The storm in State College, PA is barely a week old and you don’t need to be a brilliant seer into the future to predict tumultuous times at Penn State for many days ahead.  University trustees announced late Wednesday night that school president Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno, the man whose name graces, or perhaps more aptly now disgraces their library, the esteemed Paternoville camping area outside Beaver Stadium’s ticket gate, and nearby statue depicting an exuberant Paterno proudly in trot with index finger pointed skyward as if to declare, “we are and always will be Penn State: number 1″, are no longer employed.  Fired rather.

For Paterno, it ends a 46 year career like no other in the face of the most shameful scandal in college athletics history.  Undeniably the preeminent ambassador of Penn State  and the coaching profession regardless of the sport, the prototypical architect of what we all thought remained to be good about collegiate athletics, Paterno’s legacy will be irreparably damaged.  Why?  Because he fumbled the biggest play those 46 years brought before him.  A play which did not involve tattoo parlors, agents, or boosters, but a play that involved innocent, helpless, already at-risk kids.

Coaches often preach, and Paterno was no different, that the mark of a truly complete student-athlete is that embodiment of excellence on and off the playing field.  Paterno’s program taught 18 to 22 year old men not only how to be great warriors on the gridiron, but great leaders outside those lines.  Though Joe’s teams were not always of Big Ten or BCS championship caliber, especially in the last decade, these teams were always prepared to be great, perennially filled with NFL ready talent, and, quite simply, they were Penn State.  The Nittany Lions.  Enough said.  On the field, one might argue that Joe’s legacy can not be touched.  But off the field is a different story.

Joe Pa could have done more.  So much more.  Yes, he donated money, and yes he was willing to go to work for less than Bob Stoopes, Jim Tressel and countless other colleagues with far fewer accomplishments, but none of that matters now when it comes to his enabling long time assistant Jerry Sandusky, accused of sexually abusing at least ten young boys over the course of several years.  Albeit indirect and out of his plain view, Paterno’s “involvement” in this nightmare is that he was in a position to do something; to help kids who were truly in danger.   This is to speak nothing of Penn State and the football program he spent over half a century building into a power.  What was that something he needed to do?  I don’t know.   But I do know it included more than nonchalantly reporting it to the athletic director and then bottling it up inside for the better part of a decade.  I know it did not include permitting Jerry Sandusky on football program premises whenever he felt like it.

You have to wonder how much regret stewed inside Paterno as he has made his infamous daily pilgrimage, humbly on foot from his nearby home to the football offices on campus.  Didn’t knowledge of something gone very wrong in 2002 irk him?  It must have.  After then graduate assistant Mike McQueary approached Joe on that March 2, 2002 day to inform the head coach he had seen Sandusky and a 10 year old boy in a shower the night before, what has Joe thought about that matter since?  Before this scandal broke.

Did he wonder about that boy’s, or other boys’ outcomes in life?  Moreover, did he ever dream things could lead to his exit in this fashion?  In his wildest dreams, did Joe fathom that his final goodbye would be anything but that fairytale ending?  No way.

Don’t expect much from his efforts. He’s not under any real pressure from above to answer for his 59-63 ten-year record. If quarterback Tom Savage leaves, so what? There’s no telling what his middling recruiting class will bring in, because Schiano has an erratic record of red shirting and jerking players around from their natural positions or losing talent altogether. This season he played a starting tackle at tight end. He made two defensive linemen into offensive linemen in mid-season (no clues before that, Greg?), made two defensive backs and an offensive back into receivers and played a converted QB at tight end.

In Schiano’s eyes his coaching staff is aces and by keeping them under his thumb and not bringing in anyone who could possibly threaten his reign, he will at least keep a death grip on the Rutgers job. He needs to, because the days of being sought after by Miami, Michigan and Alabama are over.

Here’s a short list of what Schiano should be doing as he assesses his team for next year.

1. Make a Change

It’s a time-honored move that is used time and again to create a tone that says he means business. Offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca is the most logical target. Rumors are that Ciarrocca will be interviewed for the Temple opening now that Al Golden has gone to Miami. That development might also free up former UMASS head coach, Mark Whipple, who was the Hurricane’s offensive coordinator under Randy Shannon. The co-coordinator system isn’t working. Creative play-calling and passing game coordination are a big need. Rutgers has the tools in their passing game, there just isn’t any precision. Too many dropped balls and wasted plays.

2. Tell Kyle Flood To Coach Up the Offensive Line

In Schiano’s own words, Flood is the “best teacher at that position I have ever been around.” So why not give Flood one responsibility in 2011, to make the offensive line a strength? Simply couple Flood up with the guy who is the best at what he does on Schiano’s staff, strength and conditioning coach, Jay Butler, and improve the offensive line that allowed a nation-leading 61 sacks in 2010. Seven experienced offensive linemen return for 2011. Only center Howard Barbieri graduates. Three freshman recruits could provide size and depth. The redshirt ranks will bring ten wide bodies to choose from.

3. Sit down With Bill Belichick

When Belichick visits to see his son play for the Rutgers lacrosse team this spring, invite him in to pick his brain. Ask questions about how the hoodie always comes up with creative offensive guys (Charlie Weis, Josh McDaniels, Bill O’Brien). How does he always have a passing game? How did he develop his “no-name” pro bowl offensive line? How does he get along without elite running backs? What are his secrets about evaluating talent? And follow it up with, “How do you manage to lead when your staff is highly regarded and always in demand by others?

4. Stop Looking for Ray Rice

Rice bailed on his commitment to Syracuse and landed in Schiano’s lap by luck. He was the best back RU has ever had, a combination of speed and great power generated from his lower body strength. So, in one of the great mysteries of searching for the next RR, Schiano has made his bones recruiting “smallish” backs ever since. He missed out on Donald Brown who went to UCONN, Ray Graham and Dion Lewis who signed at PITT. All New Jersey high school products.
In 2011 Schiano has six experienced returning backs. Jordan Thomas showed the most promise in 2010. Joe Martinek, who runs with Rice’s power at times, was saddled by an ankle injury all year. D’Antwann Williams was given some reps. Mason Robinson returns with weakened knees and is shuttled to the wide receiver spots. Jawan Jamison and Casey Turner are the unknown red shirts who may be a factor. Four-star Florida recruit Chevelle Buie, is 5′ 7,” 153 pounds. This is the specific area that Schiano needs to discuss with Belichick regarding “talent assessment.”

And so, we are reminded that even though the BCS system has given us Auburn-Oregon, the delay of a college football playoff only serves to keep the inept NCAA in power. Even their excuses are inept. With the FCS playoff, the NCAA has proven a playoff can work and that “student-athletes” aren’t harmed by the extra work. The Bowl Committees and sponsors don’t really care, as long as the bucks are still attached. Conference bowl alliances are already a thing of the past. This year you have TCU playing Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, while Stanford takes on Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl.

The sooner the college football system shifts to eight “Super Conferences,” the sooner we will be rid of the NCAA and its arbitrary collection of officials sanctioned by university presidents in the name of the holy buck. The Boise State’s and the Notre Dame’s are going to have to join up, or be left out in the cold. Which is how it should be.

We’ve already started to see the cracks. The Big Ten and the PAC Ten are in the process of becoming 12-team conferences. The outside-the-BCS teams are shifting their way toward the inside with TCU (Big East) and Utah (Pac 12) moving to higher ground. Nebraska joins the Big 12 (formerly Ten, I mean 11), Colorado moves to the PAC 12 (formerly the PAC Ten) and the Big 12 actually becomes the Big Ten. Anyone confused, yet? It’s nothing eight conference championships and a three-game playoff wouldn’t fix.

And just as greed keeps the whole thing together today, the same greed will someday pave the way to a true national champion and the end of the useless NCAA.

He will now be in total control until next season, having to answer to no one but his controlling self. That’s how he likes it. Once he can block out the public, he only has to provide token answers to school administrators, who are delighted to pay him over $2 million through 2016.

It was ironic that within hours of Rutgers folding the tent in Morgantown for the 16th time in a row, Connecticut won its first Big East title and earned a berth to a BCS bowl. Yes, UCONN, who Rutgers has beat two years in a row, but over the same period Schiano has been at the helm at RU, Randy Edsall has taken the UCONN program from the FBS ranks to BCS glory. It’s ironic how Edsall is today mentioned as a candidate for head jobs at Miami and Penn State, while Schiano sits in New Brunswick, promising “no housecleaning” and describing his season as “an aberration.” Nice spin.

Schiano won’t say it, but the injury to Eric Legrand started a six-game losing streak that destroyed the 2010 season. Perhaps the tragic loss of a player dashed the Scarlet Knights’ hopes. Last year, Connecticut defensive back Jasper Howard was killed after an on-campus stabbing. The Huskies still managed an 8-5 record (every loss was by four or less) and a win over South Carolina in the Papa John’s.com Bowl.

While Edsall weathers the critics who say UCONN doesn’t belong in a BCS bowl game, Schiano will conduct interviews of coaches and players and do mostly nothing. He’ll keep the same offensive line coach, Kyle Flood, who Schiano has modified from “one of the nation’s best,” to “the finest teacher that I’ve been around at the position.” 61 sacks. He’ll keep the same play caller Kirk Ciarrocca and blame his inefficiencies in 2010 on the offensive line. He’ll look at his three-star recruiting class and not wonder if he may have lost something when Joe Susan left for Bucknell.

One early order of business will be to tend to highly recruited quarterback Tom Savage, who may look to transfer. If track record means anything, Savage is gone and Chas Dodd becomes the man for opponents to chase around for the next three years. Savage was being called the “highest rated quarterback recruit of all time,” just a few months ago. Now he’ll follow Rikki Cook, “the highest rated running back,” Berkely Hutchinson, “the highest rated linebacker,” and by way of the U, Nate Robinson, “the highest rated defensive lineman,” ever recruited at Rutgers, out the door before finishing their careers at RU.

On Saturday, as Rutgers melted in Morgantown, ABC announcers Mike Patrick and Craig James had nice things to say about Schiano. They made sure they cited the five bowls in row, even though they were low priorty bowls. They said Schiano turned around “a program in shambles,” even though Schiano is the school’s all time loser. That was music to the ears for Schiano and his followers. Even though the compliments came from a boob of an ESPN play-by-play man whose career is in descent and a colorman who most famous move of late was to play meddling dad and firebomb Texas Tech’s Mike Leach, by lobbying TT officials for more playing time for his son. If only James’ son played at Rutgers.

PERNETTI: Greg, what went wrong this year?

SCHIANO: Well, there were the injuries and we were caught short on our depth and talent. I thought Tom Savage would be better. I thought we’d have a great defense, because that’s my side of the ball and afterall, I once worked for Dave Wannstedt when he was head coach of the Chicago Bears and Butch Davis when he was head man at Miami. I didn’t think the offensive line would be that bad, what with Kyle Flood, ‘one of the best offensive line coaches in country on our side.’

And then there was the Eric LeGrand injury. It reminded me of the car accident that claimed three players in 2004. You just can’t coach after something like that happens. I stopped coaching then and went to bolstering my image as a father figure to these players and of being a stoic leader in the throes of extreme adversity. I think it may have upped my profile nationally.

PERNETTI: But there were so many holes…too many penalties, the offensive line, no running game, a desperate scramble for receivers even though Sanu, Deering and Harrison seemed to be obvious to step up. You seemed to take for granted that you’d be good at quarterback. The defense started strong, but went downhill. Moving Art Forst, who was supposed to be your best returning offensive lineman to blocking tight end, and switching star defensive line hopeful Antwan Lowery to the offensive line mid-season were obvious signs of desperation. It seems to me you and your staff lack the ability to “coach up” players and that you don’t have a very good handle on how to judge talent.

SCHIANO: Now hold it right there, Tim. Did I think you lacked talent when I endorsed you for the AD job based upon your performance at a mediocre, low-rated network TV job? I had Brian Leonard, what a great kid. And Ray Rice, even though he fell into my lap by default. What a great kid. And Kenny Britt and the McCourtys. Even though I bumped heads with Britt every step of the way, what a great kid. And Devin and Jason, what great twin kids. And how about Anthony Davis? So what if he’s a dimwit and stayed close to his moms to play college football. I think these players speak for my ability to recognize talent. Have you not seen the video I put together showing all my players in the NFL, Tim? I’m a great judge of talent. Enough said.

PERNETTI: But you said Tom Savage was great and his performance on the field was awful. And Joe Martinek was your answer to our running game. And you let Jourdan Brooks go transfer after he showed signs of being a productive back. And you never gave up on Mason Robinson or Kordell Young, even though they were injured and never produced. Somehow you think converting D.J. Jefferson to tight end is a coaching coup of some kind, when all he does is drop passes and jump offsides. And San San Te looks more like he should be in the cast of “Glee” than out there kicking with the game on the line. I mean, can’t you even find a reliable kicker?

SCHIANO: Now Tim, they are all great kids.

PERNETTI: But they aren’t good football players, except in your eyes. Your record and their perfomances speak for themselves. It’s not a very good coaching performance over ten years time and yet there’s a prevailing attitude that we are lucky to have you.

SCHIANO: Let’s face it, Tim, you are lucky to have me. Just ask Miami, Michigan and Alabama. You do know that I’m always considered as a possibility to replace Joe Paterno, don’t you?

PERNETTI: But if they judged you by your record, by the amount of big wins you’ve produced, by your titles and bowl game record, I don’t think you’d be as highly regarded today.

SCHIANO: So who are you going to get to replace me? Charlie Weis?

PERNETTI: Well, it’s surely not someone from your staff, because they are all under your thumb and you’ve never really developed any proteges. What’s up with duo coordinators and this “Wild Knight” offense.

SCHIANO: I think it was Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, who said, “hire talented people and don’t be afraid to groom your replacement.” I do the opposite of that. I want to create a chokehold on my job. If you fire me, the program will sink.

PERNETTI: As if last place for the fourth time isn’t sinking?

SCHIANO: Let’s get back to the last question…we think that if one of quarterbacks finally gets a rythmn and is moving the ball, the defense should be able to load the box up and stop our “Wild Knight” from running up the middle.

PERNETTI: That makes no sense to me.

SCHIANO: That’s why you should leave the coaching to me and my staff. It’s very complicated stuff, Tim.

Enough of this. Let me take you lunch at my country club you pay for. I’ll drive my Escalade you lease for me, but we have to stop by the house you bought me so I can get some money that I have as New Jersey’s highest paid public employee.

To the football decision-makers in New Jersey, he’s the best they can do. Rutgers head man, Greg Schiano, is portrayed as having a coaching pedigree. He likes to keep the stories alive that he was once considered for the head coach’s spots at Alabama, Michigan and Miami.

His players graduate and have stayed out of trouble now for several years. He constantly positions himself to cement his lock on the program. This year’s losing season is because of a tragedy, not because he lacks anything as a coach.

For this, they pay him handsomely and allow him to build his fiefdom. The guy who will sit down with him and review his performance following this bowl-less season, is someone Schiano hand selected. Rutgers AD, Tim Pernetti, should be calling coaching consultant Chuck Neimas, instead he’ll be figuring out ways to keep Schiano and pay him more. The irony is that Schiano will most likely leverage Neimas’ short list as the former conference president consults to fill his post-season job openings.

Here are ten questions Pernetti should have on his list:

1. Why is there no running game?

2. Why was RB Jourdan Brooks allowed to leave so easily?

3. Has recruiting fallen off since coordinator Joe Susan went to Bucknell and why do New Jersey backs populate other programs?

4. Is Kyle Flood really as good of an offensive line coach as you say?

5. Are two coordinators better than one?

6. Why do you coddle poor performance (Tom Savage, San San Te, D.J. Jefferson, etc.)?

7. Is this “Wild Knight” offense really any good?

8. Are your coaches any good?

9. What are you going to do about your quarterback situation?

10. Are you ever going to win anything (conference, BCS Bowl, close games, games against West Virginia and other signature programs)?

Answers, not hype. That would be something completely novel for Rutgers football.

So when my friend Ron and I thought we’d take in a local college game back on September 30, 2000, we went to see Rutgers host the Miami Hurricanes, who ended up being the top team in the country. We walked up before kickoff and dropped $20 each for tickets and made our way to the fifty yard line and worked ourselves down to the first ten rows. In other words, we could sit anywhere.

Greg Schiano was on the sidelines that night, but he was on the other side, serving as defensive coordinator for Miami. I counted nearly 20 players on Miami that went on to NFL stardom…Willis McGahee, Clinton Portis, Andre Johnson, Santana Moss, Ed Reed, Dan Morgan, Jonathan Vilma, Bryant McKinnie…the list went on and so did the final score, Miami 64, Rutgers 6.

So the next year Greg Schiano was named head coach of Rutgers. I hoped for anything competitive. I had a friend in Chicago argue that you couldn’t build a football program in this day and age, not without corporate and alumni millions. Rutgers had a little of both, but their ace in the hole was that it was a state school funded by the same free-spending legislature that current NJ governor, Chris Christie, is now saying “no” to at every spending juncture.

Schiano only asked for a commitment and AD Bob Mulcahy gave it to him. When money was spent freely, it was nothing to budget jet planes to Florida, billboards in Dade County or Stadium upgrades. It would take some time, (Schiano’s Scarlet Knights only lost to Miami the next year 61-0) but it would get done.

So here we are ten years later. Rutgers is 4 and 4 and should be 7-1. There is an upgraded stadium. The players graduate. There is a solid football program in place. Several Rutgers players play in the NFL including three #1 picks. The team has played in a bowl game for five straight years.

Schiano is the state’s highest paid employee and is loved by the powers-that-be, those same powers who had a hand in the government running up billions in a budget deficits. The same folks that run the school. The folks that dictate how to view and value football in the state of New Jersey. More recently, Schiano has emerged as shepherd/father figure to the tragically injured Eric LeGrand. Some feel the 2010 season will forever be known for a kickoff coverage at the New Meadowlands Stadium against Army. Schiano is savvy to know this is how it works and that those few that might grade him, will give him another pass.

There are no more 60 point losses. Schiano is .500 as a coach. Mulcahy is gone, the result of managing the stadium upgrade and Schiano kicking him under the bus. There are a boatload of players, names like Davon Clark, Berkeley Hutchison, Rikki Cook, Chad Schwenk, Jourdan Brooks, Nate Robinson, Marcus Witherspoon and so on, that were borderline and left. So for every graduate success story, every “father figure” tear jerker, there are still many buried failures, like everywhere.

Schiano includes NFL players like Gary Brackett, Sean O’Hara, LJ Smith and Nate Jones, players he didn’t recruit, as part of his NFL success. He has no signature wins aside from the 2006 upset of Louisville, which was followed by losses to Cincinnati and West Virginia (who he has never beaten) to drop them from 6th to 14th nationally, the highest his Rutgers team has ever finished. There has never been a Big East conference championship or a BCS bowl. The schedule is dotted with patsies. The program has lost money since he’s been there, although it has improved to currently be called “profitable” if you don’t factor in the several yearly losses to get there.

As a .500 coach, Schiano is open to criticism that he is a control freak. That he doesn’t surround himself with prime coaching talent for fear he may be outshone and lose his strangle hold on New Jersey. There have been recruiting gaps, especially on the offensive line where (Anthony Davis aside) he has never stockpiled raw, brute talent, only to be outdone in big games by losing the war in the trenches. He inflates his resume, pointing to his NFL experience, his work under Butch Davis (UNC) and Dave Wannstedt (PITT), to whom he loses annually, and Joe Paterno (PENN STATE). To his credit, he plays UNC and Pitt and is scheduled to play Penn State sometime in the middle of the next decade. He also inflates the resumes of his staff, calling offensive line coach, Kyle Flood, “the best in the nation” as he directs one of the worst offensive lines in Rutgers history. Since naming co-coordinators on both offense and defense, Schiano has not demonstrated any success for that odd practice, aside from appeasing assistants who have never been in demand elsewhere. Unlike his aforementioned mentors, in his ten years as a coach, Schiano has no one to point to as a post-RU coaching success story.

So what’s a fan to do? Be happy with .500 and that you are not being drubbed by 60 by your opponents? Live in fear of Coach Schiano getting snatched away as his agent rumored publicly when jobs at Alabama, Michigan and Miami were open? Be happy with bottom of the barrel bowl games?

Only in New Jersey would Schiano’s record warrant $2 million plus and perks. Maybe “Chris Christie thinking” can change that. At the very least, Schiano’s hand-picked successor to Mulcahy, Tim Pernetti, should do his job and work up a short list of candidates who can takeover without going back to 60 point losses. But maybe this new guy could follow some of Schiano’s good groundwork with the difference that he be judged like every other coach in the country. Can he win?

Teel’s successor, Tom Savage, came of age over the weekend, at home against a depleted North Carolina team. Unfortunately, his rights of passage brought him to a place where Teel spent a lot of time. Welcome to the doghouse, Tom Savage.

It’s pretty safe to say that Savage’s two interceptions were the difference in Rutger’s 17-13 loss to the Tar Heels, who played without 12 players. He blamed it on his “footwork” when it was clear to the 52,038 at Rutgers Stadium that it was more due to “brainwork.”

As co-offensive coordinators, AKA, “The Touchdown Twins,” Kirk Ciarrocca and Kyle Flood, seemed to flip coins as to whether to give plays to Savage or Mohammed Sanu in the wildcat. The result was that the heralded sophomore from PA brought back memories of Teel shooting the team in the foot with drive-ending bad passes.

Perhaps Savage was pressing due to the jerky rotation the coaches gave him? Perhaps the coaches were more concerned with who was going to run the next play, as opposed to concentrating on executing the play at hand? The first quarter went fine, 13 plays (five wildcats, including the obligatory first wildcat play that everyone knows is coming and nets nothing, two false starts and an incompletion) led to a field goal. A fumble recovery, another false start and four wildcats put Rutgers up 10-0.

It was the first nine plays of the second quarter that told the story of the game.

1. North Carolina muffs a punt by snapping to the short man who didn’t expect it.

2. Savage goes to the end zone for Sanu. Should have been intercepted.

3. Savage rolls right from collapsed pocket. Under intense pressure he throws a wounded duck, perhaps intended for Mason Robinson? who had run a medium cross pattern from being split left, but the ball sails over his head and falls short of the feet of a wide open Keith Stroud in the end zone. (Lost chance for Rutgers 17, UNC 0).

4. Savage to Sanu.

5. Savage to Stroud for 17.

6. Wildcat for Sanu for 1.

7. Wildcat for Sanu for loss of 1.

8. Savage scrambles. Holding call on RU.

9. Savage throws INT to All American linebacker Bruce Carter, one of four Tarheels surrounding Keith Stroud deep over the middle.

The INT leads to a UNC touchdown. 10-7. Savage’s second INT was badly thrown behind his receiver in the fourth quarter as Rutgers was driving for the win with time running down. Game over.

“There were about five of six opportunities to win that game,” said Schiano after the game. “If we convert any of them, it’s a different situation.”

Trouble is, how do you correct that? Is it the execution of the quarterback? Is it the game coaching? Or both?

Like college football fans that get hyped over Alabama being rated number 1, about Ohio State being number 2, about Michigan climbing out of its hole, Paterno coaching at 82, or Southern Cal carrying on after Reggie Bush, RU followers can hope the genies are wrong, and that Pittsburgh, West Virginia and Cincinnati are not all better than the Knights in the Big East. They hope the national ratings are wrong too, and that Rutgers is better than its placement in the 40s or 50s, depending on who’s rating.

Despite their lack of recognition, the Schiano/Rutgers “formula of success” is to have a winning record and go to a bowl game. That won’t put talk of the Knights in the same breath as the major programs they aspire to be like. With those goals, they will remain just a middling school that makes an inferior bowl every year. Schiano’s biggest need is to resemble the now-fading 2006 season, where they threatened the Big East title and were rated as highly as # 6 nationally, before losing it’s last two games to Cincinnati and West Virginia (to dash its hopes for its first conference title) and finish #12 nationally.

They say it every year, but 2010 is a pivotal year for “the Schiano package.” The highest paid public employee in the state of New Jersey, Schiano, now in his 10th year at the helm, seems to not be able to do any wrong in the Garden State. But the state is going through financial crisis like everyone else, and there’s an abundance of new scrutiny and analysis where there’s a major movement on to stress performance and getting your money’s worth. The cushy jobs in the public sector, the pork of it’s legislature and the influence of a few on the many, are things of the past. As a state-funded school, could this new scrutiny include Greg Schiano and his program, too?

At worst, his hand-picked schedule could result with a 6-5 record and Schiano’s fifth straight bowl invitation. Losses against I-AA Norfolk State, a fiery and fledgling Florida International (coached by a former assistant), Tulane, recently revived Army, South Florida (one of five teams on the schedule rated higher than Rutgers in preseason polls), improved Syracuse and Louisville, under a new coach, would not be tolerated and would jeopardize his bowl string. Schiano will be asked to coach wins this year against at least five teams where he’ll be the underdog. The Knight’s fortunes and perhaps Schiano’s, will ride on how he does against the teams currently rated ahead of Rutgers.

Former mentor Butch Davis’ #18 ranked North Carolina Tarheels will be the first test at home on September 25th. UCONN follows two weeks later. The UCONN-Rutgers matchup has been a competitive contest with makings of a geographical rivalry ever since the Huskies took a regular schedule spot as a I-AA team in 2000. It’s a home game for the Knights and winnable if history tells us anything. Two weeks later it’s the matchup with Big East favorite PITT. Schiano has had terrific success against another former mentor, Dave Wannstadt’s Panthers both home and away. The following week is the South Florida matchup in Tampa, where the Scarlet Knights tend to wither in the heat. Cincinnati looms as it’s second to last game in Cincinnati. The Bearcats have seemingly had their way with Rutgers for years. And finally, Rutgers travels to Morgantown to face West Virginia, a team they have played well against, but never beaten in Schiano’s head coaching career.

Expectations? Yes, Rutgers fans are looking for Schiano to lead a good, veteran defensive team through a season of winning the games they are supposed to win and pulling a couple of upsets along the way. With that type of performance, the Knights could threaten the Big East title, end up ranked in the top 25 and get selected to a premier bowl. Anything less would be the same thing we’ve seen for most of the last ten years.

Head coach Greg Schiano enters his tenth year at RU armed with five straight bowl appearances (four straight wins), the number one academic progress rate in the nation, and a slew of guys in the NFL, including a first round pick last year and two first round picks this year.

The trouble is that none of the bowl games have been significant, the APR is simply keeping players eligible and graduating on time, and besides 2006, when the Knights fittered away a chance at the BCS, there is very little “signature football” to talk about.

Still, Schiano faces a crossroads of sorts in 2010. Of course, it doesn’t mean his job is on the line. Rutgers rarely fires coaches unless they misbehave, and Schiano’s performance over ten years has been more than exemplary. He has “job for life” written all over him if he wants it. Unless the Rutgers heirarchy starts judging the program like every other major college football team. That’s unlikely because it would take financial influence, powerful alumni and fanbase demand which Rutgers doesn’t have.

So Schiano’s reputation and the prestige of his program will take on an extra amount of scrutiny this year. First, the Big Ten will be watching, and although Rutgers plays in an attractive market, their competitive abilities and the financial/alumni/fans issues may not be up to the standards to be invited to their league, despite how much Joe Paterno and some of his bretheran would like to see a punching bag on their schedules. Secondly, Schiano’s personal cache come January, when the coaching carousel starts spinning, may take a hit with another so-so season and inferior bowl.

It’s laid out right in front of him. A non-conference home game against former mentor Butch Davis’ North Carolina on September 25th could set up a 4-0 mark going into their first Big East test against UCONN at home on October 8th. Two weeks later they are at Pittsburgh. By Halloween they could be making The Sporting News make their appointments to be fitted with dunce caps.