The Courant's Matt Eagan considers Title IX, its benefits, and the supposed threat it poses to men's nonrevenue sports, five of which Rutgers now plans to eliminate. The Scarlet Knights will also cut women's tennis.

Though he doesn't say so, Eagan may be responding to conservative columnist John Tierney, who thinks Title IX is bad because girls already outperform boys on non-sports measures, so boys should be able to outperform girls in sports. (I'm simplifying his argument, but not by much.)

Most big schools want, or think they want, big revenue from football, even though many football teams lose money. And football teams are enormously expensive, compared to anything else most college athletic departments do: they also have a zillion players.

Eagan: "Football requires an enormous economic commitment and makes it all but impossible to comply with Title IX without cutting a school's non-revenue men's sports budget."

What if all the wrestling coaches now arrayed against women's teams instead pushed their conferences to accept a 70 (or 65, or 75) scholarship per school limit for football? CBS' Dennis Dodd suggested as much four years back; Eagan agrees.

Are women's-sports coaches, boosters and grateful players simply easier targets for aggrieved Olympic-sports fans than are the lords of the gridiron?