10/13/2022 football Edit

Campanile to implement tweaks, get offense moving as interim OC for Rutgers

Chris Nalwasky • TheKnightReport

Beat Writer

Rutgers Football is in the middle of its bye week, but it has been anything other than calm as the Scarlet Knights made a change amongst the offensive staff.

Head coach Greg Schiano relieved offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson of his duties and promoted tight ends coach Nunzio Campanile to the position as well as the quarterbacks coach. Joe Susan moved from an off the field role to coaching the tight ends.

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After practice on Thursday inside SHI Stadium, Campanile spoke with a small trio of reporters about the switch up.

“It’s been a busy week. It’s been tough,” Campanile said. “The coaches and players have worked hard. Hopefully it was productive. This bye week is critical. If we didn’t have that, it would have been really hard. It’s a sprint as it is, but our kids and coaches have done a great job.We’ve had a productive week. We have to make it pay off.”

Campanile also talked about what Sunday was like for him when the news went down on both sides.

“It was a hectic day,” Campanile said. “I obviously had a great relationship with Sean and I’ve enjoyed working with him. I’ve known him for a long time. That part of it is hard. As for our team, it’s an opportunity to move forward and continue to finish the season. Like coach Schiano said, we have an opportunity to grow and we’ll use this week to do that.”

Nunzio Campanile (Patrick Gorski -- USA Today Sports)

This isn’t Campanile’s first rodeo in calling plays for the Scarlet Knights. In 2019, Campanile served as the interim head coach and offensive coordinator after then-head coach Chris Ash was let go. Campanile ran the team for the last eight games, and he’ll get a chance to call his offense for the last six at least in 2022.

“I think then I learned a lot of the organizational skills and what it takes to make that kind of transition,” Campanile said. “Coach Schiano and the foundation that he’s set for the way we do things has made it easier too. He’s been great in guiding me in the direction we want to take the team.”

Rutgers is averaging just 22.8 points per game which is 104th in the country, and that was helped by a 66-point day against lowly FCS foe, Wagner. Rutgers is also just 114th in the nation in passing offense and only ahead of Iowa in the Big Ten. The Scarlet Knights have been hit with some quarterback injuries which doesn’t help, but Schiano believed a change was warranted after struggles have occurred all year and then some.

Campanile is looking to provide a fix and get the ball moving and into the end zone.

“I think we have a chance to be a pretty good Big Ten offense. I really do,” Campanile said. “We have the pieces and the kids work really hard. As we transition it’ll be about how quickly we can pick things up. I feel good about that.

“I think the biggest thing is for us to develop an identity. I believe we have tough kids and we’ll develop an identity on toughness and execution and guys who are willing to sacrifice for each other. That shows up in what we do every day and these guys can have confidence in us being a tough, hard-nose New Jersey football team.”

Campanile will do his best to tailor his tweaks toward what the players do best.

“It’s critical,” he said. “Who knows what our players do better than us? It’s our job to put them in a position to be successful.”

In a press conference on Sunday night, Schiano credited the job Campanile has done with quarterbacks in the past, and hopes he can flip a switch and help the guys in the room now.

“It starts with fundamentals and making sure that the footwork and decision making comes together for them,” Campanile said. “As we restructure some things and reimagine the way we do it, it’s important for those guys to be fundamentally sound. It starts there. If they have great footwork then they can move to making good decisions and then we have a chance to move the ball.”

Rutgers will have the weekend and all of next week to fine tune some things before it hosts Indiana on Oct. 22 at noon. Campanile is starting the process of a seven-week job interview of sorts, but he’s not thinking about that.

“Trying to have as much growth as we can this week so we have a great chance to beat Indiana next Saturday,” CAmpanile said. “These guys deserve to have all my focus on helping them get better and to win this next game. The rest will take care of itself.

“We need growth. We don’t want to put our players in a position to hurt them. That will be the big evaluation each week. We got to keep it simple enough so that we can execute. Execution is key to the game.”