ESPN analyst Greg McElroy believes that under head coach Greg Schiano, things are trending the right way for Rutgers football. McElroy says this ahead of an important fourth season of the program under Schiano.
A former NFL quarterback who spent two seasons with the New York Jets, McElroy is a highly-regarded and respected college football analyst. He played his college football at Alabama and won a national championship with the Crimson Tide in 2010.
This week during his ‘Always College Football‘ show, McElroy talked Rutgers. As part of his mailbag segment where he takes questions from fans, McElroy fielded one from ‘Kyle.’
The question asked for McElroy to assess the outlook for Rutgers as a rebuilding program and if they can consistently be a bowl team. McElroy touched on how the Big Ten dropping divisions can and will help programs like Rutgers, a point he has made previously on his shows.
“I think that the move and we’ve talked about this as it relates to Wisconsin and we’ve talked about this as it relates to Minnesota, we’ve talked about this as it relates to Penn State, Maryland and others. The move away from divisions in college football, is going to benefit Rutgers greatly,” McElroy said on the show.
“Now can they consistently get to a bowl game? That to me is asking an awful lot given the history of the program. But if there’s one guy that knows how to do it’s Greg Schiano.”
McElroy then took an impressive deep dive into Rutgers, focusing on the offense.
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This offseason, the Scarlet Knights shook up the coaching staff on the offensive side of the ball. In came offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca, a veteran Power Five coach. Also brought in were two coaches in [autotag]Dave Brock[/autotag] (wide receivers) and [autotag]Pat Flaherty[/autotag] (offensive line) who have deep NFL experience as positional coaches.[lawrence-related id=26246]
“Now let’s look at this year’s team, specifically, it feels like they’re moving in the right direction with what they want to be offensively. Kirk Ciarrocca is in as the new offensive coordinator and you listen to some of the players’ interviews, you listen to how they speak about Kirk’s Ciarrocca – it seems like things are trending in the right direction with what they’re going to be offensively,” McElroy said.
“Now can they get the most out of Gavin Wimsatt who is looking like a guy that actually resembles that of a Big Ten starting quarterback right now? He’s grown, he appears to be more confident – there seems to be some momentum that’s been created for Gavin Wimsatt. Does he have the supporting cast at wide receiver? That remains a huge question mark.
“I really like Rashad Rochelle. I think he’s got a lot of potential, of course, he has kind of been used and as a personnel weapon – been used at running back and used at wide receiver. There’s things to like about that. But the other wide receivers at this point are a bit of a concern and you lose your top three guys from last year with Sean Ryan, (Aron) Cruickshank and Shameen Jones. Those guys being gone now there’s a lot of catches that are departing the program that now needs to be replenished. So there’s a lot to acknowledge there, like the development of the offensive line. So I’m looking at Rutgers this year as being a team that is still a spoiler, but getting to a bowl game would be a really nice achievement for Greg Schiano here as kind of a breakthrough type of season to show that there is progress being made there in Piscataway.”
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