Rutgers Football: 3 newcomers who’ll have instant impacts in 2020

3. Greg Schiano, Rutgers football coach

This quite possibly might be the most important addition to the Rutgers program or a colossal failure. It’s true, Greg Schiano built the Rutgers program from the ground up. Rutgers was a wasteland in college football before he came.

It took Schiano and his staff five seasons to begin winning, but once he did the Scarlet Knights had only one season the rest of his time there. Can Schiano return Rutgers to respectability?

So much is different this time for both Rutgers and Schiano. Rutgers is not in the Big East anymore. The top of the Big East — West Virginia, Syracuse and Louisville — is replaced with Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan atop the Big Ten East.

What Schiano has going for him is an understanding of how to recruit to a school like Rutgers. New Jersey does not produce a high number of Power Five level recruits, but the ones they do recruit he needs to keep in-state.

He’s already recruiting at a high level. The Scarlet Knights recruiting class is ranked No. 20  according to 247Sports. This season the Knights have been very active in the portal signing nine transfer players. Many of those transfers are underclassmen.

Also, Schiano has been through a lot himself since leaving Rutgers. He’s older and just wants to be a head coach again. There’s an old saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.” Schiano thought the grass was greener and found it wasn’t.

Maybe he’ll build and enjoy the fruits of his labor this time.