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.”

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?

We are all in for Derek Jeter. Despite his late season slump and predictions of his demise at 36, Jeter is making a comeback from a bad spell, hitting .311 over his past 45 at bats and leading the Yankees to the playoffs. His contract is up at the end of the year, and there isn’t a scenario in the world that would have him anywhere but starting at short for the Yankees in 2011. Playoff and World Series MVPs tend to be clutch players. Sportscream submits Jeter as postseason hero number 1.

Sportscream is against African American Cowboy (perhaps a precursor to his destination of the future) Randy Moss, the poster child for the mold that gave us Michael Vick and Allen Iverson. Randy will never get it, the way he dresses, the way he speaks out for himself and the way he values his legacy, which is to say way more than any real evaluator who factors in stats, off-the-field pursuits and his hubris-driven personality. We are all about his talent, when he wants to put out, and that one-handed TD catch in the loss to the Jets says it all.

On the other hand, Darrelle Revis reaching for the back of his thigh after being badly beaten is the oldest ploy in the book. Revis said that Moss was “a slouch,” but “The Island” pulls the injury card when he was badly shown up. So we are to believe that the Island was underwater that day because of Revis’ hamstring. You could see this one coming days before the game.

Sportscream is absolutely 100% for the City of Detroit and its teams. As if decay and economic crisis weren’t enough, professional officials chose the Motor City as the victim twice this year to dash fans most obvious means of escape. Umpire Jim Joyce’s call on Armando Galarraga’s perfect game and NFL ref Gene Sterafore and his crew’s call on Calvin Johnson’s winning touchdown against the Bears that wasn’t, are enough to make you turn your back on the games. Not in Detroit. Whatever BS Detroit fans are fed by the leaders of the game (Bud Selig and Roger Goodell), they’ll keep their loyalty to their teams.

The only thing Sportscream can’t figure about the lady “reporter” from Mexico’s TV Azteca visiting the Jet’s sausage fest, we mean, lockerroom, is why doesn’t the NBA try to promote the WNBA by hiring some male eye candy to visit their lady’s lockerrooms? Maybe someone would then pay some attention to the WNBA.

Sportscream is all for Villanova football entering the Big East and against the detractors that characterize the move as “minor.” Villanova coach Andy Talley may be just the agent to guide the transition after winning the FCS championship in 2009. Getting time for games in Lincoln Financial Field should eventually be a no-brainer, despite Temple’s lease. Recruiting more Howie Long’s and Brian Westbrook’s is just a full commitment from the friars that run Nova away. The Wildcats’ biggest challenge is to the alumni to mobilize enough football interest to fill the Linc.

We are for the resurgent Michigan Wolverines led by the remarkable Denard Robinson. This is a case of the virtuists jumping on Rich Rodriguez and not understanding football. Instead of lamenting how Lloyd Carr laid down and left the cupboard bare, game-planned losses to Applachian State and took a little pleasure as players abandoned ship (Ryan Mallet, Justin Boren, et al), the Michigan faithful couldn’t grasp Rich Rod’s system, his abandonment of West Virginia and that horrible NCAA infraction of practicing too much. Now the Wolverines aren’t all the way back, but it’s pretty safe to say even dopey front-running Michigan fans can now get the idea.

Sportscream is for “hits” as still being the most important of baseball stats. With the advent of Bill James and the Sabermathematicians, so many new stats power our analysis. On-base percentage, pitch counts and other nouveau stats are often cited as the hidden keys to understanding baseball today and especially “Moneyball” now starring Brad Pitt. Getting a hit is still the most clear way to measure performance. Ichiro Suzuki’s 200 hits for ten straight years is a most remarkable feat. Look at the top hit guys, it’s a “who’s who” of baseball’s elite. If they want to add a nouveau wrinkle, why not track “well hit balls or quality at bats” like they do “quality starts?”

Sportscream is all about the Washington Capitals first-year defenseman John Carlson as a Calder Award as top rookie candidate (as The Sporting News projects) and being the best NHL player ever from New Jersey. Actually, Carlson is Massachusetts bred, but his mother’s remarriage brought him to the Garden State for most of his teen years. Like all NHL prospects he then journeyed through his high school years playing hockey in Indianapolis and London, Ontario and bouncing through schools before being drafted #27 in the first round of the 2008 draft by the Caps.

Sportscream still has a little lost love for Joe Torre and this week he showed us why. After winning with the Yankees with $200 million payroll teams, Torre flamed out and got his revenge by authoring “The Yankee Years” where he trashed the organization that had concluded that his magic was overrated. He came back for the George Steinbrenner dedication and used the east coast media spotlight to lobby for the Mets job. Joe fancies himself as a likable guy who makes the world light up around him. How long before these true accounts of the “real” Torre come back to bite him?

For the 21st time, the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame held inductions this week at the New York Athletic Club. Among this year’s eight inductees were former Providence coach Joe Mullaney, Madison Square Garden photographer George Kalinsky, former Knick Anthony Mason and Rutgers hero Phil Sellers. It was New York that coined “The City Game” and the roster of nearly 200 inductees reads like a history of the game.

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.

It’s not like it took Jim Joyce for us to question the role of referees in the outcome of games. The “human element” has been at work longer than anyone can remember. Thursday night’s NBA Final was full of it. A four point game and refs seeing things that aren’t there. Koman Coulibaly /strong> of Mali is the latest, costing the U.S. soccer team two points by disallowing a late goal. So Armando Gallaraga didn’t pitch a perfect game, the Lakers are NBA champs and the U.S. soccer team tied Slovenia. Slo-mo replays show errors in every game. So its not the calls that bother me, its the defense of the bad calls. David Stern and Bud Selig lead the way. When is someone going to realize that people aren’t dumb and telling us the way to see it doesn’t work? President Obama is practicing the same strategy with BP….Sportswriter Mike Lupica is also a children’s book author. He has a popular series of sportsy teen tales that follow the genre of the Chip Hilton series authored by basketball coaching legend Clair Bee. For sports people who have witnessed Lupica’s personal act for over 25 years, the idea of him being a moral influence to teens is kind of weird. Not that Lupica is a felon, but he’s famous for a Napoleonic personality that has buzzed through press boxes, lockerrooms and television studios in a very arrogant and negative way throughout his career. Archrival New York Post printed a list of his media failures after ESPN announced the shuttering of the ESPN Zone bar/restaurant in Times Square where Lupica has taped ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters” for some time. Included on Lupica’s failure list were “The National,” and several versions of “The Mike Lupica Show,” on both radio and TV….Before someone tries to tell me again that the bad thing about a winterized Super Bowl is about the quality of the game itself or the sports media not being able to bask in the sun, think a little. The only real negative factor to the idea of hosting in a northern-based city like New York with an open-air stadium, is to the fans in attendance. Funny how Roger Goodell has all the answers for all of the other factors but exposing his well-to-do “partners” to the elements isn’t something he really cares about. Afterall, Roger will be up in a suite, warm and fuzzy, watching on TV with a toddy in his hand….Tom Watson is 60 and playing in the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. Announcers are bending over backward with “the tribute to an all-time great” act. Could have something to do with his pairing with Japan and Britain’s young bucks, or that there’s a tribute documentary film out about his late caddy Bruce Edwards. The thing about Watson, is that once-upon-a-time he was a drinker, he was stubborn and obstinate about his positions and he told you, you couldn’t tell him. He had a weird divorce, married a fellow player’s ex-wife shortly after his wife filed, had a long feud with his dad, accused Gary Player of cheating, rebuffed fellow Ryder Cup captain Sam Torrance and is the guy responsible for Gary McCord not working The Masters, and this is the guy who comes out critical of Tiger Woods? Today, you couldn’t find a more decent guy than Tom Watson, but this thing about bowing down to the game’s royalty at Bay Hill, Muirfield Village and now at Pebble, is a bit too much. It’s good to pay homage to your greats, but the golfing media has never gotten it. There always seems to be a bit of an edge of resentment from the old guys toward the new guys and the platitudes the media weaves into its coverage irritates the point….While I’m at it, aren’t the greens at Pebble Beach looking a bit blotchy? Kick aside the criticism from players after round one about the poa annua greens being bumpy and over-rolled. There’s something strange going on that is making the “greens” look more like “browns and greens,” and there hasn’t been a word said about it….While Rutgers sits in a bit of a catbird’s seat telling everyone how great the Big East is and how happy they are to be there, they quietly realize that they are a quality possibility for the Big Ten and any other conference trying to compete with the “conference power struggle” that may go on for months. Meanwhile, Rutgers is the only major football team in the world’s largest media market, it has an impeccable academic reputation dating back to an alleged invitation to be an Ivy League member, they are a nationally accredited research institution and is a state school that factors into business, law, engineering, research and agricultural significance for the state of New Jersey. They are also the nation’s best at graduating and keeping their athlete’s on a progressive rate of retaining passing grades. Rutgers finished with a record score of 992 out of 1,000 to top the Academic Progress Rate rankings ahead of national academy Air Force (988) and three private schools, Rice (987) Northwestern (986, take that, Wilbon!) and Duke (983)….Greg Schiano deserves a lot of credit for Rutgers’ progress, not only as a football team but as a destination college. 2010 lines up the Scarlet Knights as a team outside the pre-season Top 25. The string of five straight bowl games should not be broken this season, but this team has some markings to make an impression this season and bode well for Rutgers’ courtship by others and Schiano’s coaching prospects. Sophomore QB Tom Savage is not being mentioned with the nation’s best so far but he has a chance to become a name. Sophomore WR/RB Mohammad Sanu will likely be the Knights next NFL darling and freshmen DB Rashad Knight and WR Brandon Coleman could follow Savage and Sanu as first year wonders to go with solid returnees in every area except offensive line where 49ers first round Anthony Davis has left as well as NFL candidates Kevin Haslam and Ryan Blaszczyk….Let’s take book on who would win head-to-head, Tom Izzo coaching the 2010-11 Michigan State team or Tom Izzo coaching the 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers without LeBron James?