This has certainly been a season where Rutgers football under head coach Greg Schiano has been tested by fire. And now in early December, the Scarlet Knights are preparing for a bowl game, having emerged from a brutal schedule having done enough to return to the postseason.
Rutgers had the second-toughest strength of schedule (SOS) in the nation this season. And among the top four teams in the nation in terms of SOS, Rutgers was the only one to not have a losing record and to make a bowl game.
Rutgers football finished the season a solid 6-6 (3-5 Big Ten).
That right there is certainly a testament in many ways to the rebuilding efforts under head coach Greg Schiano, now in his fourth year back with the program. And now with a Dec. 28 date with Miami in the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl (2:15 p.m., ESPN) up next for Rutgers, there certainly is no rest for Rutgers after a tough final four games of the season.
(Well, technically there is a month break for Rutgers, but the larger point remains true that Rutgers has been tested this season and will be tested again in the Pinstripe Bowl).
This wasn’t an easy rebuild for Rutgers. In the Big Ten, one of the two toughest conferences in college football, Rutgers already faced a steep climb toward viability.
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Factor in that Rutgers is in the deepest division in college football, and the uphill sledding from Schiano and his staff is all the more impressive.
“The Big Ten East, which will be dissolved after this year, we’ll have one big conference, but the Big Ten East to me was the hardest division in college football, the toughest division. Week in, week out, you’re in a slugfest. It really did help our team grow,” Schiano said on Wednesday during a conference call for the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl.
“We had opportunities, Pat (athletic director Pat Hobbs) mentioned it, where we were really competitive in games that quite honestly before we weren’t competitive. Again, that’s another mile marker.
“We’re a developmental program. We’re going to bring in quality young men who love football, then we’re going to build them and build them and build them. That’s how we did it when we were here the first time. This is how we’re going to do it this time. It’s a process.
“I do think when you play a schedule that is as challenging as the one we did, it definitely helps you grow. It speeds up your growth. But you have to have resilient guys or it can crush you. It didn’t.”
Rutgers was bowl-eligible by mid-October, racing out to a 6-2 start to the season. Then, things began to hit a hard stretch on the field.
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Playing three straight games against ranked opponents, two of whom are nationally top-10 in the rankings and another that made the Big Ten Championship Game, underscores the difficulty of this schedule for Rutgers. A rebuilding team like Rutgers simply doesn’t have the depth for that type of gauntlet of games against top-tier quality opposition.
And it showed, with Rutgers closing out their schedule with four straight losses.
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“We were a little beat up at the end of the year, that’s for sure. We need this little break here to get well. We will. Young guys will get some valuable reps. That’s one of the things that’s so important when you’re building a program, to have the opportunity to get these practices for your young players, initially to get a lot of work. As you get closer to the game for your established players then to really start to get into game mode,” Schiano said.
“It’s an interesting process. It’s one that our guys have not experienced. I think it’s really good for them to go through this.”