"Look, we don't get to beat up on Syracuse and UCONN anymore."
This quote is from the On the Banks article in which the author proceeds to tell his audience that Rutgers is God's gift to football, has the potential to beat up on every school in the B1G, and to post the article to their new B1G friends in order to warn them of the incoming new overloads from the festering dump that is New Jersey. In this post, I'd like to examine just how much Rutgers has "beaten up" on Syracuse in football.
Syracuse football has an all time record vs. Rutgers of 30-12-1 with an average margin of victory of 10.2. "But, sir" you say "Syracuse has sucked for the past decade because they hired a terrible coach and allowed Rutgers to dominate them". So, I present Syracuse's record vs. Rutgers split out by decade:
Decade | Win | Loss | Tie | Points for | Points Allowed |
2010's | 1 | 2 | 0 | 14.7 | 17.3 |
2000's | 5 | 5 | 0 | 24.4 | 26.2 |
1990's | 9 | 1 | 0 | 39.1 | 14.7 |
1980's | 7 | 3 | 0 | 23.6 | 15.9 |
1970's | 0 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 21 |
1960's | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1950's | 1 | 0 | 0 | 42 | 12 |
1940's | 3 | 0 | 0 | 27.3 | 7.7 |
1930's | 1 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 0 |
1920's | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1910's | 3 | 0 | 1 | 15.8 | 6 |
6-7 since 2000? Hardly an argument that Syracuse was "beaten up" by Rutgers. My next point centers around another metric of how dominant a college program is: number of players in the NFL. The statistics are broken down by decade that the player was drafted in.
Syracuse
Decade | Number of players who have played at least 1 NFL game | Total number of NFL games played | Average number of NFL games played | Average draft position selected |
2010's | 6 | 195 | 32.5 | 111.3 |
2000's | 15 | 1,004 | 66.9 | 123.9 |
1990's | 20 | 1,867 | 93.4 | 83.8 |
1980's | 18 | 1,504 | 83.6 | 102.6 |
1970's | 7 | 502 | 77.7 | 178.6 |
1960's | 11 | 940 | 85.4 | 86.7 |
1950's | 7 | 408 | 58.3 | 106.7 |
1940's | 1 | 26 | 26 | 47 |
Undrafted | 41 | 1,487 | 36.3 | N/A |
TOTAL | 126 | 7,975 | 63.3 | 106.7 |
Rutgers
Decade | Number of players who have played at least 1 NFL game | Total number of NFL games played | Average number of NFL games played | Average draft position selected |
2010's | 7 | 160 | 22.9 | 128.3 |
2000's | 9 | 553 | 61.4 | 139.2 |
1990's | 2 | 118 | 59 | 73.5 |
1980's | 0 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
1970's | 3 | 69 | 23 | 216.3 |
1960's | 1 | 31 | 31 | 120 |
Undrafted | 32 | 1,446 | 45.2 | N/A |
TOTAL | 55 | 2,377 | 44 | 139.4 |
So not only did NFL scouts think more highly of Syracuse players in all decades, Syracuse alums have also played more games than there RU counterparts in every single decade. Rutgers football, where the 1980s don't exist! Let this be a word to the wise for aspiring journalists, next time look at the data before you make a claim that your school is going to be the next football powerhouse.
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