Rutgers got it right by firing Kyle Flood and Julie Hermann
Rutgers moved swiftly this weekend to oust both athletic director Julie Hermann and football coach Kyle Flood
Rutgers hasn’t gotten many personnel decisions in their athletic department right lately, but this weekend was a step in the right direction. The Scarlet Knights got it right by firing head football coach Kyle Flood and athletic director Julie Hermann in the same weekend.
Flood was actually lucky to make it this long at New Jersey’s flagship university. His team finished 4-8 on the year, but more damaging to Flood’s employment was the three-game ban he received for violating the school’s academic compliance policy. That, in and of itself, could have easily been grounds for removal. The fact that he also had seven players arrested earlier this season likely sealed his fate.
As bad as Flood’s tenure was at Rutgers, Hermann’s was even worse. She was originally brought in to clean up after her predecessor Tim Pernetti’s mess relating to Mike Rice’s basketball coaching tenure. She was hired with the idea that she could clean up the athletic department’s damaged reputation.
More from FanSided
- Joe Burrow owes Justin Herbert a thank you note after new contract
- Chiefs gamble at wide receiver could already be biting them back
- Braves-Red Sox start time: Braves rain delay in Boston on July 25
- Yankees: Aaron Boone gives optimistic return date for Aaron Judge
- MLB Rumors: Yankees-Phillies trade showdown, Mariners swoop, India goes to Seattle
Instead, she managed to make a bad situation even worse. In response to the Newark Star-Ledger’s negative reporting of Hermann’s treatment of her volleyball players when she was employed as the head volleyball coach at the University of Tennessee, Hermann openly hoped for the paper to be shut down.
This incident sparked a firestorm of controversy and led to an exceedingly strained relationship between Hermann and the media in charge of covering Rutgers athletics. Hardly the sort of thing you want for a leader hired and charged to improve the department’s perception both locally and nationally.
All too often, head football coaches pay the price for controversy and losing while lead administrators skate by. Rutgers, to their credit, has avoided this mistake by firing coach and athletic director here. If they had taken the normal course of action and just fired Flood, it would have left a questionable athletic director to make the next crucial hire. They’ve avoided empowering an inept athletic director to shape their football program’s history by firing Hermann.
Of course, trying to hire a new head football coach without a permanent athletic director isn’t ideal. It will require university officials to take an active role in the search process and likely means that Rutgers will lean heavily on an outside search firm. This isn’t a good situation for Rutgers to be in, but it’s far better than allowing Hermann to continue to preside over their athletic department.
Rutgers administration made the right choice in firing both their football coach and the athletic director responsible for him. It’s rare that a school correctly holds both parties accountable at once, but Rutgers got it right.