Playing big-time, winning football is hard enough when you’re a high school team. There may be excesses. Occasionally some of the guys are maybe gonna get excited and start forcing digital anal penetration on the new recruits. The way they did in Sayreville, New Jersey.

Playing big-time, winning football is even harder when you’re a university, which Richard Mendoza, who lives in Sayreville, is in a privileged position to understand. Mendoza goes from a setting of local games where teenagers lucky enough to make the cut are anally raped, to state-wide games where players form packs and just for the hell of it break students’ jaws. Talk about a font of wisdom. Mendoza’s been there. What does he have to share with us about football, high school, university, etc.?

We … have to understand that [Rutgers is] trying to play and move up to big-time athletics … There are going to be missteps. There are going to be kids you bring into the program who are of questionable nature. But you’re trying to win games. You can’t tell the coach, ‘Win, win, win — but never have a problem.’

Now, I’m not condoning this at all. Coach (Kyle) Flood has to deal with the repercussion of this. … He needs to answer why he’s not bringing people into the program who are great. But at the same time it’s an interesting dynamic. They want him to win but they also want him to be a great citizen; sometimes that’s a difficult road to walk.

Mendoza and his buddies, interviewed at a Rutgers game

believe that Flood’s career 24-16 record is the key reason that the arrests and Flood’s alleged meddling in a player’s academic issues are national headlines. They point to recent arrests and accusations that other programs’ players have faced, like at Alabama. “It just seems to be glorified because he’s not winning as much as these other coaches,” Mendoza said. He suggested that if the program were 8-0 at the moment, these off-field issues would not be as big a deal. His buddies nodded in agreement.

“The difference between Bobby Knight and Mike Rice? 790 wins and three national championships,” said Michael Porcaro of Scott Plains, N.J. “All the things Mike Rice did, Bobby Knight did. Bobby Knight does it, he’s the leader of men. Mike Rice is a monster.”

Rice was fired as Rutgers basketball coach in 2013 after ESPN aired video showing him mistreating players in practice.

“Not that what Mike Rice did was right,” Porcaro said. “If he worked any job, what he did would get him fired. But you know, when you’re mediocre they’re less likely to look over (something).”

It’s an interesting philosophy. You’d think it would be just the opposite – that the high-profile big winners would get noticed by everybody, rather than the under the radar losers. But Rich and the guys are saying that winning solves everything; that when you win all is forgiven.

I mean, they certainly seem to be saying that about themselves, Jersey guys, Jersey football fans. Win and who cares too much about the sort of people you recruited to do the winning. After all, as one of the guys notes, a grand transition is taking place right before their eyes:

“I think we’re going through the growing pains, going from being just an academic university to a big-time sports university. There are going to be growing pains.”

If we’re going to move Rutgers from being just an academic university to where it deserves to be, in the firmament of universities, there are going to be growing pains.

Or, as Coach Ulyanov was famous for saying: “If you want to make an omelet, you must be willing to break a few eggs.”