Saturday Skull Session

If Saturday night's alright for fighting, what do we Saturday morning? I imagine there's some level of calisthenics we all have to do in order to prepare for fighting tonight.

Perhaps such preparation for tonight's fight comes in the form of a Saturday Skull Session, which leads off with the latest black eye Rutgers has to show around the country.

 RUTGERS CAN'T BUY A BREAK (SPOILER ALERT: IT CAN'T AFFORD ONE). Of course, all of this has to happen with Rutgers delivered to the Big Ten. We can't LOL at the Big East for this, in large part because it no longer exists in its familiar form.

We're all aware of the recent basketball scandal at Rutgers, which saw its former head coach, Mike Rice, videotaped hurling verbal abuse at his players and using basketballs a projectiles at his players' faces. The scandal became even bigger than it could have been because Rutgers' then-athletic director, Tim Pernetti, was aware of the extent of the abuse and offered a small punishment that did not fit the crime. His effort to rehabilitate Rice proved inadequate and eventually he resigned his position.

Meanwhile, Rutgers hoped to start anew by hiring Eddie Jordan to lead the program into the Big Ten. Eddie Jordan is arguably Rutgers' basketball highest profile alumnus, having been a part of the school's celebrated 1976 Final Four team and rising to the top ranks of basketball coaching with the Sacramento Kings, Washington Wizards, and Philadelphia 76ers.

If only he were an alumnus of the actual university he attended.

It turns out Eddie Jordan did not graduate from The State University of New Jersey like the athletic department claimed he did in 1977.

Does this matter? Apparently not. These are public positions subject to the scrutiny of state law and the associated bureaucratic red tape. This process is magnified by Rutgers's relative poverty reducing the athletic program to a public subsidy.

However, Rutgers must not have advertised that having a baccalaureate was necessary for this particular job, though the university system does so for just about every other similar position it advertises on its human resources page. Eddie Jordan's job status will not be affected for it.

Still, it's another black eye for Rutgers basketball, which is running short of available eyes to bruise.

 BEISBOL UPDATE. Let's check on the Ohio State baseball team and see how many baseball home runs it's hit recently. Hopefully it's all of them.

The Baseball Bucks are stepping out of conference play this week. Since we last checked on the Buckeyes, the team had its streak of seven straight wins snapped in Evanston againt the Wildcats. The 8-0 Northwestern win will not be belabored here, but the Buckeyes did rebound to win the next two games and the series. A two-for-three day from the plate for right fielder Patrick Porter, complete with two RBIs, propelled the Buckeyes to a 5-3 win to even the series. The Buckeyes took the rubber match, 6-2. The Buckeyes entered the top of the eighth inning down 2-1, though turned in a four-run eighth to down the Wildcats.

Next, the Buckeyes returned home (where they will be for the rest of the season) to host a two-game series with Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech is in a similar position to Ohio State, possibly on the outside looking into the NCAA Tournament if it is stuck as an at-large consideration. As such, it made the series quite interesting to those following Ohio State baseball. The Buckeyes lost the opener, 9-2, but rallied to split the series with a 3-2 win on Wednesday.

Next, the Buckeyes host a three-game series against the Oregon Ducks, a relatively new program in college baseball (Phil Knight wanted one, and got one). The series was supposed to begin last night, but last night's game was rained out. Today will be a doubleheader.

Right now, Ohio State has been doing its job to compete for a Big Ten regular season championship. It's the solid #2 in the league right now, a half-game behind nationally ranked Indiana. The Buckeyes host the Hoosiers to end the regular season.

The last time we saw the Vikings in TCF Bank Stadium.

 NFL FOOTBALL COMING BACK TO THE BIG TEN. Well, that's one way to put it.

The Minnesota Vikings and Minnesota Golden Gophers are going to share a home again, though, this time, the Vikings are coming to crash on the Gophers' couch. The Metrodome is going to be leveled and, while the Vikings' new home is being built in its place, the Vikings will play in the University of Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium for the 2014 and 2015 seasons.

The University of Minnesota stands to make a pretty penny from the deal. The "rent" charged by the University of Minnesota will be $250,000 per game in addition to a $50,000 cut from concession sales. It's a guaranteed $2.4 million check from the NFL for eight home games in a given season with a maximum of $3 million per season.

The Vikings are also going to pay for some stadium upgrades as well. One of the major topics for concern was the heating of the field during the winter. Big Ten football gets a rap for being difficult to play in cold weather, though, truth is, college football never plays that late into winter and it never gets that cold. The coldest it really gets in November is 40 or so, but the real cause of concern is in December (and possibly January) when the weather can dip into the teens. Under those conditions, unheated turf becomes concrete. This came up when the Vikings had to play at TCF Bank Stadium in December 2010 after the Metrodome's roof collapsed. The Vikings are planning on paying for a better heating system underneath TCF Bank Stadium's turf.

The Vikings will also assess the need for temporary stands for the higher demand of Vikings football relative to TCF Bank Stadium's seating capacity and will provide other amenities as well (including paying for new storage facilities).

The Gophers are going to net over $5 million from the Vikings (possibly more) for allowing the Vikings to crash on their couch on Sunday. Whether Minnesota's athletic department invests that into getting better at football remains to be seen.

 MISCELLANY. This is not an Onion article... From Colorado to Akron for graduate school, rather: "graduate school"... Nick Saban's Georgia lakefront mansion will pursue an exciting new career opportunity at the University of North Alabama... North Carolina and South Carolina schedule their 2015 opener for Charlotte... That Team Up North may be a landing spot for a Bert transfer from Arkansas... Happy Mother's Day, from Bill O'Brien... Can we actually marvel how interesting it is that there's a state in this fair union for which a hockey coach is the highest paid public employee?