Rutgers has never been able to get its act together during its Big East tenure, and the latest blow-up down in Jersey isn’t helping the school at all.

The school fired athletic director Bob Mulcahy last week after conducting a long review of the department and its spending choices over the last several years. Mulcahy has taken pride in leading the football program into the big time and expanding a stadium that was barely Division I-caliber a decade ago. Rutgers is set to go to its fourth straight bowl game and Mulcahy has somehow kept a good coach, Greg Schiano, from leaving for other opportunities.

Mulcahy, who came to Rutgers 10 years ago, was not found negligent in the report and said he was surprised by the move.

“I was terminated by the president,” Mulcahy said. “I asked him if I had done anything wrong and he said ‘No.’ ”

There is a strong sentiment that the school decided to replace Mulcahy because the money being used to build the football program into a Big East contender could be better spent elsewhere. School president Richard McCormick was reportedly under pressure from school and state leaders to reign in athletic spending.

“We have a habit in this state, our political leadership, of trying to tear apart, for political gain, the institutions that seem to rise up,” Mulcahy told the Newark Star-Ledger. “It’s been said that we eat our own. It’s a sad commentary. … I hear it from people who come into New Jersey all the time. This is unlike any other state. We don’t have pride, and the one thing this program has done is bring pride to the state.”

Two days after sacking Mulcahy, the Rutgers governing board unanimously approved a greatly scaled-back plan to finish the school’s $102 million stadium expansion that calls for the addition of 12,000 new seats. The new plan directs the school to borrow the entire cost of the project and cut out expected improvements like new locker rooms and donor reception areas.

Think again

Villanova continues to thumb its nose at the myth that claims only football schools can win big in the Big East. The Wildcats (along with Georgetown and Marquette) continue to roll, and the latest big win on the recruiting trail came from a verbal commitment Friday from Dominic Cheek, perhaps the best guard prospect in the East. Cheek joins point guard Maalik Wayns and big men Isaiah Armwood and Mouphtaou Yarou in perhaps Jay Wright’s best-ever recruiting haul. ’Nova, which built a reputation as the place to play for guards a few years back when Randy Foye, Allan Ray and Kyle Lowry led the team to the Elite Eight, is absolutely loaded in the backcourt. Next year,Wright will send Cheek and Wayns into a group that already includes talented veterans Scottie Reynolds, Corey Fisher, Corey Stokes and Taylor King, a transfer from Duke.

kmcnamar@projo.com