Rutgers football is piecing together a strong recruiting class, one that is ranked among the best in the nation. Head coach Greg Schiano, however, isn’t worried or concerned about the rankings or what recruiting services think of a certain recruit.
Schiano, instead, believes his own eyes and ears as well as those of his coaching staff while trusting relationships to help evaluate and recruit.
That doesn’t mean that Rutgers isn’t having measurable success on the recruiting trail though. As of Monday morning, 247Sports had Rutgers No. 23 nationally for their 2024 recruiting class. At Rivals, Rutgers was No. 17 in the nation.
While the rankings are nice, it also means that Schiano doesn’t chase stars, much to the chagrin of the fanbase.
“Well, you know, the stars are…look, the stars aren’t always right. And the stars aren’t always wrong. And I think the key that I learned early in my career is I got an opportunity to coach the Chicago Bears when I was in my late 20s. And I was around some great scouts and they told me that you have to learn to be a scout with your eyes first, and then your ears to support what you find or to prove what you find wrong. So that’s what I’ve always tried to do. I don’t try to scour the recruiting services,” Schiano told Larry Blustein on WQAM last week.
“We use our relationships, we hear about guys from coaches who we believe. Sure, now there’s some recruiting services that are better than others and I’m not down on all of them. I think you have to use every bit of information but when it comes to stars, I think there’s certain programs that really chase those stars and sometimes it works out for you and other times it does not work.”
Last fall on an appearance on WFAN, Schiano referred to Rutgers as a “developmental program: during an appearance on the morning show. The idea was that while the transfer portal is nice, it isn’t the be-all and end-all solution for building a program.
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This would also explain some offseason moves for Rutgers on their coaching staff, adding a highly-experienced offensive coordinator in [autotag]Kirk Ciarrocca[/autotag] to revamp the unit. Wide receivers coach [autotag]Dave Brock[/autotag] and offensive line coach [autotag]Pat Flahert[/autotag]y bring extensive NFL experience coaching those units as well.
If Rutgers is going to need to develop talent, then they needed to upgrade their assistant coaches. They certainly did that with the addition of Ciarrocca, Brock and Flaherty on offense. Three coaches, all of whom have coached at a high level in college or the NFL.
Schiano has been consistent that high school recruiting will be the foundation of his rebuild at Rutgers. Finding talent, molding the players, utilizing the strength and conditioning program and then coaching them up is the way that Rutgers can be competitive in the Big Ten.
“We are a developmental program at Rutgers. I’m not worried about stars. I’m worried about finding guys that have length guys that have skill. And then guys that are cultural fit for our program, right? So if they have those things and they can run, we’ll take the time to develop them,” Schiano said.
“And that’s why we look at a lot of three stars and some four stars. And yet, why do we have so many guys that are successful in the National Football League? It’s because we identify the right guys, we develop them, and then they go and have successful careers.”
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