Five games into his fourth season leading the program in late September of 2019, Chris Ash was let go at Rutgers with an 8-32 record.
The groundswell of support for the return of former Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano didn't even wait until official word of Ash's fire hit the wire. We shared early on, back in late September to be exact, that Schiano left the defensive coordinator position with the Patriots to open a return to Rutgers.
There were many twists and turns in this one, as reports of a deal between the two parties went from being close to done, to breaking off, to a week or so going by before talks were revived and a deal was eventually reached. He agreed to a 8-year deal worth $32 million (average of $4 million annually).
The university's commitment to football that Schiano wanted to see in order to take the job was evident once he was able to make a few hires. Offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson was lured back to his home roots after one season as the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State and Rutgers made him the highest paid coordinator in program history. Temple co-defensive coordinator Fran Brown was also hired to coach the secondary, and Rutgers made him the highest paid assistant in program history.
Schiano's staff salary pool is $7.7 million and is set to increase 3% per year. Details of the assistant coaching salaries will be added when they become available.
On January 28th, Schiano announced the final member of his staff in Adam Scheier, the former Texas Tech special teams coordinator who spent last season as a special teams consultant at Mississippi State.