Perhaps the most important reason for Rutgers football head coach Greg Schiano to have optimism heading into this season is the experience of his coaching staff. Schiano believes that additions such as offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca will pay dividends this year.
And that additions such as Ciarrocca (as well as wide receivers coach [autotag]Dave Brock[/autotag] and offensive line coach [autotag]Pat Flahert[/autotag]y) will pay dividends for this still rebuilding team.
Even as the enormity of this rebuilding project is often lost on fans, Schiano sees the offseason additions to his staff will help turn around the offense. The Scarlet Knights haven’t had a winning season since 2014, which was also the last time they made a bowl game outright.
During that time, the Rutgers offense has consistently been bottom three in the Big Ten. Enter Ciarrocca, who comes to the Scarlet Knights after being the offensive coordinator at Minnesota.
“Well, you need to continue to develop in the offseason, which we did physically,” Schiano told the Big Ten Network this week..
“I think, you know, one of the things is the way Kurt runs the offense, it’s cumulative repetitions over and over and over again, we’re not going to, we’re gonna be doing a ton but what we do, we’re going to do well. So I think we’re going to get better. I think we have some good players that, were young and now aren’t so young. And that’s the development part. Now they’re starting to be Big Ten-level players and now they can do it.”
The addition of Ciarrocca is important for Rutgers and Schiano. The struggles of the offense last year didn’t help the program’s rebuild (although it may have helped punter [autotag]Adam Korsak[/autotag]…). Ciarrocca has been at Rutgers before, including as offensive coordinator. and has spent time as a head coach (Delaware) and at other Power Five programs (Penn State and West Virginia).
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“I’m just grateful that he’s back. You know, he’s a guy I know very well and it’s good thing because the job of head coach has changed so much in the last even year and the way our time is used,” Schiano said.
“Kirk is a senior guy,- a guy that’s can lead the room. Great teacher schematically knows what we want to do and I’m thrilled to have him back.”
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