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Kyle Flood is taking heat after the 49-14 loss to Houston, but some fans need a reality check.

(William Perlman/The Star-Ledger)

Kyle Flood is not getting fired.

If this seems like a ridiculous sentence to read, well, it feels even more ridiculous to write. Flood is midway through his second year of a five-year contract. He went 9-4 and was one bad penalty shy of the Sugar Bowl in his first season. He is 4-3 now and, barring a complete collapse, is headed to another bowl in his second season.

The 49-14 loss to Houston was ugly, and speaks to how far Rutgers has to go. But Flood is working on the third-ranked recruiting class in the conference. Not the American Athletic Conference. In the Big Ten.

Yet, based on the my email inbox, or the comments here on NJ.com, or the absolute hysteria on the Rutgers’ message boards, you’d think he was 0-7 in the midst of an embarrassing scandal.

Oh, right. It was the former basketball coach who had the scandal. Flood is the one who stood out as a model for the right way to do things during that tabloid spring for the Scarlet Knights. Flood is the one who took over when Greg Schiano bolted for the NFL days before signing day and held a stellar recruiting class together.

So the vitriol now is a bit surprising, to say the least. One email poses this question: “Is there any way to find out what it would cost Rutgers to buy out the remainder of Kyle Flood's contract?” Another one declared, “I’m very concerned that Coach Flood is way over his head.”

Or this gem: "Flood is not a HC, it’s pretty obvious to everyone. A nice guy, but not a big Division 1 head coach. Remember the Clint Eastwood line: ‘A man’s just got to know his limitations.’ "

The whole "big" coach thing is a popular argument — that Rutgers, because it is finally in a big conference next season, needs a big name. Jim Tressel, Butch Davis and Bobby Petrino are three that people keep suggesting.

No one suggesting them, however, seems concerned that all three were fired after scandals involving improper benefits, academic fraud and lying about a tryst with an employee. Are those really the men you want at Rutgers?

The verdict is still out on Flood as a coach. I wrote that this season would be a good barometer for that, better than his first season when he was handed a team built to win and met expectations.

So far, the results are not impressive. Rutgers split its two games against its better nonconference opponents (a loss at Fresno State and a win over Arkansas), blew a chance to make a statement against a beatable Louisville team, and was embarrassed on Homecoming against a Houston team that came to Piscataway as a seven-point underdog.

The likely outcome for this season is an 8-4 record and a trip across the Hudson River for the Pinstripe Bowl again, which means Rutgers, in all its years in the weak Big East/AAC, will have failed to even once take the coveted BCS bid before the system is changed. That’s frustrating.

But frustrating is different from fireable. There is a reason coaches are rarely replaced after two seasons: It sends a message to everyone, from recruits to other coaches, that the athletic department is a rudderless mess.

Here are recent coaches who were fired after two seasons. Turner Gill at Kansas, Larry Porter at Memphis and Rob Ianello at Akron. They were 5-19, 3-21 and 2-22 respectively. Somebody find a winning coach fired after two seasons — and Lane Kiffin, who lasted two and change at USC, doesn’t count.

It is nonsense to think you can judge Flood on a season and a half. He’ll get his chance to lead this program into the Big Ten, and he deserves that. The fans who want to replace him already need to get a grip.