It all started with Jabrill
Peppers.
On May 26, 2013, the
New Jersey native made an
appearance on ESPN, where
he performed a freestyle rap,
pulled out a winged helmet
and officially committed to
play football at Michigan.
Just like that, the No.
1 recruit in the state was
headed to Ann Arbor. The
exodus had begun.
New Jersey wasn’t always
a hotbed for college football
recruits.
Freshman
safety
and
Jersey
native
Brad
Hawkins remembers when
his home was known only as
“the basketball state.”
But eventually — perhaps
while scouting stars like
Peppers — teams saw what
they were missing. Michigan,
along with a collection of
the nation’s elite programs,
began mining for talent and
enticed recruits to play their
college football outside of
their home state.
Chris
Ash
aimed
to
halt that process when he
accepted the head coaching
job in Piscataway just under
two years ago.
He helped coin the phrase
“Fence the Garden” — a
mantra meant to symbolize
Rutgers’ focus on keeping
the best high school football
players in New Jersey to
continue
their
college
careers.
And with the phrase came
an odd rivalry.
At the beginning of June
in
2016,
Jim
Harbaugh
organized one of his then-
infamous satellite camps at
Paramus Catholic — Peppers’
old stomping grounds. On
the same day, Ash brought
in
Urban
Meyer
to
host a camp
of his own
just over six
miles
away
at
Fairleigh
Dickinson
University.
Rutgers
students had
their
own
response,
too.
The
Order of the
Bull’s Blood
— a secret
society at the
university
— claimed responsibility for
acts of vandalism at Paramus
Catholic that occurred in the
days leading up to Michigan’s
camp.
All
past
drama
aside,
though, Ash’s “Fence the
Garden”
mantra, to this
point, appears
to be all it was.
Roughly
a
month
after
the
inception
of the phrase,
Rashan
Gary
— then the top-
ranked recruit
in the nation
—
committed
to
Michigan.
Kareem
Walker,
the
top-ranked
running
back
in
the
state,
joined him.
A year later, the trend
continued. Drew Singleton,
a Union City, N.J. native
ranked
as
the
fifth-best
recruit in the state according
to the ESPN 300, signed a
letter of intent to play at
Michigan.
They aren’t the only ones
either.
The
list
includes
Gary,
Walker,
Singleton,
Hawkins, Hunter Reynolds,
Joe
Beneducci,
Michael
Dwumfour,
Jon
Runyan,
Juwann
Bushell-Beatty,
Cheyenn Robinson and Ron
Johnson. All on Michigan’s
roster. All hail from New
Jersey.
Some came before Peppers.
Some came with him. But the
majority came after him.
All
it
took
was
an
appearance
on
national
television.
“I think it definitely (opens
the door), because growing
up in Jersey, we looked up
to guys like Jabrill when I
was a kid,” Dwumfour said.
“... When he made the move
here, it definitely opened
the eyes of guys like me in
Jersey.”
***
The logic is simple.
“Jersey
guys,
we
like
to
win,”
Dwumfour
said
of
Michigan’s
increased
presence in his home state.
“So wherever fits us right
and feels like home, that’s
where we want to be.”
Unfortunately for Rutgers,
it has failed to fit that criteria
for a long time now.
Ray Rice was a sophomore
the last time the Scarlet
Knights
had
a
10-win
season. That came in 2006,
when Greg Schiano’s team
punctuated an 11-2 season in
the Big East with a victory
over Kansas State in the
Texas Bowl. Before that, you
would need to go back to 1976
to find double digits in the
win column.
The
Scarlet
Knights
haven’t had a winning season
in the Big Ten since their
inaugural year when they
finished 8-5 and beat North
Carolina in the Quick Lane
Bowl. And in the past two
seasons, Rutgers has finished
a combined 6-18.
It’s for those reasons that
Hawkins and Bushell-Beatty
remember growing up with
little exposure to Rutgers
football.
As a kid in New Jersey,
Hawkins recalls watching
“whoever gets the TV time
pretty much.” The Scarlet
Knights rarely received that
big of a stage.
Someday they might, but
to
Nunzio
Campanile
—
the head coach at Bergen
Catholic
in
Oradell,
N.J.
— it’s a process that will
inevitably take time.
“I think that success is
relative,”
Campanile
said.
“I think that if they start
getting to the point where
they’re winning five, six,
seven games, I think some
of those higher-level players
might be willing to take that
FootballSaturday, October 28, 2017
4
‘M’ impedes Rutgers’ fight for Jersey
KEVIN SANTO
Managing Sports Editor
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Special teams coordinator Chris Partridge had experience in the New Jersey college football recruiting landscape, as he served as the head coach of Paramus Catholic for five years.
New Jersey has plenty of talent. The problem is that the Scarlet Knights can’t seem to hold on to it.
Growing up
in Jersey, we
looked up
to guys like
Jabrill when I
was kid