Unwanted Attention for Rutgers

The last thing Rutgers needs is any negative publicity but news out of Piscataway Tuesday indicates they are going to have to deal with some. 

Football coach Kyle Flood is being investigated by the university to see if he violated any school or NCAA rules by contacting a faculty member about the academic status of a player.  It seems that what Flood did was send an email from his personal account inquiring about what Nadir Barnwell could do to improve his grade. Barnwell has been on academic thin ice and his eligibility appears to be in question. 

A report says that Flood never asked about a grade being changed and does not think there is anything wrong in conferring with a professor about a player’s academic situation and on the surface I would agree. However, at Rutgers any and all contact regarding a student-athlete with a member of the faculty is supposed to go through an academic support member and not directly by a coach. 

University officials said they were first made of the situation last week and an investigation is being conducted by the school’s office of ethics and compliance.  Flood, who most agree is a pretty stand-up guy, could face anything from a public reprimand to being fired depending on the findings of the investigation.

In a somewhat related story, five Scarlet Knight players have been suspended for the first half of Rutgers’ season-opener against Norfolk State for a curfew violation.  The two biggest names associated with the story are pre-season All-Big Ten receiver Leonte Carroo and quarterback Chris Laviano, who has been in a neck-and-neck battle with Hayden Rettig for the starting job. 

The 20-year old Laviano was caught trying to use a fake ID to get into what Coach Flood called “an establishment that he shouldn’t be in.”  Being suspended for the first half of what’s expected to be an easy game for Rutgers does not come off as a big deal.  However in the case of Laviano it has cost him the starting job for now.

One other thing and that is the fate of sports betting in New Jersey suffered another blow Tuesday when a federal appeals panel in Philadelphia upheld the federal ban on sports betting in all but four states (Nevada, Oregon, Montana & Delaware).  State officials plan a further appeal but to me it appears at some point proponents are going to have to accept their fate and that is legal sports betting at racetracks and casinos is not coming anytime soon, if at all.  That’s especially bad news for Monmouth Park who was ready to launch legal sports betting months ago.