Count Tiquan Underwood as one of the many former Rutgers football players that were pulling for Greg Schiano to be re-hired as the Scarlet Knights head coach.

The new wide receivers coach with the program caught passes in Piscataway from 2005-08 and is in the top 10 in team history in many receiving categories back when Rutgers was going to bowl games and at its peak under Schiano. Since then however, the program has taken a dip, but Underwood believes the Scarlet Knights will rise again.

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“We did not speak beforehand,” Underwood said about prior to Schiano getting hired in December.”I was working with the Miami Dolphins at the time and truth be told, as they were going through the negotiations, as a guy that played for him, I just was like I hope this works out. And once he got hired, we were just ecstatic. I have a group chat with myself, Jason McCourty, Devin McCourty, Courtney Greene, Ron Girault, and Patrick Brown, who played with us as well before transferring. We just all were so excited. We were so excited for coach and so excited for the program. We know how hard he works. He's won here before, so I know he's gonna lift this program back up.”

While the two didn’t talk during the negotiation process, they did talk afterwards and Schiano brought Underwood, who played in 50 career games at Rutgers with 16 touchdown grabs, on board his staff.

“When I did receive that call I was ready to go,” Underwood said. “I have to give thanks to Lafayette and to the Miami Dolphins for getting me prepared for this situation and this opportunity.”

Underwood is likable and connects with prospects he recruits. He has a unique perspective as he not only played at Rutgers and is now coaching at his alma mater, he also played under the coach he will now be working alongside of.

“It helps tremendously because like you said, when I was in high school coach Schiano shared his vision with me on what he wanted to build Rutgers to be. And now being here now as a coach I get to share his new vision for Rutgers, and what he wants to build it to be, whether that's speaking about competing in the Big Ten or the new facilities that are coming in the near future,” Underwood said. “And now being a coach, I find myself talking to recruits the same way coach (John) McNulty, coach Schiano, and coach (Joe) Susan spoke to me when I was in high school. It's pretty cool.”

Back then, Underwood always wondered what went on in coaches meetings with Schiano and his staff and now Underwood is a part of them.

“The biggest difference I would say, when you're a player you always want to know what's going on behind the scenes in those coaches meetings, and now I get to take part in those staff meetings,” Underwood said. “It's been awesome and just the way coach Schiano leads this organization, to see it firsthand on a daily is unbelievable. I've taken numerous notes just learning from coach.”

From his time as a player to now, Underwood has seen a change from Schiano from a recruiting perspective and life in general perspective.

“The change in him that I've seen is that going through the recruiting process with his sons, he's experienced being a parent of a recruit, so it's become more [personal],” Underwood said. “I feel like the relationship thing that we're really taken advantage of as a staff is because coach has had that experience of being a parent, and his kid being recruited. He's been on the other side, so that's helped us tremendously in this recruiting process.”

Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisWasky.