Earlier today, NJ Advance Media first revealed the news that Rutgers head coach Chris Ash had signed a contract extension that will keep him in Piscataway until 2022. Here is a closer look at why Rutgers is staying with Ash.

Restoring order

Athletic director Pat Hobbs handed Ash quite a mess when he assigned him with the task of taking over the football program. In just a few short years, former head coach Kyle Flood had destroyed everything that was built by Greg Schiano. And one of the first orders of business was restoring respectability. Since Ash has arrived, academic performance is back on the rise after it was decimated under Flood’s leadership.

Ash has also eliminated the seemingly endless line of discipline problems and there has also been no legal problems for players during his regime. This fall, Ash even dismissed four-star Ahmir Mitchell, despite a tremendous need at the wide receiver position. Going back to last season, Ash showed the same kind of resolve when dealing with former linebacker Najee Clayton, who also could have helped the defense. The ability to set a precedence with discipline is something that was sorely needed and Ash achieved that.

Player support

A few weeks before this was signed, senior captain Dorian Miller hinted about Ash’s status as Rutgers' head coach.

“He is going to be here for a while,” Miller said of Ash. “I am a little sad I won’t be around here for the next couple of years.”

Miller reiterated that sentiment following Saturday night’s game against Michigan State.

“I’ve said it multiple times, but I’m jealous of the guys that are going to stay and get to be with this staff. They have a great support group around them.”

On-field improvements

Ash was able to turn the defense around and there were noticeable strides in players from his first year through this past season. Starting linebackers Deonte Roberts and Trevor Morris both made strides as the duo finished with a combined 222 tackles.

“It’s going to be a good team [next year],” Roberts said on Saturday. “We have a lot of guys coming back. The sky’s the limit for us, we just need to come back and work.”

In the secondary, safety Kiy Hester also made a decent amount of strides. And, like Roberts, he toughed things out through the second half of the season and played with nagging injuries.

Hester was part of a secondary which was pieced together at times because of injuries, which also extended to starters Bless Austin and Saquan Hampton. Ash even made due with a pair of wide receivers jumping over to the secondary.

“Coming in, we had a great unit. Bless went down, Hamp went down and I went down and we came back and filled in pieces with Jawuan [Harris] and Dacoven [Bailey], so it could have been great. But injuries happen and you just need to keep working every day.”

Special teams also made significant strides and while the offense left some things to be desired, it did enough to double the team’s win total from a year ago.

Recruiting is improving

According to Rivals.com’s current recruiting rankings, Rutgers is No.44 in the class of 2018. That ranking may be a little lower because Ash pulled in a trio of two-stars (Deion Jennings, Kessawn Abraham, Christian Izien), in addition to a two-star punter from Australia (Adam Korsak). All four of these prospects are considered to be under-the-radar and adding another star to each of them would push Rutgers right up into the upper tier of Big Ten recruiting rankings.

For more insight on Ash's extension, check out our latest Scarlet Slant.