Tag: Pinstripe Bowl

The last game of Greg Schiano’s first tenure with Rutgers football was in the Pinstripe Bowl. Weeks later, Schiano was hired as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

That game, a rather emphatic 27-13 win over Iowa State, drew a close to Schiano’s first rebuild of the program. It was a fitting end to that term, with Schiano beating a Power Five program in a bowl game.

That it took place at the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium, a location that is essentially in the backyard of Rutgers, also made it fitting. Now, Rutgers marks its return to bowl eligibility with a Pinstripe Bowl game against Miami.

“First off, I remember it being a great experience for, like I said, everyone involved in the program, players, coaches, families. The Yankees just do an incredible job,” Schiano said last week about the Pinstripe Bowl.

“I remember we had a really challenging opponent in Iowa State. It was a great game. I remember the end of it when we were awarded the trophy, and Eric LeGrand had just been injured the year before. Being able to recognize him. He was sitting up in the box, being able to recognize him, (and) acknowledge him – that meant a lot to me. Obviously, having no idea what the future held, it was really a special moment.”

LeGrand, now an accomplished entrepreneur, is also a radio analyst for Rutgers football games.

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He suffered a spinal cord injury in 2010. At the 2012 ESPY Awards, he won the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance.

This will mark the third Pinstripe Bowl appearance in Rutgers football history. Rutgers, then under the direction of former head coach Kyle Flood, lost the 2013 Pinstripe Bowl in 2013 to No. 25 Notre Dame.

This season, Rutgers finished 6-6 (3-5 Big Ten). It was the first time that Rutgers has been outright bowl-eligible since 2014 (under the aforementioned Flood).

It marks a significant step for the football program in Schiano’s painstaking rebuild.

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“When coach came back, the program obviously had tremendous challenges,” said Pat Hobbs, the Rutgers athletic director.

“As coach says, this is a developmental program. It’s getting really good young men in here, building them up, and watching their growth not just athletically but their maturity and all those things are really important.

“This was a really big step this year for our program. Couldn’t be happier for the young men who are in our program. We’re building, right? As coach says, ‘Keep chopping.’ I was there when coach came back. He explained what that meant, sort of the focus that you have to bring every day. That’s where we are now. We’re a program with focus. We’re a program with leadership in the locker room. Really, really fine young men.”

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.”

Becoming bowl-eligible in mid-October didn’t necessarily feel real for Rutgers football. But it got real this past Sunday when the Scarlet Knights learned their destination and bowl opponent.

It is the culmination of four years of rebuilding for Rutgers football under head coach Greg Schiano.

This year represents the first time since 2014 that Rutgers (6-6, 3-5 Big Ten) has been outright bowl eligible, a significant achievement for a program that was losing games 78-0 during that stretch. Schiano said that his rebuild wasn’t going to take shortcuts and wasn’t going to be easy.

To land in the Pinstripe Bowl (Dec. 28) at Yankee Stadium against a historic opponent in Miami (7-5, 5-3 ACC) is a sign of the program making not just a turn but now having established itself on solid footing. The rebuild is over.

“We have a lot of young men in our program that are fully committed to building something special in New Jersey at Rutgers,” Schiano said on Tuesday during a conference call for the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl.

“We don’t claim to be like everybody else. We try to do things that maybe are a little different, but they’re unique to us. I think our team, our staff, our fans, we embrace that. It’s exciting. As (athletic director) Pat (Hobbs) said, it’s a stop along the way.”

During preseason when prognosticators try to earn their keep, Rutgers was being picked for a ho-hum season. Bowl eligibility was out of the question and one or two national writers began to talk about Schiano potentially being on the hot seat.

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Much like they did during his first tenure, Rutgers did a good job this year of focusing on the task at hand. While four straight losses to close out the season was certainly discouraging, it can’t erase the very obvious progress made on both sides of the ball this year.

“Up here in New Jersey, everybody goes on the Garden State Parkway. Every single mile there’s a mile marker. As I told the team, becoming bowl eligible, we’re passing one of those mile markers. It’s not our exit. We’ll keep cruising along,” Schiano said.

“We have a great opponent in the University of Miami – that is going to be a great challenge. I know how Mario Cristobal will prepare his team. They’ll be tough, resilient. It’s going to be a knock-down, drag-out fight at Yankee Stadium. That’s fun. I think both our teams and both the staffs – that it’s kind of how we’re built. It should be an exciting game.”