Home Depot, Motorola CEO’s are Rutgers grads, could help with Big Ten move

If Rutgers was invited to the league and merely looked as if it had a chance to compete for a Big Ten title, its TV numbers would be competitive with any current member. A good part of the reason is its size. Rutgers not only has a comparable enrollment (37,000) with Penn State, its living alumni base (380,000) stacks up with the highest in the nation (PSU’s 475,000 is among the very top). You can make a compelling case that RU football is the proverbial “sleeping giant”. It appears the infrastructure is ready to handle the action. Since Greg Schiano arrived at millennium’s outset, he has turned the program into a consistently competitive one. More important, he has demanded and received pretty much every upgrade in the RU football infrastructure he’s requested. Just completed for last season was a $102 million stadium expansion that added 11,400 seats, 968 loges, with club and luxury box enclosures, personal bars inside and overhanging heaters outside. Left open was the possibility of adding a third deck, much like Louisville’s Papa John’s Stadium. Opened before the final 2009 game against West Virginia was a $5 million recruiting lounge. In one end zone stands the largest scoreboard relative to stadium capacity in nation. Trendy electronic message/advertising ribbons ring the second-deck facade. Potential sugar daddies are plentiful. CEOs of Home Depot and Motorola are Rutgers grads. Johnson & Johnson world headquarters is next door. – Patriot-News