Beat writers, analysts react to Rutgers re-hiring Greg Schiano
On early Sunday morning, the Rutgers Athletics department has hired Greg Schiano as the next head football coach according to multiple reports.
The Knight Report we spoke with some of the network’s top analysts and writers to get their thoughts on the Schiano’s return to Rutgers as the leader of the Scarlet Knights football program.
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Rivals National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell: "End of the day, I think Schiano was the best choice for the job. He knows the territory and he’s a very good recruiter. Rutgers couldn’t ask for a better fit."
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Rivals National Recruiting Analyst Adam Gorney: "Rutgers can perform a national search and hire an expensive firm and go to the end's of the Earth for its next coach but sometimes the most obvious thing is the most sensible: Greg Schiano knows Rutgers, he can recruit the state, he reinvigorated the program once before and he can get them to be competitive again. There are a lot of built-in challenges with Rutgers in the Big 10 now but Schiano is an excellent pick and the most responsible thing to do."
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Rivals Mid-Atlantic Recruiting Analyst Adam Friedman: "Schiano would be a great hire for Rutgers because he could help bring that program back to the respectful level that he left it in. He has great relationships throughout the Northeast and especially within the state of New Jersey and that’s something that the program desperately needs. Hopefully he’ll be able to bring in more talented prospects and get the Rutgers program back to a competitive level.
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Rivals Midwest Recruiting Analyst Josh Helmholdt: ”There is one factor cited by more recruits concerning head coaches than any other, and that is NFL experience. The difference between Greg Schiano circa 2011 to Greg Schiano 2019 is that he now has "NFL head coach" on his resume. Schiano can sell what he did during his previous tenure at Rutgers, and now he also can sell the fact that he has been in the NFL and knows that it takes to get there. That will be a powerful combination when he hits the recruiting trail.”
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BuckeyeGrove.com Publisher Kevin Noon: "If there is anyone with a track record of winning at Rutgers, it is Greg Schiano. But he also knows the challenges that will be waiting for him and remember this, when he had his success with the Scarlet Knights, the program did not reside in the Big Ten East, one of the nation’s top-two divisions of college football.
Ultimately this is going to come down to him finding a class of players that wants to stay home and do it for the “home team” and build from there. That is not taking anything away from the players on the roster right now but the Scarlet Knights have seen other programs come into town on a yearly basis and select many of the top players and lure them away and to make matters worse, then Rutgers ends up playing on the opposite side of the field of many of these guys.
It will also be very important to find the right coaching staff to help right the ship. Schiano has been around long enough to know many of the right people but the challenge will be getting these coaches to take a chance on a program that has not put up any results over the past several years while giving up what could be secure jobs where they are at now.
This is not going to be an overnight process of turning things around, there are going to be plenty of challenges that await this staff based on where they are at from 1-85 in terms of the roster and who they are competing against. There are very few layups in the B1G and if we are speaking honestly, Rutgers was really one of the few and if the goal is to get out of that column, it is going to take a lot of hard work and a few breaks are going to have to go the right way for things to turn. But when Schiano gets some momentum going his way, I expect him to be able to run with it and build upon it."
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Forbes.com freelance writer J.P. Pelzman: "'What I remember most is the swagger. Even when things weren't going well in the first few years, he still had that presence, that confidence that he was the right guy for the job. That swagger is something that his predecessors--the Andersons, the Grabers, the Sheas, never had, and certainly Kyle Flood and Chris Ash didn't have it. And Schiano's attitude galvanized everyone at Rutgers--staff, players, boosters, fans, etc."
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