Money (donations+NIL) is an important consideration because it directly influences win percentage and overall record, in D1 athletics, not high school. It provides context for which the overall record was achieved.
Greg has one of the lowest win percentages of any active coach
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Psst. All you have to do is mention money, and they really don’t have a good counterpoint to that.
Not a metric.
But if you want data look at the stats below. As I’ve said all along we don’t have a spending problem. We spend with the best of them. We have an allocation problem. Bunch of numbers jump out to me. While we were rudderless without an AD. Greg grew his staff 2-3x and doubled the budget. We spend well above the median for football compared to B1G and have much lower results.
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Pssst after being exposed you shouldn’t mention money/donations as being the reason any longer.
OP win? I presented facts that point Greg being #4 as worse winning percentage since 2000 of any active coach. There is nothing to debate there, the numbers are real. I can overlay that with SOS but that's not going to help the narrative that Greg had a rough go of it outside of what other coaches had. I've refuted, with facts, narratives that you and others tried to present
the reality is that Greg has sucked at his job which is to win games.
No one cares if he is developing fine young men, they go to class, they even read or write as the college football business is about wins
You sir have become pedantic, overly argumentative over false narratives and view, clinging to singular issues that have no real bearing to the point of the post and quite frankly have become a bore. I hope you're not an aspiring lawyer because ouch!
"You get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!"
and it's shocking that Keli hasn't done anything about this unless the view of her giving him rope to hang himself is in fact true. I don't see that but I'm not between her ears have never spoken to her
Bottom line- Greg did his job twice to get us out of being the worst team to becoming pretty good during 1.0 and at least respectable during 2.0
But- that is not good enough. My take on him- he earned his money during years 1-3 on this contract but that is no longer the case- time to say thank you for putting us in position to replace you.
My original post in this thread was just to point out that that overall records don't always tell the story. And not many coaches on that list actually had to do a complete rebuild twice.
Greg is here this year but he has to find himself in a bowl that is not considered bottom tier, needs a winning conf record and needs to knock off at least one ranked team.
But- that is not good enough. My take on him- he earned his money during years 1-3 on this contract but that is no longer the case- time to say thank you for putting us in position to replace you.
My original post in this thread was just to point out that that overall records don't always tell the story. And not many coaches on that list actually had to do a complete rebuild twice.
Greg is here this year but he has to find himself in a bowl that is not considered bottom tier, needs a winning conf record and needs to knock off at least one ranked team.
We haven’t been there yet.
But could have been.
Apparently you still don’t want to talk or accept it could/should have happened with EVERYTHING we have already on hand.
My point to my post you’re replying to is our success, any success, is measured and received differently around here.
So that 8-4, with a possible bowl win to get to 9-4, could have been a great stepping off part for a campaign to raise NIL, a field house or anything. Because it could been marketed and sold as true progress in the B1G.
8-4 with an over .500 conference record is not treading water but actually swimming.
And it was right there for the taking.
Funny how they twist "facts" into emotions and call people who point facts "haters," or will attempt twist and turn those facts into a positive. On some level, reminds me of Navin Johnson missing the boat--nobody hates cans or the coach. It's the record some of us are shooting full of holes.
You have brought this up more than once. Keli is doing this smart. And keep in mind that her partner in this is the President. Neither one of them will tolerate mediocrity. But they have to keep the big donors happy and at bay. And she has been very transparent in saying that they are providing Greg the resources to win. So you are correct in the "unless" part, but I see the rope as a lifeline for the program, and it's sink or swim time. That way, she can say that they gave him a fair chance, he had seven (maybe 8) years to win, but it is time to move on.
Agree 100%. 4-5 in conference may get it done, but that would have to involve an upset of a team like USC, Indiana or Michigan. We need a Louisville 2006 type of win!!!
Love the Willy wonka reference. Used it often over the years.
Keli is doing something, at lease Keli said she would do something on a podcast last month that I reviewed here.
"More revenue, less expenses, more winning" - Keli.
Greg, his staff, and his family have been living a life of affluence and luxury at Rutgers and have not been winning.
The athletic department went Fat Koko and looked at the spending numbers, concluding football program spending needs to be rational for a change. In other words, allocate spending to winning, not staff and family.
I get that view, it's fair and wholly in line with reasonable thinking. I do not disagree in theory, my only reservation is the size and spending on staff (to include his kids) which she should absolutely have gut checked already. I need to see the results of her direct choices here which is why I feel this way. I don't think you are wrong and I don't think the view is incorrect. I just grapple with the why hasn't this happened as it's low hanging fruit and clearly isn't leading to any on field advantage. It's possible I'm overly picking at this point but it's a point none the less.
good post, we're not misaligned overall
Psst. All you have to do is - if money is such a significant factor then what does Schiano bring to table?
Why bother spending so much money on a HC if they don't matter?
I bet if we got $20m in NIL and went 10-2 - you'd factor that into Schiano's record and give him plenty of credit.
This. It’s not fair the judge him until he gets the new Fieldhouse and doubles the size of his already CFB record staff from 100 to 200.
No - see that’s where I’m objective and always have been. Money is not an excuse for not winning. Illinois has no more money than us. Their current coach stepped in and has had more success than ours. That’s one example of one person stepping in to coach a comparable tier team and yielding notably better results than Greg. If you could guarantee THAT outcome from a new hire at RU then sure, it’d be worth spending millions of dollars we don’t have (because we need it to buy a roster) after the season to start over after another mediocre low bowl tier season.
But we can’t guarantee that. And being the losingest coach in history or whatever the initial point was there - doesn’t make it true that “anyone would be better than Greg”. Because we’ve already had a laundry list collection of head coaches who weren’t.
None of this means you “never” move on, but if we have to come up with a collection of large early buy out dollars then we’re not going to have the money it would take to even give the replacement a realistic chance of doing better in the next year or so than the 6ish win level we’re currently at anyway. That’s why you wait unless next season is a disaster.
I got news for you. Illinois has a lot more money than we do, and a much stronger football tradition. Their grads include Shad Khan who owns the Jaguars and Larry Ellison, one of the richest men in the world. Better support is why the current coach is more successful. Switch Schiano and Bret, and nothing changes. Even Flood beat Bret when he was at Arkansas.
Illinois has More NIL and better football facilities listed below plus stronger football tradition. Haven’t you heard of Red Grange? Didn’t you see their Rose Bowl appearance in 2007. NJs Best lineman Kai Pritchard chose Illinois last year, not Rutgers, because they offer a lot more. That was eye opening for me.
Rutgers fans don’t care about football success as much as Illinois fans.
I think we can all agree that Greg isn't the answer and either we tread water with him or move on. The body of work is embarassing
It is now professional football. The only measure should be winning.
Professional football has professional resources and the salary cap to encourage parity. College Football has haves and have nots. I hate being a have not, as We don’t have the resources to compete. We are not playing the game like everyone else is.
Since Zinn was brought up, this sounds like a positive trajectory.
From the article:
At Rutgers, she walked into a department that had reported a $47 million shortfall during fiscal year 2025, and even with a $17 million rise in the Big Ten media rights distributions coming its way, her department pushed forward significant changes to limit inefficiencies and overhead while boosting revenue-generating opportunities.
Scarlet Knight Enterprises has already produced major results beyond traditional Rutgers donors, Zinn said.
“If you were to look at our revenue, particularly on the corporate side of things, we’re eight figures north of where we were just last fiscal year,” she said. “We’ve got another real growth opportunity for the next fiscal year that we’re projecting and expect to see.
“These aren’t just numbers that we’re throwing into the sky and hoping that we’re going to get there and work hard to do so. We have the inventory and capability to really pair a number of assets there, coupled with a region that is really heavy in that space, and just a ton of opportunity.”
lazy reporting on the 'hole' Rutgers is in as it doesn't account for how media and other revs are recorded. Also, no mention of the buy in and playing uphill financially in that regard. Also, no mention of the fact that the schedule for us hasn't been ideal nor the fact of what Rutgers provides to the BIG. NYT, tantamount to bird cage poop paper
The major inefficiency that has not been limited but allowed I grow is the size of the football support staff.
Winning more than the program did before, yes. For sure. But 6-6 in year one of a rebuild could have polar opposite meaning depending on the team. It would be great for a coach taking over a 2-10 rebuild and awful for a team coming off a 10-2 season.
Yeah - we’ve certainly wasted our share of money and unfortunately we’re stuck eating any contract decision made to this point. Many of those decisions were probably made before pay for play blew up to what it now is (Greg’s in particular but also the assistants, and now a whole new collection of defensive staff contracts were put in place). Can we afford to eat all of those to wipe the slate clean and still have money in the portal tank to give a new hire a fair chance to raise the bar past mediocre? I don’t know the answer to that question but it has to be a factor.
In terms of the metrics, career win percentage applied as a stand alone proxy (basically what 95 did in the OP - paralleling a career Ken Pom analysis) is flawed because of what yesrutgers01 said. Any coach who takes on a ground zero rebuild will have some early years of ugly records.
Is there a better metric? Probably not a quantitative one. While a natty is always the “goal” in first 3 or so), a new coach is usually judged by how he does relative to where the program was in the 3-5 prior seasons. I think yesrutgers01 put it very well. Greg did his job in this sense. he was brought here to clean up the Ash train wreck. He did that. After that early period - yesrutgers01 is right again that the expection then becomes taking the next step forward from your own initial progress which Greg hasn’t done and last year the defense was inexcusably bad. But a decision was made to let him try to fix that from ground zero.
So I don’t have a great answer, and never was I suggesting Greg has been “good”. Cali posted it somewhere else (similar to yesrutgers01) - he’s the guy you bring in to clean up a mess - not to take the step to the next level. But at the same time, you want to start over at a time when you are financially ready to set the successor up for success and for the reasons above - there’s a good chance we’re not there yet and won’t be until closer to 2030 when the costs come down.
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Agreed. He’s not running the show, but she’s also not stupid enough to put herself in a position to strike out “Bo Pelini style”. Note I said style (he was far more successful at Nebraska than Greg has been here). But we have people saying MAYBE Greg gets another year if he wins 4 or 5 conference games next season.
There is ZERO chance she gets rid of Greg following a 5-4 season in the BIG which would be be 7-8 wins minimum. She knows damn well even the best paper hires in the world don’t always work out, this is her first show and wiping the slate clean is expensive. It’s likely only happening next off season if the program trends down.
I agree and have posted very similar things over the years. I like Greg. He has achieved certain levels of success where many have failed. He is great at righting wayward ships. 7 years in. He needs to be judged less for his “maker of men” and more for his record. And that is what most on this thread and others have been saying. The excuse that we don’t have the money no longer holds water. We spend, Greg’s program specifically, with or above our peers. The numbers I posted showed that he grew his staff and spending by over 100% in the NIL era. And he is spending well above B1G median. That is the very definition of harmful allocation. The sole metric 7 years in is wins and losses.
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No one is expecting this.
This is what many are asking for, the winning conference record. And I agree with you, not going to get rid of him for that. But that still doesn’t warrant an extension IMO.
@kupuna133 is correct. Especially with a B1G sked, when 9 of your 12 games are played against your own conference mates.
Let's take the premise that Greg 2.0 should get a mulligan for his first 3 years. In years 4-6, he is 9-18 in conference. Last year, he had the best QB since Mike Teel break several passing records and a potent running game, and the team is 2-7 in conference. This is why threads like this get started. It's not out of hate for the head coach, it is out of some fans' legitimate concern over the direction of the program. It's quite simple.
Agree with every word you typed above. Mentioned this somewhere else. Throw away the first 3 years. Shouldn’t take any more to turn over your roster in this day and age and show marked improvement. Years 4-6 are equally unimpressive. There is little indication that things will drastically improve. It’s great that he made changes on d this year. But people forget that Harasymiak was having issues and was rumored to be replaced even before taking the job at UMass. Not to mention the Robb Smith disaster and the inability to attract qualified additions on staff. Resulting in drawn out coaching searches and a bloated staff to make up for the lack of experience.
They conveniently ignore we have the 2nd worse Big Ten Revenue next to Maryland.
there’s no reaching the next level without more NIL and facility money. It’s literally impossible. It’s the biggest reason our recruiting is not competitive because most Big Ten Teams are significantly outspending us. We are on par with Maryland and Purdue roughly speaking. Unlike some in this thread, Kelli understands this, and is working to get Greg the resources he needs to succeed. They are making incremental progress, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
These are just operational expenses. If you were to compare football capital expenses, over the last 10 years, Rutgers would fall woefully short. The lack of competitive facility hurts recruiting.
The bigger impact is the lack of NIL.
We’ve lost a number of recruits this season because our bag wasn’t big enough. We are not recruiting the best kids from New Jersey because we cannot compete with USC, Texas A&M, Penn State, Miami, Ohio State, and Michigan. Because of this, we are getting kids from FL, Georgia, and North Carolina. This gives us the talent to be at least competitive, but it isn’t enough to beat better programs.
Nice article.
The buyout expense of approximately $6 million per year over 3 years could be offset by normalizing the cost of Rutgers football's support staff. Replacing Greg could be a positive for the bottom line as other bloat would be removed from the program and ticket sales, which have stagnated under 2.0, would likely increase as the tired fanbase is energized by a new era for Rutgers football.
Greg's current buyout is slightly below $21 mlliion currently and $17 million after this season.
The buyout expense of approximately $6 million per year over 3 years could be offset by normalizing the cost of Rutgers football's support staff. Replacing Greg could be a positive for the bottom line as other bloat would be removed from the program and ticket sales, which have stagnated under 2.0, would likely increase as the tired fanbase is energized by a new era for Rutgers football.
Step away from the gummies dude. I’m not asking to compete with the names you mentioned immediately . But would like to be able to compete with 5-10 (middle of the pack)of the B1G and place higher than 80-120 in the final standings of d1. I would love to sit in a budget meeting with you at work. Because if you’re outspending the median in your profession by 30-50% you better be blowing away the competition. If not it’s time to go. How exactly do you grow spending by 128% in the NIL timeframe and not think maybe I should scale back my spending to allow for allocation somewhere else? You know “fungible” Funds brought up by you and others in another thread discusssing Indiana football. Again it’s not a spending problem it’s an allocation problem.
Come on, man. They aren’t saying the next level is playoff contention. Without that icing the kicker decision, we have an 8-4 season right there with a chance to go 9-4. Even last season a 5-7 could’ve been better but for some questionable calls. Having 8-9 win seasons mixed in is not impossible without some huge bump in contributions the way you keep claiming.
Greg has to own that when evaluating his performance. But then, the glimmer of hope at the same time is that we did come close to breaking through but not for a handful of questionable game day decisions. The more he delegates x and o responsibility down to coordinators, the bigger the reason to hope that we could turn that next corner in a year or so time.
He doesn’t deserve an extension after next season regardless of what our record is. But if we have to shell out a massive amount of money to wipe the slate clean, the new guy that would be brought in would likely be handicapped in his portal budget - which is why if it seems like the program makes progress this coming season, wholesale changes will figure to be a major risk.
The only way I see it happening at 6-6 is if Duff alone (or someone headed to the draft) carries is there and the D doesn’t make notable progress. The big picture is going to be the direction we’re headed overall IMO.
I don’t know about everyone else on staff- but we just signed Travis Johansen to a 3 year contract for $4.2. I’d imagine others are on contracts that extend beyond this coming season too, so wiping the slate clean would have a significant up front cost.
From what I remember very few multi year contracts outside of Schiano OC/DC. Someone posted the contracts and potential buyouts and it was mainly those 3 and possibly 2 more names.
The biggest cost problem for Rutgers football is Greg.
Staff spending was +$7 million last year, +6 million the previous year. Rutgers is currently paying 3 of Greg's defensive coordinators. Greg gets a $500,000 raise after this season.
Cost is not an obstacle for replacing Greg. Just the opposite - replacing Greg is a way to control costs.
