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Greg Schiano has been here before, in the aftermath of a disappointing and even stinging defeat for Rutgers. And when that happened, his teams have managed to usually bounce back.
Sometimes, those big losses, like the 52-13 loss to No. 11 Ohio State on Saturday afternoon, would set Rutgers up down the road for a run of success.
This happened in 2005 for Rutgers and Schiano, who was at that time in his first stint with the Scarlet Knights and in his fifth season rebuilding what might have been the worst program in college football at the time. In the second to last game of the regular season, a 6-3 Rutgers ran out onto the field during pregame and stomped on the Louisville logo at midfield.
The Cardinals responded with a 55-6 win that slowed down – at least for a week – the talk that Rutgers had completely turned around their program and was done rebuilding.
Rutgers would bounce back the next week to beat Cincinnati before losing to Arizona State 45-40 in the Insight Bowl in Phoenix, AZ. That game, despite being a loss, was seen as a turning point for Rutgers football and set them up for what would be a memorable 2006 season.
Now Rutgers, after being dismantled by a very good and perhaps even underrated Ohio State team, need to do the same. Saturday, at home to a ranked Michigan State, is that opportunity to get things back to where they were.
A week ago, Rutgers was in the glow of a disappointing but encouraging 20-13 loss at then-No. 19 Michigan (the Wolverines moved up five spots in the USA TODAY Sports AFCA Coaches Poll with the win). Now this Sunday, they are looking at the ashes of their worst performance since Schiano arrived back at Rutgers last year.
“I think that they’ve shown in the short time we’ve been together that they can step up and play with just about anybody. But we haven’t done it over four quarters against the best teams we’ve played. And that’s really our challenge,” Schiano told reporters after the game.
“Today we didn’t do it for a quarter, so I can’t say — like I told you, today I have to — I have to look at it. I have to figure it out as a head coach. Then I have to ask my staff to figure it out. And then we’ve got move on because if you think you’re going to fix everything that happened out there — there’s some stuff that happened out there that you’re just going to have to flush it and move forward.”
It is just the second year of this rebuild of a Rutgers program that easily had the worst talent in the Big Ten. Patience is needed here by everyone if this team is going to eventually get there.
There were other dud performances from Schiano’s first tenure with Rutgers, including a 2008 season where his team lost their first three games (including a bad 44-12 loss at home to North Carolina in the second game of the season that was followed up with a loss to Navy the next week). That season ended 8-5 and with an impressive win over North Carolina State in the PapaJohns.com Bowl.
And in 2009, Rutgers got punched in the mouth by a very good Cincinnati team, a 47-15 loss in their season opener. That season, despite the rough start, ended with Rutgers winning a bowl game. It was their fourth straight bowl win under Schiano.
The bad news for Rutgers is that this Saturday is against a Michigan State program that is resurgent, ranked, and looking to avenge a Scarlet Knights win in the season opener for both teams last year. The good news is that, at 3-2 this week, Rutgers has still surpassed expectations this year and has several very winnable games ahead on their schedule.
There’s also the Schiano factor. Not only has experienced these lopsided losses before at Rutgers, but he also spent three years recently with the very same Ohio State program that rolled over his team on Saturday afternoon. Lessons have been learned that are slowly being integrated and intertwined into the Rutgers DNA.
This is an older and wiser Schiano that has once again taken over a program in desperate need of a rebuild. There’s no need to panic. There is the need, however, to give more time to get this thing right.
It sure worked that way the first time around here.