Rutgers: Greg Schiano has no time to waste, top 4 to-dos

Rutgers football is back in stable hands. Former head coach Greg Schiano has reportedly agreed on an eight-year contract to return to RU. He must hit the ground running.

What a difference a week makes. Last Monday contract talks between Rutgers Athletic Director Pat Hobbs and former head coach Greg Schiano broke down setting off a firestorm. Boosters, alumni, and former players took to social media to condemn Hobbs. Two key players Raheem Blackshear and Artur Sitkowski entered the transfer portal.

As pressure mounted Hobbs came back to the bargaining table. The issues weren’t necessarily about his salary, which wasn’t a secret. Schiano was going to get around $4M per season. His other demands such as a football practice facility, money for his assistant coaches, and an increased recruiting budget were the sticking points. A simple look at Hobbs’ “The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence” as well as mounting pressure forced the AD to acquiesce.

Rutgers is lucky Schiano is still available. He should be the head coach of Tennessee right now, but a foolish and misguided protest about what Schiano might have seen while an assistant at Penn State, later found out to be unproven hearsay, cost him the job. The Vols loss is going to be RU’s gain. He has a coalition of supporters that includes Bill Belichick, Urban Meyer, various high school coaches, and his former players.

Now that Schiano is back, he can’t afford to bask. Even with the difficulties in coming to a contractual agreement, that was the easy part. Putting together a competitive and sustainable product in the Garden State is where the hard work lies. Schiano is more than up to the task, after all, he’s done it before. Here are the immediate items on his to-do list as he begins his second tour of duty.