Why Greg Schiano is optimistic about Rutgers football's future

What else would he say? “I think we are effed…hard!”?

tired of the talk, want to see 8 wins this season which is #7 for the man that is now the 'pied piper of Rutgers football'

RUTGERS95 said:

tired of the talk, want to see 8 wins this season which is #7 for the man that is now the 'pied piper of Rutgers football'

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95….dont you pay attention ? the Grifter’s stated goal is to win every play. Let’s say 80 plays a game times 12. That’s almost a thousand plays. He’ll top 100. Shelby will go out on a limb and claim he’ll get 75 wins in conference play, and another 50-75 in the other three games. Bet on it.

We are looking at 5 wins.

Indiana brought in 6 four star players from the portal.

it’s the $$$$$$$$$$$$$

O

scarletbergen said:

Indiana brought in 6 four star players from the portal.

it’s the $$$$$$$$$$$$$

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Obviously, Rutgers and Indiana don't shop at the same portal outlets.

8 wins should be the expectation, 7 we should be grudging the except, 6 or fewer should get his a$$ fired

ps: seriously that word is turned into ***? Pathetic

scarletbergen said:

Indiana brought in 6 four star players from the portal.

it’s the $$$$$$$$$$$$$

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We ranked dead last in the Portal in the B1G.
Our Portal losses were substantial vs. our gains.
Coaching will need to be the difference maker this season.

RU#1fan said:

We ranked dead last in the Portal in the B1G.
Our Portal losses were substantial vs. our gains.
Coaching will need to be the difference maker this season.

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are we last? I didn't see that but to be honest, I don't put much stock in the ranking outlets. That said, this whole notion that the new staff is the panacea to our ills is beyond tarded. they've never coached a down against the BIG boys so they too will have a learning curve.

RUTGERS95 said:

are we last? I didn't see that but to be honest, I don't put much stock in the ranking outlets. That said, this whole notion that the new staff is the panacea to our ills is beyond tarded. they've never coached a down against the BIG boys so they too will have a learning curve.

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Dead last ..however Iowa and Maryland were only slightly better in the Portal. As for Player rankings our top 4 departing players were ranked much higher than any of the incoming Transfers. The staff has it’s work cut out…We can do this.

RUTGERS95 said:

are we last? I didn't see that but to be honest, I don't put much stock in the ranking outlets. That said, this whole notion that the new staff is the panacea to our ills is beyond tarded. they've never coached a down against the BIG boys so they too will have a learning curve.

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It’s not that it’s the notion meaning - it’s not the expectation this will happen. The only thing that stands out as difference is we did actually hire a clean sweep staff that have proven they can coach D at a lower level. We didn’t install Greg puppets to run his vanilla schemes this time. Hes turning over the keys for better or worse. Will it work immediately? Odds are stacked against because our portal haul stunk and the guys we retained played on our bottom ranked D. But at least it won’t be rinse and repeat with the D this year. That’s the positive spin. I got nothing else there… Not expecting a top 100 D which would make it hard to win 7 games IMO. Maybe even 6 unless the offense doesn’t dip even a little. We’ll see.

I know so many folks are rooting for a new head coach ASAP but it’s probably best for RU in the long run for the team of defensive coaches to have a decent year. 95th best D would qualify for that. If that happened and the offense was solid, even if slightly worse than last year, we’re not winning 8 games and 6 would probably be the Vegas odds if you plugged in those assumptions. That would translate into “good enough” not to force Keli’s had and ultimately is probably best for RU in the long run despite it not being a popular view. The longer we can hold off because it appears things are moving in the right direction, the more money we’ll have to work with and the more attractive the role becomes. Moving sooner than we want has a much much higher tail risk factor - and there’s ALWAYS a high tail risk factor when you make a change except when your in an Ash-like rock bottom situation.

Until Schiano admits his offensive philosophy has self-defeat built-in I'm not optimistic.

A curious thing is that Minnesota football under Fleck has all the same offensive problems Rutgers has. Schiano, Fleck, Ciarrocca run offenses with genetic, auto-immune defects

"Despite being 6-3, with an opportunity to finish with a really nice Big Ten record, this team really isn’t very fun to watch. The lack of entertainment is due to the offense, which is just not very good. And it hasn’t been for several years. Most of the Big Ten games have subjected us to an offense with dropped passes, play-calling in the red zone that prevents points, running backs consistently being hit behind the line of scrimmage and drives that result in punts or missed field goals."





Criticisms of Gopher OC (Harbaugh) fit RU like a glove

"Facing a Michigan State defense that came into the game ranked 84th nationally in total defense and 117th in scoring defense, Harbaugh’s game plan appeared to be written in crayon. Knowing that Michigan State defensive coordinator Joe Rossi likes to play zone coverage, Harbaugh made the baffling decision to dial up screen pass after screen pass, all of which got blown up at or behind the line of scrimmage. The Gophers were 6-for-15 on third down, as Drake Lindsey frequently checked down to receivers running routes short of the line to gain.

At no point did it ever feel like Harbaugh was attacking the weaknesses of the opposing defense. If anything, it felt like he was magnifying the shortcomings of his own offense. You can point the finger at the offensive line or the wide receivers or even the quarterback, but we’ve cycled through a number of players these last three seasons. There have only been two constants: Harbaugh, and an offense that ranks near the bottom of the Big Ten."


That's RU all over the place^^^

Talent not the main problem at Minnesota - they are coached to play with hands tied ( Condom Offense)

"Minnesota’s 2025 season has at its core a major paradox. Last year the Gophers, through a combination of a soft schedule and strength at some key positions, in my second-order win algorithm should have won 11 or 12 games on the fundamentals when grading them on a per-play basis … but due to conservative decisions in high leverage moments (what Max has called “Fleckisms” on the podcast) let four or five wins slip through their fingers and finished the regular season 8-5.

The offensive and defensive squads have paradoxes of their own as well. On offense, there’s been a major step back in overall performance, but on watching film I don’t think it’s because they’ve had a big talent drain - in fact, I like the upside of several key positions much better than in previous years, like the young QB’s arm talent, a mature and effective starting TE, an RB room I’ve always liked if they just had the blocking in front of them, some dangerous WRs, and finally moving away from a problematic center. But somehow the whole is less than the sum of its parts, as Max and I discussed - in isolation these guys show talent, but together they’re disjointed and out of rhythm. The upshot is that they can be dangerous at times, and have the potential to be much better than their numbers suggest, but we don’t often see it."