Greg Schiano's defensive scheme?

Despite having played in the nation’s first college football game on Nov. 6, 1869, Rutgers’ transformation from perennial loser to winner did not begin until Greg Schiano took over as the Scarlet Knights’ head coach on Dec. 1, 2000.

Even then, success didn’t come immediately. Over a six-year period, the program and the coaching staff’s strategies and philosophies have undergone a series of adjustments and adaptations.

“Being a defensive coach I’ve always believed in trying to make the offense play you,” Schiano said, “but that’s not always so easy to do with all the multiple formations and the things people do. They can get you in a situation where you’re kind of on your heels. Our defensive scheme had to be complex, hopefully, for the offense but simple enough for the defensive kids.”

From his playing days and throughout his coaching career, Schiano’s expertise has come on the defensive side of the ball. During two years as the defensive coordinator at the University of Miami in 1999-2000, Schiano was able to take more chances in the 4-3. When he took over at Rutgers he hired current NFL assistant Paul Ferraro to run a 4-3 defense but quickly learned that the defense he ran at Miami wouldn’t fit the personnel at Rutgers.

Instead of tight man-to-man coverage in the secondary and plenty of blitzing from the linebackers and safeties, the Scarlet Knights didn’t have the speed and talent to defend the outside receivers with single coverage. Rutgers needed more help from the linebackers and safeties to prevent big plays.

“We’ve kind of evolved,” Schiano said. “When I was at the University of Miami we were probably playing more cover zero and that kind of stuff. As we evolved here, we decided we’re going to have at least one safety in the middle of the field and sometimes we’ll use two deep safeties.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t bring pressure but it’s not going to be cover zero and that kind of stuff. Philosophically I don’t think it’s a bend-but-don’t-break defense but I do think we’re doing everything we can to prevent any big plays.”

When Ferraro left for the NFL after four seasons, Schiano took over as his own defensive coordinator. As Rutgers’ recruiting improved and the program’s level of talent and depth rose, it would have been easy for Schiano to return to the scheme he ran at Miami. Instead, Schiano decided Rutgers was doing the right things in its current version of the 4-3.

“Really, as our talent and our depth improved you could ask, ‘why don’t you go back to where you were defensively now that you have better players?’” Schiano said. “That’s a valid question but I really like what we’ve evolved to, so we’re not going back to what we were doing at Miami.

“At Miami we had some great players and we could play cover zero and we were committing eight to a seven-man box and doing a lot of blitzing. That’s all good but this way is winning for us.”

One reason it’s winning is because Rutgers’ defense works well with the team’s big picture. Instead of forcing the issue, the Scarlet Knights are winning by playing solid football on both sides of the ball and forcing opponents to make the mistakes that change games.

“Maybe it’s different now because I’m a head coach and a defensive coordinator,” Schiano said. “You think more of the overall team than just coaching and calling the defense.

“As a head coach you see if you can avoid giving up big plays. You’re going to make your negative plays. You’re going to do some things to force some negative plays on first and second down and then it’s all about getting off the field on third down.”

Rutgers was still able to lead the Big East in takeaways in 2006, forcing 31 turnovers, but the Scarlet Knights also led the conference in third-down defense, holding opponents to 30.1 percent on third down.

“Third down is where you can really get creative,” Schiano said. “Now the offense is in the spot where they have to react a little bit to you because they need to make that yardage and you know how many yards they need to make.”

Rutgers’ offensive approach has also been a process of change. When he originally hired current Western Michigan coach Bill Cubit to run the offense, he knew Rutgers would have to be creative with its offense. If Rutgers could spread the field with multiple receivers and more pass plays, perhaps it could counter its overall lack of size and talent on the offensive side of the ball.

“I knew we didn’t have the offensive ability to just come out and run it down people’s throats,” Schiano said, “and I knew we wouldn’t for a few years. I do like to be able to run the football but at the beginning I felt like we had to make sure that we had enough deception in our offense to let us have some success while we were building a philosophy of a tough hard-nosed offense. That’s not easy to do, either.

“You could commit totally to just saying ‘we’re going to do this even though we don’t have the personnel to do it and we’ll get stoned.’ I didn’t want to do that just because I wanted us to have some good feelings about what we were doing offensively.”

When Rutgers struggled to run the spread offense effectively, Cubit and Schiano eventually came to a mutual agreement that allowed Cubit to move on and gave Rutgers a chance to start over.

Schiano then hired Craig Ver Steeg as offensive coordinator in part because of Ver Steeg’s experience in the West Coast offense. Schiano wanted to be able to operate with two backs yet still have the flexibility to go to one back and still run many of the same blocking schemes.

“The West Coast offense has become such a broad, very general definition,” Schiano said. “It starts with the power running game and the timing passing game and then what you do with it is based on fitting it to your talent. It’s a flexible offense that you can fit to your talents.

“You can look at when Mike Holmgren was at Green Bay. One year when I was with the Chicago Bears and studied them they ran 109 four-vertical plays in a 16-game season. That goes to show you that even for the ultimate West Coast offense of the time, 109 in 16 games is an awful lot of just throwing it down the field with four verticals.

“As we evolved and got better players – especially better offensive linemen and better running backs – we’ve been able to go to more of a power running game. As our skill players have improved, we’ve been able to get into taking more shots down the field.”

Rutgers became an effective running team averaging 180 rushing yards per game in 2006. That productive running game fits well into Rutgers’ desire for a hard-nosed identity and ball control while still opening up the passing game. It also proved to be a good fit for Rutgers’ personnel, particularly tailback Ray Rice and fullback Brian Leonard.

“Ultimately, I’d like for us to be able to control the football with the running game, especially in this part of the country late in the year when the weather turns bad,” Schiano said. “Then I’d like for us to be effective at taking shots down the field in the passing game.

“It’s awfully hard to just move down the field methodically time and time again. Big plays – plus-25-yard plays – are critical to the success of the offense. How you get them, whether it’s in the running game or the passing game, doesn’t matter. That’s usually predicated by your individual talents and abilities.”

In the kicking game, Schiano has always believed in the importance of a special teams coordinator to oversee the entire operation. In 2006, the Scarlet Knights had one punt blocked while blocking four but most of Rutgers’ approach is to be solid and sound in the kicking game without giving up big plays. Kicker Jeremy Ito emerged as one of the nation’s top place kickers, making an impact that proved to be critical in many games, especially a 28-25 victory over Louisville.

“Having coached in the NFL, I think it’s critical to have someone coordinating the special teams,” Schiano said. “We have one that we think is excellent in Darren Rizzi but Darren does so many things here. He also coaches the linebackers so he’s a unique guy. I think if you can ever get just one guy doing special teams, if you can set your staff up that way, you can really gain an advantage.”

Even though Rizzi coordinates the special teams, every coach on the staff takes part in preparing the kicking game. That includes the head coach himself. “I’m very involved in it,” Schiano said. “I think the head coach has to be very involved in special teams so the entire team realizes how important it is. As a coach you can say whatever you want but the time and attention you dedicate to something is what really tells the kids what’s important.”

Another factor in Rutgers’ evolution has been staff changes. Five of Schiano’s original coaches are no longer with the program and another moved to an administrative role, but the program has continued to improve over time.

“In six years I’ve only made three coaching changes where I was the impetus of the change,” Schiano said. “We’ve had some very talented coaches who had opportunities at programs that – at the time – would be perceived as a step up. It’s different now but at the time it was perceived that way.

“I think we’ve got a tremendous staff now, a staff that understands the vision and collectively works toward that vision. I’m thrilled with the job we do, but we’ve got some great coaches here so some of them won’t be here for long.”

Off the field, Schiano and his staff have focused on improving the program from the inside out, including more attention to academic success.

“In six years we haven’t lost one kid to academics but before we got here they were losing, conservatively, one out of every four kids to academics,” Schiano said. “It’s hard to build a program that way.

“As our kids did better academically we were able to build more of a foundation, the university and the academic community started to the see the kids in a better light and people outside the program began to notice we were doing things the right way.”

Schiano and his coaches must be doing something right over the past six seasons. A program that endured 12 consecutive non-winning seasons before 2005, including four under Schiano, completed the 2006 season with an 11-2 record, a second-place finish in the Big East, a No. 16 ranking, the third bowl appearance in school history and their first bowl victory ever when they defeated Kansas State 37-10 in the Texas Bowl.

“Slowly, as we took care of the program from the inside we also fought outside to the get the people in New Jersey and the high school coaches and kids to believe that we were a legitimate Division I program,” Schiano said. “At the same time you can only say so much. At some point you’ve got to start backing it up and slowly but surely we produced better results on the field.

“Then we started to win some games and people in our own state and our own metropolitan area started to see our program in a different way. It’s been a gradual process but some things have started to come together in the past two years.”