Rutgers University has turned some heads lately with the quality recruits that have spurned bigger name programs to join the Scarlet Knights. Of course, that hasn’t always been the case.
You only have to go back as far as 2005 to find yourself in a time when most high-profile recruits would have repeated the infamous words first uttered by a Tennessee sportswriter in 1979 prior to the Volunteers game against the Knights: “What’s a Rutgers?”
By the way, the State University of New Jersey went on to win that game 13–7.
Desmond Scott, the second-rated all-purpose back in the country, became the latest big name to do his part in making sure that question is never asked again by declaring his intention to play for the Knights starting in the fall of 2009.
What baffled fans and experts alike in this case was that Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano plucked Scott from smack dab in the middle of ACC recruiting territory—a coup that would've been all but impossible a few short years ago.
It seems Schiano is determined to widen the boundaries of what he terms “the State of Rutgers.” What a difference a few short years have made.
The room that greeted Coach Schiano on that December day back in 2000, as he was introduced as the next sacrificial lamb to be led to the slaughter, as so many of his predecessors had been, had more empty seats than full. A smattering of reporters, mostly there by demand and not desire, applauded politely as he promised a day when Rutgers football would be competitive in the Big East.
The applause turned to chuckles as he talked of Bowl Championships and, gasp—National Championships. “Perhaps the fumes from the refineries had gotten to him as he traveled up the New Jersey Turnpike,” some thought.
Whatever the catalyst—the aforementioned fumes, or perhaps the knowledge of how to wake a “sleeping giant,” as Rutgers had been referred to many times in the past—it seems Greg Schiano has found the secret to reviving football fortunes on the banks of the ol' Raritan.
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