For the first time in eight years, Logan Ryan gets to put on for his home state of New Jersey.

On August 31, Ryan, a former Rutgers cornerback, agreed to a one-year, up to $7.5 million deal with the New York Giants. The Eastern High School product and Voorhees native officially signed the contract on Sept. 4.

"Being able to come home and play 20 minutes from Rutgers and an hour from where I grew up, it's a dream come true. I'm so grateful for the opportunity honestly," Ryan said on Monday. "Coming home was definitely something that I always thought about."

Current Scarlet Knights coach Greg Schiano coached Ryan for three years at Rutgers in his first stint before he left to lead the Tampa Bay Buccanneers. Ryan stayed one more season in 2012 prior to opting to leave and enter the NFL Draft after his redshirt junior campaign.

"Coach Schiano reached out," Ryan said. "He congratulated me. He's happy to have me back in the area and I was ecstatic. We definitely exchanged texts and talked about that. I thanked him for that. I think Rutgers is excited to have me back. I look forward to helping the team out when I get the chance."

A four-star recruit out of high school, Ryan chose to stay local and represent the Garden State at the college level and he talked about being a hard-nosed player who had to work for everything.

"First, for any kid in New Jersey who is working hard on the football field or in a park with their dad, throwing a ball, I played quarterback in high school, I played corner in college. I was an athlete. Then I'd come to the NFL and I played this position, that position. It's just work ethic," Ryan said. "Hopefully I can show them that if they work hard from the area, you can come play for the home team and bring that familiarity and that humility home to the Jersey kid. I'm just a hardworking kid. I was raised that way. I went to Rutgers out of New Jersey, and we worked hard for every win and for every loss. I got drafted in the third round in New England. I wasn't guaranteed a thing. I worked hard every single day. When you're 21 years old, leaving Rutgers as a junior and you're on the practice field with Tom Brady a few months later, you have to grow up quick. I had to take those losses against Tom Brady and it really grew me up, and here I am. My career has been going by in a flash. Eight years in but I feel like I have a lot of great football left in me. It's just my hard work and my preparation. I'm just a guy with average ability who worked really hard at it."

Ryan played cornerback at Rutgers and with the Patriots and Tennessee Titans, but he is practicing at safety where he said he wanted to play during free agency. Being versatile is something Ryan wants to use to his advantage.

"I'm one hundred percent prepared to and learning all the positions for sure. Where I line up from week to week will definitely be G-5 classified, team first, (Giants head coach) Joe Judge will tell you later type of answer. I'm prepared, I played outside corner a lot of years in this league. I started at outside corner in the Super Bowl before. I've had experience at it, I played outside corner at Rutgers for four years right down the road, so I definitely have experience at the position for sure. If the team asked me to play that, I'll definitely do that.

"It's been a lot of fun. I think the evolution is to be a DB and study all the positions and the arts of it. Like we talked about, I played perimeter corner a lot in my career and obviously played the slot position, safety. It's a part of my game and whatever the team needs me to do from week to week. I think it gives us great versatility with myself, Jabrill Peppers. Julian Love is a former corner playing safety. I think that gives us position flexibility. Honestly, this is a matchup league. This isn't 1980's football where you go out there and you have four positions, you run a four three which is two safeties and two corners. I think the game is evolving a little bit and I think the more positions flexibility you have, I think it gives you the ability to do more stuff on defense."

During his senior year at Rutgers, Ryan was selected to the All-Big East First Team as he started all 13 games and tallied 94 tackles, four interceptions, and 17 pass breakups. He was a semifinalist for the Jim Thorpe Award.

The 5-foot-11, 195-pounder won two Super Bowls in New England.

Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisWasky.