The Legacy of Schiano, the Present under Flood and the Future of Rutgers Football

[lighty]

Rutgers was very medicore while underfunded and undersupported in the 80s to the mid 90s...they truly weren't laughingstocks until the Shea era so it would be nice to get the fact straight right off the back. RU would have been to 3 or 4 bowls back then if there were as many bowls are there are today

That's how I remember it too -- a few good years, some bad, mostly average.

Dick Anderson 1984-89 27-34-4
Doug Graber 1990-95 29-36-1
Terry Shea 1996-2000 11-44

Teams were competitive for the most part from 1984-1995. Shea really drove the program into the ground. We were regulars to the top 10 worst football team list on ESPN.com back then. Maybe we hit a few times before Shea, but there were probably enough decent wins to keep us out of the laughingstock category -- a category RU owned with Shea.

 

[SanFranRutgers]

Barchi said Rutgers Football is 1% of the budget but 95% of the press headlines.

... which is a statement about media and culture, not a statement in support of the idea that, without successful football, Rutgers is nothing.

 

[e5fdny]

I'm now teaching in the Bergen Cty high school I went to myself in the mid-1990's and one of the astounding things I've noticed is the amount of RU apparel kids are wearing these days. Not just male/athletes but girls, band members, honors students, etc. This was unheard of 20 years ago. Maybe one or two kids back then had a Rutgers sweatshirt if their older sibling or cousin went there. But now everyday the hallways are littered with students wearing RU gear. I tell kids I went to RU and they are impressed.

It was even worse when I was a student in the mid-80's. So much so that it used to drive my Dad crazy when he would visit for a game..."where the hell is all the Rutgers stuff? All I see you kids wearing are PSU, ND, etc..." Part of that was the record on the field/court. The other part was that there weren't many options.

But that being said the change IMO happened pre-Greg. The variety that we see today started in the '90's when I became a season ticket holder...as witness to all my go to game wear that I either picked up at the old Scarlet Fever, Campus Books, the ones on Livingston and Cook or the official Bookstore in the Ferren Mall.

Did he help move it along? No doubt. Especially with the "wear red to the game stuff." But the increase in selection of RU apparel did happen before him.

 

[32Mine]

a.) Schiano wouldn't have left if he knew we were going to be in the B1G, I have that on good authority.

b.) you have no idea what you're talking about. Tampa played it's best football in recent years with Schiano as the HC.

c.) you just sound like you really don't want Schiano as our HC, seems like you don't know what a good thing is when it hits your in the face.

If Schiano wants to coach again at Rutgers and we turn him down, I don't think I'd ever be able to root for RU again. It would seriously prove how stupid our admin is. Obviously it's a better ESTABLISHED hire then I won't have an issue.

If we hire a guy like Rhule over Schiano...stupid.

 

[32Mine]

I am not sure he would have turned down an NFL head coaching job, but he was clearly juiced about the notion of Rutgers joining the Big Ten.

I hope we kept the light on for Schiano. He and Pernetti and McConnell were a great team. We're prepared to abandon our four seats. A return of Greg would give us pause.

 

[bethlehemfan]

Anderson and graber combined beat 6 teams with winning records 5 of which were one game over 500 (army twice). Edit - correction this was from 85-95. In 84 with burns players anderson fielded a good team. Sorry my memory is a little hazy from that year!

 

[SanFranRutgers]

In fact - as the program has gotten better, the schools rankings have gotten worse. (I dont think there is a connection - but if there is one - it certainly isnt in the direction that this poster thinks).

2055 - yes FB gets alot of press. And at the end of the day it basically has no effect on anything but FB. Not even on other sports.

But it comes down to this - Schiano built a strong foundation. That doesnt mean that any coach could come in here and win. I mean even great schools make bad hires that bring the program down. Flood isnt a great coach. Hes not a great manager.

But he will go away, and someone else will step into a decent situation. Not great. Probably not even as great as Schiano left, since he went out relatively close to the top. But not some Shea situation where the next guy will have to spend the first five years just building up a D1A infrastructure, getting fans to actually wear the schools colors, etc.

Unlike football, education isn't a zero-sum game. That said, I didn't make a qualitative implication about the relative value of a Rutgers education, so please don't infer one. Rather, I'm trying to differentiate between the perception of the football program and the actual health of the academic institution.

 

[new jersey1_rivals661559]

"Who remembers what Rutgers Football was like during the 80s, 90s and early part of 2000? Anybody? When people say Rutgers used to be the laughing stock of College Football, they were actually being nice. We were worse than that. Unless you lived through that experience, you won't understand how bad we truly were at that time."

While I agree with much of what you said, RU football was not truly the laughingstock in the 80s and first half of the 90s imo. It became the laughingstock in the second half of the 90s when things went south very quickly.

The teams in the 80s and first half of the 90s may not have had great seasons, but they were competitive.


"The threat of a significant pay cut, a new RU president, medical school merger and invite to the B10 made him jump ship."

Actually it was more likely the lure of the NFL and earning millions.

If Schiano knew a B10 invite was coming, it might have influenced his decision so as not to leave. The B10 invite did not make him jump ship.

 

[njrexguy]

In short, we need GS back. We should be so lucky. I can hope, and maybe, just maybe, he'd be happy to come back too. This Flood nightmare seems unending, and with every passing week we are digging deeper and deeper in to a Hell hole with him. There is no light at the end of the tunnel with Flood. Keep him on next year and the revenue from lost ticket sales alone could justify axing him right now. 3k lost season tickets could go a long way to rationalize canning him.

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

George Sanford 1913–1923 56–32–5 (.629)
John H. Wallace 1924–1926 12–14–1 (.463)
Harry Rockafeller 1927–1930, 1942–1945 33–26–1 (.560)
J. Wilder Tasker 1931–1937 31–27–5 (.532)
Harvey Harman 1938–1941, 1946–1955 74–44–2 (.625)
John Stiegman 1956–1959 22–15 (.595)
John F. Bateman 1960–1972 73–51 (.589)
Frank R. Burns 1973–1983 78–43–1 (.643)
Dick Anderson 1984–1989 27–34–4 (.446)
Doug Graber 1990–1995 29–36–1 (.447)
Terry Shea 1996–2000 11–44 (.200)
Greg Schiano 2001–2011 67–66 (.504)
Kyle Flood 2012–present 24–16 (.600)

 

[vandalen1]

GS bombed in Tampa period not just on the field but it was the endless off the field stuff as well which rubbed people in the wrong way. The coaches that came after him were just as bad or worse but that is still the last image people have of him, which is why he hasn't found a HC job yet.

Every coach bombs at Tampa Bay.

 

[vandalen1]

I'm now teaching in the Bergen Cty high school I went to myself in the mid-1990's and one of the astounding things I've noticed is the amount of RU apparel kids are wearing these days. Not just male/athletes but girls, band members, honors students, etc. This was unheard of 20 years ago. Maybe one or two kids back then had a Rutgers sweatshirt if their older sibling or cousin went there. But now everyday the hallways are littered with students wearing RU gear. I tell kids I went to RU and they are impressed.

While I agree Greg wasn't the best game day coach and had indeed the program had plateaued by year 11, the guy put Rutgers on the map within it's own state! Can't dispute that one bit.

He was great at developing talent. Turned 2 star kids into smart pro type football players.

 

[NotInRHouse_anon]

Schiano would save this program. We should be so lucky.

 

[BoogieKnight]

Schiano would save this program. We should be so lucky.

He'd at least make us alumni proud of the program again and give us some hope. Reality is we'd still likely be a 6-6, 7-5 type program for the foreseeable future with GS at the helm, but there would be little to no discipline/academic issues, certainly no scandals, and the media would be handled better. And he'd pull some recruits that people on this board would get excited for. Not enough, in my opinion, to make a serious run and I still think Urban would ***** slap us every year but again it goes back to the whole giving us hope angle. With Flood there is ZERO hope to even be competitive.

 

[lighty]

Scarlet,

Is that Floods current record? I think it's a bit closer to .500 now than .600

 

[BoogieKnight]

Scarlet,

Is that Floods current record? I think it's a bit closer to .500 now than .600

Flood is currently 26-22.

 

[NickyNewark51]

"Who remembers what Rutgers Football was like during the 80s, 90s and early part of 2000? Anybody? When people say Rutgers used to be the laughing stock of College Football, they were actually being nice. We were worse than that. Unless you lived through that experience, you won't understand how bad we truly were at that time."

While I agree with much of what you said, RU football was not truly the laughingstock in the 80s and first half of the 90s imo. It became the laughingstock in the second half of the 90s when things went south very quickly.

The teams in the 80s and first half of the 90s may not have had great seasons, but they were competitive.


"The threat of a significant pay cut, a new RU president, medical school merger and invite to the B10 made him jump ship."

Actually it was more likely the lure of the NFL and earning millions.

Doug Graber with support couldv'e DOME THINGS here...he was the best HC since Burns...then what....Calif. Terry Shea..disaster.

 

[NickyNewark51]

we may not have been a complete laughing stock in the 80s and 90s pre Shea we were still viewed as a joke notwithstanding a couple of decent teams. We were far below Syracuse BC Pitt and of course penn state both in image and results That changed with schiano for the first time ever. Not sure how anyone can debate that.

Maybe in Bethlehem...i never went to my state U but loved them since i was 12 in ''63''.....joke..maybe to outsiders...never to me.

 

[NickyNewark51]

That's how I remember it too -- a few good years, some bad, mostly average.

Dick Anderson 1984-89 27-34-4
Doug Graber 1990-95 29-36-1
Terry Shea 1996-2000 11-44

Teams were competitive for the most part from 1984-1995. Shea really drove the program into the ground. We were regulars to the top 10 worst football team list on ESPN.com back then. Maybe we hit a few times before Shea, but there were probably enough decent wins to keep us out of the laughingstock category -- a category RU owned with Shea.

ASK Bama,Fla or Tenn not to mention ''88'' PSU what kind of ''joke'' we were..

 

[brgossRU90]

Barchi said Rutgers Football is 1% of the budget but 95% of the press headlines.

One can only hope that realization will eventually sink into his thick skull. The headlines can be good or they can be sh tty...the choice is very much his to determine.

 

[JQRU91]

I'm now teaching in the Bergen Cty high school I went to myself in the mid-1990's and one of the astounding things I've noticed is the amount of RU apparel kids are wearing these days. Not just male/athletes but girls, band members, honors students, etc. This was unheard of 20 years ago. Maybe one or two kids back then had a Rutgers sweatshirt if their older sibling or cousin went there. But now everyday the hallways are littered with students wearing RU gear. I tell kids I went to RU and they are impressed.

While I agree Greg wasn't the best game day coach and had indeed the program had plateaued by year 11, the guy put Rutgers on the map within it's own state! Can't dispute that one bit.

Nobody is disputing that. If anything, that's why no matter how bad Flood gets, his tenure won't ruin everything that Schiano built. The roof may fall down, the walls may cave, but the foundation's still solid.

 

[The RUT]

He'd at least make us alumni proud of the program again and give us some hope. Reality is we'd still likely be a 6-6, 7-5 type program for the foreseeable future with GS at the helm, but there would be little to no discipline/academic issues, certainly no scandals, and the media would be handled better. And he'd pull some recruits that people on this board would get excited for. Not enough, in my opinion, to make a serious run and I still think Urban would ***** slap us every year but again it goes back to the whole giving us hope angle. With Flood there is ZERO hope to even be competitive.

I think you'd see some more wins sprinkled in here and there. Good wins.

Absolutely agree urban would birch slap us every year, difference is that a lot more people would go into games actually believing that we can win. And don't kid yourself, that includes the players. There's a reason they flat out quit during the Wisconsin game.

 

[Pritz99]

We had some moments in the 80's. Firsrt PSU win, Alabama moral victory, Michigan State, Tennessee. Tenn was a microcosm of how we were thought about. Who can forget "What's a Rutgers?" I can remember going into JC Penney in Bridgewater and there were 10 times as many PSU sweatshirts then RU. In our backyard!!

People wanted Schiano fired after his 1st year. After 2007 there were many calls to fire him because he didn't continue the rise. People forget that two of his poorest seasons after 2006 were 1) lost most of his D backfield when and drunk put kids in critical condition in the hospital. Season tanked after that. And 2) look at the record after LeGrand was crippled.

I live a half hour s of Tampa. This org has sucked forever with the exception of a couple of years. In Schiano's 2 years he stabilized the org. While his record didn't show it, team improved significantly without a QB (Freeman was a nutcase he inherited, look where his future has gone). If not for a few PR gaffes, and an overly rah rah college attitude, and media that disagreed with the hire from day one, he'd be here and would have undoubtedly been playoff bound by now. Given that Lovie Smith will be had & is having high-high draft picks for the near future, and he got a good QB with the overall #1 pick (which he richly deserved) you'd think the record should get better. We'll see. Again, always been a crappy org.

Even if you don't want Schiano back, any unbiased person would agree he's been RU's best all-time recruiter. Has instilled huge pride in RU football. Established unparrallelled discipline and academic credentials for RU FB. Maybe you want to ask "Can he do it again?" Is he a better gamble for the intermediate future than....who?

 

[bethlehemfan]

Appreciate the passion. From the outside people saw the year we beat Tennessee we lost badly to Villanova temple and 45-10 to penn state. The year we beat penn state in 88 they had a losing record and we lost to army Vanderbilt and temple and we had losing record. After losing to bama we lost to William and Mary the next week The year we tied Florida we had 2 wins to fbs teams and lost every other game.

 

[50 yd line RR]

Schiano at the helm of a BIG Rutgers Program could do some serious damage recruiting. What people around here tend to forget is,he did a great job here promoting the game. He was good for the game.Rutgers football camp went from nothing to a being a big time camp.He held coaching clinics to help to improve the quality of coaching throughout the state for all levels (youth through High school).
As a coach he was one of the hardest working if not thee hardest worker in the country. He got the most out of his staff. He was instrumental in creating and implementing the Rutgers Brand,with quality academics, tough defenses and a greater recognition of not only Rutgers football but also Rutgers University. Throughout the state (and country). He also created higher expectations for our fanbase. Prior to his arrival here, Rutgers fans never experienced any of that.It is laughable that people don't think he would be successful here,he already did the hardest part of building a program,he got people to believe.
I know this is still Kyle Floods team.To me the perfect scenario , would be after this season, for coach Flood and the majority of his staff, to work here for his their mentor right here.
Personally I don't think he is coming back though. I think he will go to a place where he might have a clearer path to the playoffs. Probably the ACC, but you never know.

 

[NBKnight]

We had some moments in the 80's. Firsrt PSU win, Alabama moral victory, Michigan State, Tennessee. Tenn was a microcosm of how we were thought about. Who can forget "What's a Rutgers?" I can remember going into JC Penney in Bridgewater and there were 10 times as many PSU sweatshirts then RU. In our backyard!!

People wanted Schiano fired after his 1st year. After 2007 there were many calls to fire him because he didn't continue the rise. People forget that two of his poorest seasons after 2006 were 1) lost most of his D backfield when and drunk put kids in critical condition in the hospital. Season tanked after that. And 2) look at the record after LeGrand was crippled.

I live a half hour s of Tampa. This org has sucked forever with the exception of a couple of years. In Schiano's 2 years he stabilized the org. While his record didn't show it, team improved significantly without a QB (Freeman was a nutcase he inherited, look where his future has gone). If not for a few PR gaffes, and an overly rah rah college attitude, and media that disagreed with the hire from day one, he'd be here and would have undoubtedly been playoff bound by now. Given that Lovie Smith will be had & is having high-high draft picks for the near future, and he got a good QB with the overall #1 pick (which he richly deserved) you'd think the record should get better. We'll see. Again, always been a crappy org.

Even if you don't want Schiano back, any unbiased person would agree he's been RU's best all-time recruiter. Has instilled huge pride in RU football. Established unparrallelled discipline and academic credentials for RU FB. Maybe you want to ask "Can he do it again?" Is he a better gamble for the intermediate future than....who?

The accident was 2004. It was not good team in 2010 even before Eric's injury.

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

Scarlet,

Is that Floods current record? I think it's a bit closer to .500 now than .600

it is not, I got those numbers from the greatest scource of information... Wikipedia. The historic numbers are correct.

The point I was trying to make is not a case for flood, as I feel 100|% that we all need to move on from him, but to show that Rutgers was NOT a wasteland of suck until GS came aboard, rather we were a good small regional school that won a lot more than we lost (think of one of the current really good FCS schools) The downturn happen is when we decide to step up to playing the big boys without any investment whatsoever. We went from being a FCS type team to one playing a FBS schedule with a FCS budget. We were able to hang in the beginning, despite the huge odds against us, thanks to having a great HC in Burns.

Dick Anderson and Doug Graber were able to get some big wins and put together some good seasons that would have has us go bowling if it happen today but they couldn't sustain success for really long it was always one huge win followed by a bunch of WTF loses. Terry Shea was a complete nightmare and made Rutgers go from an average to below average (at times) football program to the worse program in all of college football. It took that for the school to finally cave in and invest in football.

Flood appears to everyone with a set of eyes and a working brain to be bringing the program back to Shea levels, we are not there yet, but we are headed there and that is horrifying to our fanbase. Things can be turned around but the longer Rutgers waits to turn the ship the harder to will be to avoid the giant iceberg ahead.

 

[50 yd line RR]

I would like to know, if Flood stays and Schiano lands a head coaching job somewhere else how many coaches on our staff would he come calling for?

 

[lighty]

Why would Schiano want any of our current coaches?

Or is that your point?

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

Why would Schiano want any of our current coaches?

Or is that your point?

I believe that was his point

 

[cubuffsdoug_rivals]

Who remembers what Rutgers Football was like during the 80s, 90s and early part of 2000? Anybody? When people say Rutgers used to be the laughing stock of College Football, they were actually being nice. We were worse than that. Unless you lived through that experience, you won't understand how bad we truly were at that time.

Then came Greg Schiano. At the time, Greg wasn't a high profile, highly paid coach. he was just a coach with a vision of what Rutgers football should be. Under Greg, these are the things that happened:

• First he put a focus on education - true student athletes. Hence, the APR standings.
• Players were molded to be good citizens - the term "Rutgers Men" was born. Belichick said, Rutgers players doesn't need to be taught certain things - he was talking about ethics, discipline and hard work.
• A football identity was born - Rutgers football was hard nose, pro-style, smash mouth football with an emphasis on Defense and running the ball.
• Then 2006 happened - 2006 galvanized the entire state like no other event in the history of Rutgers. Plenty of NJ residents who didn't even know Rutgers had a football team became "fans". You want to change the attitude of NJ residents towards RU Football? We need more 2006.
• The biggest effect of 2006 was for recruiting. LEGIONS of HS NJ players instantly became Rutgers fans. From North Jersey to South Jersey. The kids grew up Rutgers and dream of playing for Rutgers. Recruiting became easier as relationships were built. The recruiting wall around Jersey started to be built. Yes, kids still left. But make no mistake, it was going to be a battle to pry Jersey kids away from Rutgers. Because of this, schools became picky in devoting resources to go after Jersey kids, because they knew it would be dog fight with Rutgers.
• As a result of all of this - Rutgers Football Marketing Identity was born - the Chop, the Block R, the Swarm. How many cars today do you see with the block R versus back in the 90s? From clothes, hats, stickers, flags, you name it, how much merchandise are now in common NJ households that has Rutgers?

What Greg built - transcended mere wins and losses. Yes, he never won the Big East. Yes, we had WTF losses. But guess what? Because of Greg - the RUTGERS PRIDE WAS BUILT.

Now fast forward to today. Under Flood, just about every facet of the program has regressed - in some cases, in embarrassing fashion. Let me ask this simple question - what is the identity of the team today? Actually let's simplify, what type of defense do we play? What happened to the Swarm? In terms of offense, are we really a North East smash mouth team, when we don't have TEs and FBs that can block. Field position is an adventure with the kickers we have. Are we really trying to play smash mouth with a westcoast QB? Again, what is our identity????!!!

The Chop is just about gone. Block R stickers on cars are becoming less. The arrests. The plummeting APR. Everything Greg built is vanishing away before our very eyes.

Under Flood, we are heading towards what the program looked like BEFORE Greg. So here we are. At the brink of being back in the 90s. Here is what many people don't understand. We lucked into Greg coming here. If we continue on the current path, it is going to take the same amount of luck to find "the next Greg". What are the chances of that happening? This is why it is imperative to STOP THE BLEEDING. To stop what Flood is destroying. Because fixing it will be an absolute monumental task. You essentially need to find the "next Greg". Do you guys think that once the B1G money rolls in that we can just "flip" the switch? High priced coaches like Urban Meyer maybe football geniuses but he doesn't understand Jersey culture and he certainly will not invent the next "Block R". The problem Flood is creating will not be fixed by "money".

So for the love of all things good Rutgers, we need to rid ourselves of the nightmare that is Kyle Flood.

I agree with bases of argument, but let's clear up one thing... perception. The 80s and early. 90s were not bad times like the late 90s under Shea. Too often the same people crying about Rutgers being misunderstood as a program are some of the very same proper promoting misinformation. Burns, Anderson and Graber fielded more competitive teams that actually had winning seasons, but that gets lost in the rush to create this image about the program before Schiano. It makes for great entertainment when explaining that the depths from which Schiano resurrected the program. Schiano saved a program destroyed by Shea and only Shea just as Flood is walking done the same path. I say this because it's insulting to me as I played on 2 winning seasons for Rutgers in the early 90s.

 

[MoobyCow]

The accident was 2004. It was not good team in 2010 even before Eric's injury.

Np doubt, that was always going to be a bad year because we couldn't score, but the D didn't really collapse until after the injury. I think we likely scratch to 6-7 wins that year without the injury. Bad, but not awful.

 

[RU2055]

I agree with bases of argument, but let's clear up one thing... perception. The 80s and early. 90s were not bad times like the late 90s under Shea. Too often the same people crying about Rutgers being misunderstood as a program are some of the very same proper promoting misinformation. Burns, Anderson and Graber fielded more competitive teams that actually had winning seasons, but that gets lost in the rush to create this image about the program before Schiano. It makes for great entertainment when explaining that the depths from which Schiano resurrected the program. Schiano saved a program destroyed by Shea and only Shea just as Flood is walking done the same path. I say this because it's insulting to me as I played on 2 winning seasons for Rutgers in the early 90s.

Yeah, it seems that lumping the decades took away from the original premise of the post. But hey, I'm malleable - I stand corrected. Post has been edited.

 

[mikershoein]

This thread has a lot of words

Gotta pass on reading and reacting

 

[Kbee3]

George Sanford 1913–1923 56–32–5 (.629)
John H. Wallace 1924–1926 12–14–1 (.463)
Harry Rockafeller 1927–1930, 1942–1945 33–26–1 (.560)
J. Wilder Tasker 1931–1937 31–27–5 (.532)
Harvey Harman 1938–1941, 1946–1955 74–44–2 (.625)
John Stiegman 1956–1959 22–15 (.595)
John F. Bateman 1960–1972 73–51 (.589)
Frank R. Burns 1973–1983 78–43–1 (.643)
Dick Anderson 1984–1989 27–34–4 (.446)
Doug Graber 1990–1995 29–36–1 (.447)
Terry Shea 1996–2000 11–44 (.200)
Greg Schiano 2001–2011 67–66 (.504)
Kyle Flood 2012–present 24–16 (.600)

Wait....so Flood has the best record of ANY Rutgers head coach since we stopped playing a steady diet of Lehigh, Princeton, Lafayette, Colgate, Boston U., Delaware, Columbia, Holy Cross, and Bucknell ? And some here wanna fly an airplane overhead calling for his firing ?
Hmmm. How did the bar get raised here so high so fast ?

 

[batts]

Schiano certainly deserves tremendous credit for restoring the Football Program. Without him, the Big 10 invite probably doesn't happen. His aggressive style of defense and good special teams play deserve credit as well.

Schiano was a great hire but his effectiveness significantly waned after 2006. His early recruiting prowess was assisted by having great connections to talent laden Florida recruits, and signing these FLA recruits who weren't going to end up at Miami, FSU and Florida. He was also assisted by the fortuitous firing of Pasqualoni from Syracuse. He mismanaged Savage, an NFL caliber quarterback, who couldn't regain his starting position after an injury. Schiano also made a good living out of beating patsies. He was consistently out coached by Edsel who had much less heralded recruits.

 

[lighty]

To me, the legacy of Schiano is found in the Knights in the NFL

Criticize the man all you want, but there were maybe 2-3 RU guys in the pros at one time BEFORE Schiano and he changed that in a big way.

As for "early recruiting prowess" -- his recruiting got better and better as the years went on, so I don't know why you bring that up. Yes, I know, Hafley had a big part in that. It still doesn't change the argument. Recruiting was better at the end of Schiano's time than the beginning.

 

[Kbee3]

To me, the legacy of Schiano is found in the Knights in the NFL

Criticize the man all you want, but there were maybe 2-3 RU guys in the pros at one time BEFORE Schiano and he changed that in a big way.

As for "early recruiting prowess" -- his recruiting got better and better as the years went on, so I don't know why you bring that up. Yes, I know, Hafley had a big part in that. It still doesn't change the argument. Recruiting was better at the end of Schiano's time than the beginning.

I agree. Also, it's relevant to point out that one of the major reasons Schiano's time here looks so good is that he was following guys who didn't win more games than they lost here. At least as far back as the days in the early eighties when we ran with the likes of Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell and
Princeton. We really hadn't had much success with this whole winning thing since we first put on our big boy pants until GS arrived.

 

[e5fdny]

To me, the legacy of Schiano is found in the Knights in the NFL

Criticize the man all you want, but there were maybe 2-3 RU guys in the pros at one time BEFORE Schiano and he changed that in a big way.

As for "early recruiting prowess" -- his recruiting got better and better as the years went on, so I don't know why you bring that up. Yes, I know, Hafley had a big part in that. It still doesn't change the argument. Recruiting was better at the end of Schiano's time than the beginning.

Agree with all of it but at this point (and all along IMO) our mission should be to win college games and not whether or not somebody says "...Rutgers"...on their MNF intro.

If you do more of the former you will probably not have to worry about the latter.

 

[miketd1]

Flood is going full Kragthorpe on this program