The Monday After: Why Rutgers football 'is a Big Ten program in name only'
Plus, who could be the next coach to be fired this early into the season?
I exchanged text messages with two coaches on Sunday following the news that Rutgers had fired Chris Ash. Immediately after the news of Ash's dismissal, it wasn't difficult to put together the obvious pieces of the Rutgers job being open, and former Rutgers coach Greg Schiano being available. Hell, it was so easy, even I could do it.
Still, I wanted to reach out to people to get an idea of how attractive the job is as a coach because as a college football writer, it doesn't look all that attractive to me. Based on the answers I received, if Schiano wants the job, Rutgers better not waste any time offering it to him.
He did not mention the other problems that CBSSports.com's Dennis Dodd brought up in his list of candidates for the vacant position. Dodd wrote that Rutgers' athletic department is already in the red and that it's not going to receive a full slice of that Big Ten money pie until 2027. That means the department will have to go further in debt to hire a new staff, and how much money will it be willing to spend on that new coach and their assistants?
Rutgers is already a difficult sell as it is, but if you don't have the money to overspend, that will likely limit your candidate pool even further.
Which is why Schiano isn't just a natural candidate for the job, but he's perhaps the
only one who will take it. And that could be a great thing for Rutgers! Schiano has already shown he knows how to take a Rutgers program out of the depths. The work he did at Rutgers from 2001 to 2011 is what led to him getting a shot in the NFL. What he was able to do at Rutgers is why Tennessee nearly hired him to replace Butch Jones (who, ironically enough, is also a candidate for the Rutgers job). Vols fans revolted over the idea, but odds are Rutgers fans won't.
Schiano was a defensive coordinator at Ohio State for three seasons before leaving to become the defensive coordinator for the New England Freaking Patriots. A job he left for reasons unknown in March. There's speculation that Schiano left the Patriots because it had been made clear to him that if the Rutgers job opened, it was his for the taking.
If that's the case -- hell, even if it isn't! -- stop wasting everybody's time, Rutgers. Hire him now.
One coach I talked to is currently a head coach at a Group of Five school. When I asked him how he would view the idea of taking over Rutgers he responded that he would "have to consider it," but then went on to make it clear that he "wouldn't be climbing over anybody to get it."
The other coach is a coordinator at a Power Five school. He was a bit blunter in his assessment.
"Rutgers is a Big Ten program in name only," he told me. He then went on to tell me about the myriad of problems the new coach would face with the program. He mentioned things like the apathy that surrounds the program. He also said that it would take a lot of work to dig out of the hole its currently in, only to then have to make up even more ground to compete with the top of the Big Ten East.
Entire article:
https://www.cbssports.com/college-f...s-football-is-a-big-ten-program-in-name-only/
I don't know what the relationship between Schiano and Ash was at Ohio State; however, a win-win for Rutgers would be to hire Schiano as head coach and retain Ash as DC (if he will take it). It would save Rutgers several hundred thousand on a different DC's salary since they are already paying him (i.e. buy out) anyway. I do believe that Ash was a pretty good DC here. Memo to Schiano (if you get the Rutgers job) don't hire Davis as your linebacker coach.
