a philosophical debate,” Smith said. “Does every football program need to spend $50 million on a roster to win? I don’t believe so. I think you can spend smart money and be very successful, and I think that’s where we’re going to make our investment while also maintaining our other sports. We’ve seen other schools go the opposite way. All-in on football; everybody else, see you later. We don’t have that here. We have a history of being successful in the other sports, so we’re going to continue to invest in that and be smart about how we do it, while winning in football and basketball.” [my bolding of quote]
And Rutgers should do the same. To me, it makes no sense to feed the beast and starve the rest. Especially when the “beast” isn’t also “the best”. Clearly, football and basketball get the lion’s share of the attention and, for better or worse, the money. But, it doesn’t mean that you shut out other programs.
Those recently released Directors’ Cup standings showed how Rutgers compared to other schools’ overall athletic programs. If you look at the success of athletics at each school, those who rank at the top of the standings are those that have overall success across multiple – sometimes pretty much all – programs. Texas won the D1 Directors’ Cup this year. In the spring, it scored in every sport except men’s and women’s lacrosse, men’s volleyball, and women’s water polo; Texas does not have men’s and women’s lacrosse, men’s volleyball, and women’s water polo. UCLA had the highest finish of any Big Ten school, coming in third in the nation. This spring, the Bruins did not score in men’s and women’s lacrosse or women’s rowing. But, they don’t have any lacrosse programs.
The point, obviously, is that a) ya gotta have teams to begin with so that they can score points and b) they have to win and do so in the post-season. Texas and UCLA are our exhibits A and B for that.
Now, in a comment on the OTB post about Rutgers’ finish in those standings, BobR wrote, Frankly I’m not expecting dramatic improvement despite the interest and efforts of KZ and PT. This is a highly competitive conference where higher results are tough to achieve. What I’m looking for is continuous iterative improvement (10/year?) Perhaps in five years we can be in the top 60. Five more years and top 25? And, I’d have to agree that a) we aren’t going to compete for the Directors’ Cup soon (maybe ever) and b) how about just some improvement? So, let’s look at the middle of the pack in the Big Ten this past year; who finished at numbers 7-10 in the standings within the conference? That would be 8-Wisconsin, 9-Washington, 10-Illinois, an 11-Minnesota. And what did they score points in? Here they are, for each season, excluding football (which were not listed in the standings):
Oregon 783.00 points Fall Women’s & Men’s Cross Country; Winter Women’s Basketball, Women’s & Men’s Track & Field; Spring Baseball, Women’s & Men’s Golf, Softball, Women’s & Men’s Track & Field; Scored points in 11 0f its 19 sports
Wisconsin 754.00 points Fall Women’s & Men’s Cross Country, Women’s Soccer, Women’s Volleyball Winter Men’s Basketball, Women’s & Men’s Ice Hockey, Women’s & Men’s Swimming, Women’s & Men’s Track & Field, Wrestling Spring Softball Women’s & Men’s Tennis, Women’s & Men’s Track & Field; Scored points in 15 0f 24 sports
Washington 705.75 points Fall Women’s Cross Country, Women’s & Men’s Soccer Winter Women’s Basketball Women’ Gymnastics, Women’s & Men’s Track & Field Spring Rowing, Softball, Women’s Tennis, Women’s Track & Field; Scored points in 11 sports 0f 21
Illinois 687.75 Fall Women’s Soccer Winter Women’s & Men’s Basketball, Men’s Gymnastics, Women’s & Men’s Track & Field, Wrestling Spring Women’s & Men’s Golf, Men’s Tennis, Women’s & Men’s Track & Field; Scored in 12 sports 0f 20
Minnesota 675.75 Fall Women’s Cross Country, Women’s Volleyball Winter Women’s Basketball, Women’s Gymnastics, Women’s Hockey, Women’s & Men’s Swimming, Women’s Track & Field, Wrestling Spring Women’s & Men’s Track & Field; Scored in 11 sports 0f 22
Then there’s Rutgers, with its 227.50 points, 448 points behind the bottom of the middle! How did it get there? Winter Women’s Gymnastics, Women’s Swimming, Wrestling Spring Women’s Lacrosse, Rowing; Scored in 5 sports 0f 24
There’s certainly room for improvement. Scoring some points in the fall might be a good start, what with field hockey and soccer having been pretty good not that long ago. And maybe the men picking up the slack just a tad? The middle of the Big Ten pack is a good distance off, but not an impossible goal. Except for Wisconsin, RU has more sports in the mix than any of those schools, each one an opportunity to win and gain some recognition.
Keli Zinn seems to be looking at supporting all sports, certainly getting scholarship money up to snuff and then moving forward with NIL/roster building. How far she can go and how quickly is the multi-million dollar question. But the journey of a thousand miles begins with a few more sports winning a few more games.
