Over the past few months, the Rugers Scarlet Knights football team saw four different assistant coaches move on from the program as Robb Smith, Jim Panagos, Adam Scheier and Tiquan Underwood all ended up elsewhere.
Wednesday, Rutgers promoted former Director of Player Development Damiere Shaw as the team's new wide receivers coach.
"Today we named Damiere Shaw our receivers coach and I'm really excited about that. You know, Tiquan decided that it was time," Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano said during his press conference. "People wonder what's going on? I've known Ti for half of his adult life. Recruited him out of high school, his career here, I signed him down in Tampa and he played for me for two years, and then brought him back here and he coached. There's nothing but love there for him. He's been a great representative for Rutgers and a great friend to me. But sometimes guys feel like they need to spread their wings and fly from the nest. Again, nothing but love unless we're playing them then it's different."
Schiano and crew were also able hire a few notable coaches who have lots of ties throughout the region in New Jersey natives Joe Harasymiak and Marquise Watson.
"In this instance, both those guys are guys that I've had my eye on for some time. They both happen to be New Jersey guys, like you said, but they're excellent coaches and they're excellent recruiters," Schiano said. "Then I talk about coaches, what am I looking for? I'm looking for guys that really, really understand how do we equip players and how to inspire players and then you need that element of being a great recruiter. That all fits together and what we have to do. We have to do all those things as coaches. Our assistant coaches do all the recruiting and I think people sometimes lose sight of that. So you have to be a great recruiter, and then within your program you have to inspire your players and I think Marquise and Joe are gonna be really, really huge additions to our program. I'm very, very excited about them."
With the departure of Scheier there is still one open assistant position, and Schiano said that he is working on hire.
"We do have an open slot. We're gonna announce that soon as well as some other things at every level," Schiano said. "I think when you get two years into it, you kind of take a look at the whole operation and you say okay how do we how do we make moves to get better. In this day and age of college football, you have to be ready to pivot all the time, whether it's players, whether it's staff, and the staffs are large. You have recruiting staffs, personnel staffs that are working behind the scenes. You have quality control coaches that are working behind the scenes, and I think matching them with the right position coach and matching them with recruiting staff, all of that's critical. So I've been working really, really hard on that since before the bowl game to get the right people in the right seats. The old saying you got to get them on the bus, but you got to get them on the right seats on the bus as well. That's really been my challenge and I think within not too long I'll be able to make some announcements on that. Just not ready quite today."
The staff has many ties to the region -- the State of Rutgers -- but they can go all across the country and recruit.
"If you're a good recruiter, you can recruit in Texas, California, New Jersey, Florida, it doesn't matter. That's what I look for is guys that can recruit anywhere," Schiano said. "Now do they have natural connections to areas? Sure. I's just as simple as I was in Philly with Damiere and he's driving around Philly and there's no GPS on. He knows the back way to here and the back way to there. But does that make you a good recruiter? No. That's your familiarity. Now your relationships might help. But really, it boils down to are you a good recruiter? What is recruiting? It's like anything else in life. It's hard work and it's relationships. So the guys that are willing to put in the time and develop relationships with the players, the coaches and the extended community, usually are pretty good recruiters."
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