Rutgers Fires Head Coach And Athletic Director After Football Meltdown

by Ryan KappyNovember 30, 2015, 4:24 pmNews, Opinion >

Rutgers University took matters into their own hands after a football season saw their program go 4-8 as well as incidents happening on and off the field. This resulted in head coach Kyle Flood and athletic director Julie Hermann being fired yesterday.

Both firings happened with university president Robert Barchi letting the two go yesterday after making up his mind in changing leadership, according to a statement. “This is a particular point in time and one makes the decisions on a multiplicity of factors and this happens to be a confluence of one of those directional lines if you will,” Barchi said later Sunday during a teleconference with reporters.

The firings come off an embarrassing 4-8 season that saw the team blow their biggest lead this past Saturday against Maryland. Off the field, Flood was accused of illegally being in contact with Rutgers faculty members in trying to make one of his players academically eligible, which resulted him in being suspended for three games. Also, seven players were arrested since August including six players accused of assaulting a student and the seventh player, star receiver Leontee Carroo, having the charges dropped. Flood was 27-24 in his four seasons at Rutgers and took the team to three bowls in his first three seasons. He was given a contract extension in 2014 that would have lasted through 2018 while being paid $1.26 million this year

Hermann came into a disgruntled Rutgers athletic department in 2013 after former AD Tim Pernetti was fired for only suspending former basketball coach Mike Rice for physically and verbally his players. Hermann herself was named in a lawsuit for supposedly abusing her players when she was a women’s volleyball coach at Tennessee.

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Barchi announced that Patrick Hobbs, Dean Emeritus of the Seton Hall University School of Law, would take over as athletic director and Hobbs has already begun the search for a new football head coach.

Photo: PISCATAWAY, NJ – OCTOBER 24: Head coach Kyle Flood of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights during the fourth quarter of a game against the Ohio State Buckeyes at High Point Solutions Stadium on October 24, 2015 in Piscataway, New Jersey. (Photo by Rich Schultz /Getty Images)