Memories of Greg Schiano and questions on what might have been
It was a snowy night in early December when the news broke. I was channel surfing, and ended up on ESPN News, where it was the top story. We had offered our head coaching job to Greg Schiano. It was a curious choice... obviously I knew of him and how he had turned Rutgers around. But I'd only seen Rutgers play maybe twice at that point, and I knew little about the team or the coach. I immediately began searching for every bit of info I could find.
By the time I got to MGoBlog and started reading HaloScan, it seemed like a forgone conclusion to the commentariat that he would accept the job. We discussed how he was a defensive coach first and how he employed an offense that could only be called "three yards and a cloud of dust redux". We pondered his familiarity with the region, having spent all but three seasons of his career on the East Coast. We even discussed his (supposed) physical resemblance to a young Bo.
By the next day, it was done. He turned us down, ostensibly because Rutgers built him a house but in all likelihood because he was still holding out hope that Penn State would come calling when JoePa called it quits.
It wasn't long after that we began discussing things like "Hey, maybe the coach from Delaware could be the next Tressel" and convincing ourselves that "Maybe English won't be so bad".
So, humbly, I ask for your opinions: What do you think the past year and a half would have been like had Schiano said yes?
Okay, this won't answer your question, but, there were rumors that, a day or two after turning the position down, Schiano contacted Martin and tried to get himself back in the mix for the job. Supposedly, Martin politely declined and told Schiano that we had moved on to another candidate, who turned out to be Rich Rod. If Brian reads this, I hope he can shed some light on whether or not he has heard this rumor before.
i've been told a similar story.
how that conversation went.
I would guess that Mallett might have stayed and possibly Arrington. We would still have Boren and maybe Alex Mitchell. Assuming all those people stayed, we probably would have done a little better last year. We might have gone 6-6 or in that range with an experienced QB, a go-to receiver, and a more experienced offensive line. Although we probably would have done better short term, I think that Rich Rod is a good fit long-term and this program will be a championship contender in a couple years.
We probably would have done much better than 6-6. We could have had 7-8 wins last year (Toledo, Notre Dame, Utah, Northwestern, and maybe State). Mallett would have been far better than Threet and Sheridan. Manningham might have stayed too. He wouldn't have hired Shafer either.
Mallett was 12-37 against Wisconsin with a better offense than he'd have had in 2008. Just a thought. Brian also had noted that it was likely Threet gave Mallett a solid run for the starting position. Multiple people wrote to Brian highlighting maturity and other issues with Mallett.
Additionally, we don't know if a different DC would have been much better than Shafer. English's defenses gave up a ton of points too.
Mallett was a true freshman. It is not unresonable to expect that he would've made significant improvements in his game from '07 to '08.
This blanket statement:
"Mallett would have been far better than Threet and Sheridan."
Is unreasonable though. Well, vis a vis Sheridan maybe not.
You can't possibly believe that Threet is better than Mallett.
Having seen Mallett, and having seen Threet, I believe that Mallett isn't "far better" than Threet.
There was actually extensive rumors from camp that the only thing stopping from Threet being on the field over Mallett was his RS status. There were a solid number of people who felt that, before Carr left, Threet would win the job over Mallett in 2008.
this was one of the reasons people were relatively confident going into last year.
also, mallet was soooo freakin terrible in 2007. i'm not sure he had better numbers than sheridan in 08.
English's defenses at least kept it in the thirties :( So RichRod made a mistake there. It happens. RR acknowledged immediately and, IMO, upgraded immediately.
Zirbel also might not have been hurt. However, we probably don't land Odoms, T-Rob, Omameh, Barnum, Shaw, or Roundtree in this scenario.
Although we probably would have done better short term, I think that Rich Rod is a good fit long-term and this program will be a championship contender in a couple years.100x yes.
True, but we don't know who else we might have landed instead.
I agree though. Long term, Rodriguez seems to be the shot in the arm that the program needed.
I just wanted to address people constantly referencing people that possibly wouldn't have left without regard to the people RR brought on board.
Just to clarify, I agree that Rodriguez will take us to high points Schiano never could have dreamed of... this was just an exercise in speculation for fun. I'm not endorsing the hire of Schiano over what we ended up with.
I agree that with Schiano those players would have stayed (assuming he offered little Boren a schollie)--- with a defensive minded head coach, and a better d-coordinator, I assume we would have been 8-4 last year.
I wanted Schiano, I thought he'd be a great fit.
I hope a year from now I don't care that Schiano and Miles didn't work out. It will be nice for an 8-4 season to stop our "what it could of been" thinking. A 5-7 or worse... maybe this board will be rumbling with "Hire Schiano" posts.
What is your reasoning here? Are you assuming they would have stayed just because the offense wouldn't have changed as much? How can you be so sure Schiano wouldn't have pissed some of those guys off?
Yes. There is a lot of assuming in the thread. That was the point of the discussion... to make assumptions on Schiano as Coach in '08.
More traditional pro-style offense, run-heavy. Very similar to Carr and his recruits... less likely to leave given 1) Mitchel can stay fat and still play; 2) Mallett can be a statue in the pocket and not have to move; 3) Arrington knows that staying his 5th year in this type of offense is better than being a 7th round draft pick.
But then again, maybe Mallett plays hung-over the first three weeks and loses the job to Sheridan who can't get it to Arrington past 10 yards and Schiano goes 2-10 with a loss to Miami, Ohio.
Mallett moved surprisingly well for his size, actually. Referring to him as a statue probably isn't correct.
You are correct, for a 6'6" 250 pounder he moved surprisingly well for his size. However, he did not move well. He moved perfectly well for a pro-style offense. Like Michigan 2007. Like Arkansas 2009. Well enough to beat Penn State in '07... for which we will be forever grateful!
Double Post - sorry. Trying to multi-task at work
Work is no place for multitasking. Slow down.
Its tough to read MGoBlog when you're trying to work at the same time. Prioritize. The work will still be there when you're done with the internet.
Boren probably would have stayed because in his case it was a conflict between him and Rich Rod. I don't remember the details about Alex Mitchell but I don't think he was buying into the system. With Mallett I think the main reason for his departure was the need for a mobile QB. I know he had some conflicts with Carr and his staff but that shouldn't have been an issue with a new coach. Arrington still might still have left but I think he waited to leave until he was sure that Mallett was leaving because he didn't want to deal with an inexperienced QB. Some of these departures might have happened either way, but I'm confident that at least 2-3 of them would have stayed if not for Rodriguez' new scheme, intense fitness system, and unwillingness to offer scholarships to family members.
Why do say that Mallett's issues with Carr's staff wouldn't have continued with a new coach? Carr was not a hard to like man, and him and Mallett couldn't figure out how to get along.
And although a lot of people who bailed under RR may now have under Schiano, you don't know what players stayed under RR who would have bailed under Schiano. No one saw the Boren thing coming (his dad played for BO for pete's sake) so anything else could have happened.
I'm not saying that there's no chance other players would have left. There's no way to predict what players would have left under Schiano or what kind of effect it might have had on the team. All we can do is make guesses based on the little that we do know about the players who left as a result of the hiring of Rich Rodriguez.
Supposedly, Mallett was terribly homesick in Ann Arbor and tried to leave as a freshman and Carr had to talk him into staying. His parents wanted him to play closer to home, and he was looking for an excuse to leave. I cannot imagine Mallett staying for any coach. Also, it didn't really look like Mallett was getting much of a reputation as a leader or had many friends on the team. AFAIC, Mallett would have left regardless of who they brought in.
From what I've heard, Mallett was headed to Arkansas (the team he grew up rooting for) as soon as Mustain left them. The coaching change just gave him an easy excuse for leaving. So I don't think we'd have seen Mallett (and thus no Arrington) even if we'd have hired a different coach. As for the others, it's hard to say. In the case of Boren, it seems that his real problem with RR was that RR didn't offer his younger brother (hence the lack of "family values"). Would Schiano have? We'll never know.
Maybe THE KNOWLEDGE would still be around. Now we're stuck with Eroc and CoachBT.
Didn't the Rutger's QB slap the shit out of his own receiver (helmet on) last season? Discipline issues maybe?
Rutgers started out horribly last year, but, (gasp) ended up showing great improvement as the season wore on.
The difference being it was Schiano's 4th (5th?) year. It's not even remotely the same situation as RichRod's first year.
FTR, I was asking a question. "Discipline issues maybe?" probably sounded like a douchey way of calling him a poor disciplinarian, but I was just speculating like the rest of us.. You know, could he control Mallet if he had stayed and whatnot.
I think we would have had a possible 8 win season last year. Not only would we have kept quite of few players that we lost, but I also think we could have gained some great recruits, most notably on defense. It’s the defensive teams that win the B10 and championships. I don’t think we would have won a championship though, but think he would have brought a Dantonio kind of environment. We would have had a better defense last year but overall his luck would fade with no championships. I think with Greg Robinson running the defense and Rich running the offense, we’re better off.
As someone who was born and raised in Piscataway and has followed Rutgers when they were 0-12, I can tell you that Schiano is a solid coach, who has a ceiling. I truly believe that he is the epitome of the coach who goes 8-4 or 9-3 (what he has built Rutgers into; impressive in its own right) and never goes 13-0. Growing up in the area I happen to know a few of the football players and trust me, he is one tough bastard on them. I know a lot of people will point to his "inability" to recruit as a reason that they didn't want him at Michigan, however I don't think that he was any different than Rodriguez in the recruiting category. Rodriguez coached at Miami and PSU in the assistant capacity, and has some ties to those areas. I remember when he first came to Rutgers, everyone was questioning his recruiting tactics, going down to Florida and trying to get some of the lesser recruited guys down there. He repeatedly stated that he wanted to get speed to the team (Recognize this from anywhere?) and thought that he could find a lot of talent down there. He also made a great point to close the doors to NJ and try and get the best players from NJ. He was the first coach in IIRC 20 years to have the top rated recruit in NJ go to Rutgers (2 years ago) with Anthony Davis a 5-star OT who was considering tOSU and USC. With the majority of the roster being Jersey & Florida made he has turned it into a solid team and a constant threat in the Big East. He has had players drafted and gone to Bowl games, things that are causing the number of Scarlet "R" decals to be put on cars 10X more than usual. I like him as a coach and think he is solid, however I don't believe that he would have been the best fit at Michigan; that's just my opinion.
Note: The Rutger's QB was Mike Teel and he is a very VERY passive person. That was a once in a blue moon type occurrence that resulted in some closed door punishment.
and I happen to agree that he has a ceiling, but if you put Schiano at M or PSU in a 100,000+ stadium, with tradition, the B10, a gigantic, passionate alumni and fan base and he would do better. He would have gotten better recruits at M, but I don't see him going 12-0 either.
I kind of think of he's like a Dantonio, in terms of solid coach will do well, but won't win it all.
At the end of the day the thing that we need to remember is that Schiano had all of his own kids in there and IIRC barely made a bowl game this year. I agree with Sandler For 3 in that he is a descent coach who has his limits and those limits do not include an undefeated season. Perhaps we would have been better off last year but the face of College Football has changed and he is (IMO) on the outside looking in. I think he would have been more like a bad combination of Carr and RR. He would not have had the tough tenacious teams that Carr had and he would not have had the speed that RR likes to go for. I like our chances of a 13-0 a lot better with RR than GS.
In the end, with "what if" exercises like this there is no way to really know if Schiano might have had a better record last year. Maybe he would have...maybe not. There is no real way to answer what might have happened.