Rutgers football has been rolling in recruiting and the 2021 class now stands at No. 17 in the nation with more prospects possibly coming on board soon.
Recently, head coach Greg Schiano discussed how the program has been able to get commitments from so many players already and it starts with the rest of the coaches.
“I think the staff has done a very good job in the recruiting. Part of that is the staff that we hired. They have good relationships in the areas that we recruit,” Schiano said. “The other part is the people and the ability to have to form relationships, and to build relationships that are meaningful. We are very particular about the type of athlete and the type of person that we want to bring into our program. It's always been that way that we don't necessarily always go after the same people that everybody does. Sometimes we do sometimes we don't, but that's our call and that's our decision not anybody else's.”
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With a team like Rutgers right now which has struggled on the field in recent seasons, Schiano knew it had to up the recruiting in order to have success in the future. And since he’s come on board to December and hired his staff, the Scarlet Knights haven’t missed on many targets.
“I think our guys have done a great job of locking in on the guys that we believe are the right people for Rutger football, and then going all in. It's an incredible amount of effort. In recruiting, there's no substitute for hard work,” Schiano said. “It's hard work to develop a relationship with people you don't know. But you do it, and we just need to keep doing it because recruiting is the lifeline of your program. I learned a long, long time ago it's, it's about players not plays. So any coach that believes okay don't downplay the significance of a good schematic or technique coaching I think it's very important that you can do the best schematic and technique coaching in the world, but if you don't have the players it's not going to make a hill of beans difference.
Every coach knows you need players to win, but sometimes you don’t get said good players unless you win. It’s tricky, but Schiano already is on track to better the program.
“What we need to do is continue to recruit year after year after year, and seal the pipeline with very talented players,” Schiano said. “What happens then is competition becomes fierce, players begin to come out of the other end of the pipeline and go to the National Football League, which spurs on better players entering the pipeline. And it's an ongoing process. So that's how I look at it, and that's what I mean when I say it's the lifeline of your program.”
While the most recent commit is from the midwest, 10 prospects are from New Jersey. Schiano mentioned it is important to be aware of skillful kids in the Garden State even before they get to the high school level.
“I think like I said earlier the development and the growth of relationships with both coaches, players, and young kids. Our staff in the state of New Jersey should know about every young kid in the sixth, seventh grade up,” Schiano said. “We should be recruiting and building relationships with these kids for years that when it comes time to make a decision, that's the long game if you think of it that way. But that's the way we did it our first go round and that's the way we'll continue to do it. In our first go around it took a while for Rutgers to crack into South Jersey. Then when it happened it was huge. Fran Brown has done an incredible job down in South Jersey along with some of our other coaches and that's critical because we need to have the whole state of New Jersey like we did in the last few years of our tenure here the first go round. I feel like we've picked right up where we left off then. That's going to be critical because of what a great football playing state we have, and we have to be able to draw from the entire state.”
Rutgers doesn’t have a commit from New York right now, but it has dipped into the Empire State for recruits before and that’ll continue in addition to other close states such as Pennsylvania, where offensive lineman Tyler Needham and defensive end Cam’Ron Stewart are both from.
“Then you throw in New York City into that -- New York City, Staten Island, and Long Island -- those are important, important places. Again, we need to know every kid that's up and coming because those are our kids. That'll be the heart of our team,” Schiano said. “Will we recruit elsewhere? Sure we will, but every year the heart of our team will come from that circle around Rutgers and we call it the state of Rutgers.”
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisWasky.
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