Schiano, Rutgers aim high with NFL-caliber skill
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- Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Elder WriterJul 23, 2024, 02:40 PM ET Close College football press reporter.
- Joined ESPN.com in 2008.
- Graduate of Northwestern University.INDIANAPOLIS– After Rutgers recorded its very first winning season considering that 2014, coach Greg Schiano is telling his team to intend even higher.Schiano returns perhaps his deepest and most talented group throughout a Rutgers tenure that includes two stints, including the previous four years in the Big Ten. Although the Scarlet Knights are just 9-27 in conference play throughout that period, Schiano believes this team can take a big action.”Everybody talks the Power 4 [conferences], but it’s truly the Power 2,” Schiano informed ESPN,
referring to the Huge Ten and the SEC. “I say,’Look, we’re here to win this league, not to be part of it.’When we’re ready, we’re all set. I do not worry a lot about the outcome. I just stress over ensuring that we’re focused on the here and now, every day.”I tell them,’One day, we’ll look up and you’ll be a trophy. ‘If you believe that, it will happen.
“Editor’s Picks 1 Associated Schiano credited relationships with the players and their willingness to develop in the program, even with the transfer website offered. Rutgers
returns nearly
its whole defense, which ended up No. 16 nationally in backyards permitted last season, along with offensive standouts such as Kyle Monangai, a second-team All-Big 10 selection who led the league in hurrying (1,262 lawns)last season.Rutgers has “a lot”of NFL-caliber players, Schiano stated. The group hasn’t produced more than two choices in a single NFL draft since 2013, when it had seven players chosen. Schiano noted that when he left Rutgers to coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after the 2011 season, the school ranked in the leading 20 nationally in active NFL players.”We have actually got a lot of guys that have actually come of age, that are 4th-or fifth-year seniors,” Schiano stated.”What I have actually discovered is if they keep working, they work themselves into being NFL football players.
And when we have a number of NFL football players, then we have actually got a group.” Rutgers likely will gain from the dissolution of divisions in the Big Ten, after needing to deal with Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State annually in the East Department. The Scarlet Knights don’t play any of the three this fall, while including games versus three of the four groups joining the Huge 10( USC, UCLA and Washington ).”We’ve made actions,” Schiano stated.” Initially, it wasn’t that competitive. Then, with the top 4 groups last year on our schedule, we were either leading, or it was a one-score game,
well into the third quarter. We just didn’t have quite enough depth to be able to pull it off.”As the pipeline gets more full and more recognized, that’s the next step.”