NEW BRUNSWICK -- Last fall, the idea of the two highest-profile people in the Rutgers athletics department getting together for an all-topics discussion with the university's student body was far-fetched.

Then-Rutgers Athletics Director Julie Hermann was rarely visible, kept off limits from the public unless it was a controlled environment. Then-football coach Kyle Flood's interactions with fans were also kept to a minimum as his program was generating negative headlines due to a series of player arrests and his own three-game suspension stemming from a violation of academic policy.

Aside from their camera-friendly greeting around the team bus before football games, it was common knowledge inside Rutgers circles that Hermann and Flood rarely interacted late in their tumultuous tenures.

The environment inside Rutgers' athletics department is far different these days. To anyone willing to listen, AD Pat Hobbs and football coach Chris Ash have made it clear that they want to change the culture in the programs they lead.

Hobbs on his plan to shed its university subsidy to athletics: "The question about subsidies and support, that's something that I've had to take a hard look at as we move forward. Now we know as we become a full (financial partner) in the Big Ten, we get a full share of Big Ten revenues and that's going to dramatically change the finances. But there's other ways to change the financial realities as well. Success -- winning cures a lot of things. We need to win in our important sports in terms of revenue. That gets alums excited, you sell more tickets, you sell more sponsorship, your donations increase. Right now, we're hard at work for our programs. ... In a couple of weeks I think we're going to give out some very exciting news on the fundraising front in terms of what we have been able to do on the Big Ten build. And then we put winning programs on the field, and that then changes the financial realities so you're not asking, 'Hey, why do you have the biggest deficit, why do you need that much university support?' It's going to take some time to get there. I just arrived. But I saw it at Seton Hall, the challenges that they had on the financial side. Now they've turned a deficit department into a department that's doing very well financially. What happened? They won the Big East championship this year. So if you put those programs in place, you get the buy-in from everybody, then your financial picture improves dramatically and then we can start providing more support to our Olympic sports. We need to bring full scholarships to all of our programs. There's a lot that we need to do so that all of our programs can be successful.''

Ash on how the football program and the pep band can work together: "I think the band, just like the student body, can help provide a great environment at the stadium. When I want people to think about Rutgers football, I also want them to think about the band, the way that we perform on the field -- I want the band to perform at the same type of level. I know (the band) has some great leaderships, they have some great tradition and they've done some great things. I want (the band) to look at things differently, just like (the football program) is going to be doing things differently. But I want the band to feel ownership of our football team's success, just like I want the student body to feel like they have ownership in our football success, and understand that we all have a role. (The band) has a role to help us create an unbelievable experience on Saturdays in that stadium. And anything we can do to utilize (the band) to help build on that experience, we want to do it.''

Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KSargeantNJ. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.