Back in January, Rutgers football hired Adam Scheier to be the Scarlet Knights’ special teams coordinator. Scheier, a Bronx, N.Y. native, has held that title and has worked with the unit since 2000 and he’s happy to be back in the region where he grew up.
“Great to be here,” Scheier said as he began his opening statement on a video call with TKR and the rest of the local media on Wednesday. “I'm excited to be on this call, excited to be at Rutgers, back in the northeast, excited to be working with Coach Schiano and excited about the task at hand and that's bringing big time major college football back to the northeast. Couldn't be more excited about the opportunity and look forward to resuming the new normal at some point, getting back on campus, getting back around our players and the staff and continuing to build those relationships we got started pre-spring break and continue to build this Rutgers football culture.”
Scheier played his college football at Dartmouth and was named the Special Teams Player of the Year as a senior. He started out coaching at Dartmouth right after he graduated assisting with the secondary. He then went to Columbia and coached the strong safeties and outside linebackers before making a living being a special teams coordinator while also coaching up various position groups at Princeton, Lehigh, Bowling Green, Wake Forest, Ohio State, Texas Tech, and Mississippi State.
When Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano was with the Buckeyes for a couple of years, he coached with Scheier, who was in Columbus in 2017 as a special teams quality control coach. They knew each other prior, though, and Schiano, because of their connection, brought him to Piscataway.
“Yeah, I ended up at Ohio State in 2017 as a special teams quality control and coach Schiano and I crossed paths a couple years back while I was coaching at Wake Forest so there was a little bit of interaction. He had kind of come down as a consultant and observed me as a special teams coordinator. Bounced some ideas off of him when I had the opportunity to and kind of reconnected at Ohio State and again he served as a resource and as a mentor to me during that year where I was heavily involved with special teams with Coach (Urban) Meyer with with go Schiano with Coach Frazier, and the rest of the special team staff up at Ohio State. I think we just developed a little bit of a connection. He really was, was great to me and my family came up to visit in Columbus and I guess that's how that's how the process started. I think when you look at his staff it's either guys that have worked for him or played for him, or guys that he's developed some kind of working or personal connection with because, I think the relationship aspect of what we're doing as coaches is really critical and I think he saw something in me even in the role I was in at Ohio State his quality control coach. Just saw the way I connected with the players, how I engage the players. Felt that would be valuable as he moved forward with his staff here at Rutgers.”
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In the past, the Scarlet Knights thrived in the third phase of the game in all areas -- especially in blocking field goals, extra points, and punts. Rutgers tallied 57 blocks in Schiano’s first 11 years, but since 2016, it has blocked only 11 kicks.
Scheier plans to bring back that aggressiveness.
“During his first tenure here I was coaching locally in eastern Pennsylvania so I'm well aware of what his philosophy is and what the tradition of special teams under go Schiano and Rutgers has been. We're very much in sync in that regard. It's always been my approach and philosophies to be aggressive and to be smart, but definitely be aggressive,” Scheier said.
“We understand that special teams can be a game changing factor, not only in creating huge momentum swings with blocked kicks and huge returns and touchdowns, but also just controlling the field position and how that positively impacts the success of your offense and defense as a function of starting field position. When I worked as a coach at Ohio State, we were very much working together on a punt block unit. It was the same aggressive mentality, but it's one of the real reasons I'm really excited to be here at Rutgers working with coach because I know his emphasis on special teams. I know his philosophy on special teams, and his mentality is very much aligned with what I've done throughout my career. I'm really excited to again get back to campus and get to work with him.”
Schiano and Scheier are also aligned with playing your best players on special teams, too.
“I do and I know it's a belief shared by coach Schiano. We're going to use our best players. Obviously you don't say that with a blanket statement that you're going to have a starter that also starts on four units but you're going to pick and choose,” Scheier said. “I know it's a philosophy of coach’s and one that I'm very much aligned with. We've got to have our best players out there and if your best player is a backup or a walk-on, that's fine. He'll be on four units. If your best player is a starter then we got to pick and choose the units that he'll be on. I also know it's a philosophy of coach Schiano's to play a lot of players, which I think serves a lot of purposes and allows you to use all the talent on the roster on special teams. It allows more guys to have a role to get involved and feel like they're contributing, not only during the practice week but on game day. So to answer your question, yes, there will be starters on all the special teams, and they'll also be backups and walk-ons are all special teams, guys that embrace that role and buy in and provide meaningful snaps for us in the special teams game.”
Without the ability of seeing one another as a team in person the last two months, Scheier is implementing the schemes and styles through online meetings while using the technology to develop his relationships with the players.
“It's a combination of WebEx meetings and installing over the virtual world, which is the norm now. We're taking it day by day,” Scheier said. “We don't know when we'll return to campus, so we're focusing on the day, and we've got an approach and coach Schiano summed it up, we want to thrive during this time not just survive. So everything that we're doing day to day to promote our culture. For me as a special teams coordinator to build relationships and to connect with players across the roster. We're doing that. Schematically we're installing the same way you do offense and defense on zoom meetings and we're gonna maximize this time. And we're going to thrive in this uncertain time not just survive.”
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisWasky.
