I’m old enough to remember when Rutgers went 11-2 and hammered Kansas State in a bowl game.

That was the same season the Scarlet Knights, Louisville Cardinals, and WV Mountaineers swept the ACC, Big 12, Big 10, and SEC out of conference en route to all three squads finishing in the top 12 of the final Associated Press and Coaches Polls. It was the apex of the old Big East in the short-lived post-realignment and pre-collapse time period.

Greg Schiano was running things in Piscataway at the time, and now he’s back in charge, agreeing to return to Rutgers after originally coming to impasse with administrators over a list of demands necessary for becoming competitive in the Big 10. The success found at in the final days of the Big East won’t be easily replicated in a setting that now includes divisional opponents like Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Michigan State, but what other options are there? Either put some money into the football program or continue to get your doors blown off.

This is the right move for Rutgers, a team that is 36 and 64 since Schiano left, with just three bowl game appearances since 2012.

Here’s why he’ll make the football team competitive again:

He turned around a crappy Rutgers program once before

Everybody should remember how bad the Knights were when Schiano took over in 2001. Rutgers was coming off five straight losing seasons under Terry Shea, one campaign featuring a big donut in the win column.

Schiano went 3-20 his first two seasons, then slowly started to turn it around, knocking off Michigan State at home before beating Vanderbilt on the road. When Miami and Virginia Tech left the Big East the following year, he turned in a 7-5 season that featured wins over Pitt, Syracuse, UConn, Navy, and Cincinnati, capped off by a five-point loss in the Insight Bowl, which was played in Phoenix and essentially amounted to a home game for Arizona State.

From there it was 11-2, 8-5, 8-5, 9-4, 4-8, and 9-4 before he left the program. Five straight winning seasons was a huge deal for a team that had lived in the basement for decades.

Keeping New York and New Jersey kids at home

One of the reasons Schiano was successful the first time around is because he was able to keep New York and New Jersey players close to home.

From the 2006 Scarlet Knights squad, the following players went to the NFL:

  • Ray Rice (NY)
  • Jeremy Zuttah (NJ)
  • Brian Leonard (NY)
  • Devin McCourty (NJ)
  • Jason McCourty (NJ)
  • Mike Teel (NJ)
  • Ryan D’Imperio (NJ, Washington Township in our neck of the woods)
  • Kenny Britt (NJ)
  • Clark Harris (NJ)
  • Cam Stephenson (California via Australia)
  • Courtney Greene (NY)
  • Tiquan Underwood (NJ)

The McCourty twins both went to high school in North Jersey (Montvale). Rice was a New Rochelle kid who had originally committed to Syracuse and Zuttah had offers from Pitt and Maryland.

Add in Mohamed Sanu, Anthony Davis, and the seven guys who were drafted in 2013, and that’s a really impressive recruiting job across the board.

Big 10 and NFL experience

In addition to putting a bunch of players into the NFL via Rutgers, Schiano coached in both the professional ranks and in the new-look Big 10, which actually has 14 teams. The Big 12 has 10 teams, so go figure. It’s really annoying.

As Miami’s defensive coordinator, he coached Ed Reed, Dan Morgan, Mike Rumph, Damione Lewis, and William Joseph. He was Penn State’s DB coach when Darren Perry and others were in the program. He was a Bears assistant and had that brief and disastrous tenure with Tampa Bay as well.

Most recently, he was Ohio State’s defensive coordinator and assistant head coach during a time when the Buckeyes went 36-5 and put a ton of players in the draft.

Recruits respond to that, and Schiano is a guy who can confidently say “I know what it takes to play in the NFL.” He’s seen it from both sides, and despite failing in Tampa he’s spent recent time with an elite Big 10 program, so there’s a clear formula for taking Ohio State’s process and trying to replicate it at Rutgers.

No, the mid-Aughts Big East is not the current-day Big 10, but there was a stretch for a few years where Rutgers, Louisville, WVU, and Cincinnati were all playing quality football. UConn even went to a BCS bowl game. There’s enough talent in the New York/New Jersey area that if Schiano does well recruiting, then he’ll have a squad that can at least be competitive with the big boys of the conference.

And look, you might scoff at the original reported request for a private jet, millions of dollars for new facilities, and a beefy salary, but if you want to win, that’s what it takes in 2019. You can either get with the program or continue to get blasted 52-0 by Michigan while scraping the bottom of the division, like a football catfish that just hovers near the riverbed and can’t find the end zone.

Bit of trivia for you –

Former 94 WIP host Chris Carlin was on the radio call when Rutgers knocked off #3 Louisville on a game-winning field goal back in 2006: