So, um, there's a ... basketball game tomorrow. You remember college basketball, right Rutgers fans? Ball in hoop, 2 or 3 points?

I know it's been a weird week, but yeah, the Scarlet Knights take on the Bearcats tomorrow in a very important game. After losing to .... DePaul... Rutgers takes on a team that has been the best Big East road team over the past two years.

Keys and some thoughts after the jump....

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Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti's rolodex can rival any other figure in college sports due to his lengthy stints at ABC Sports and CSTV/CBS Sports. After the past twenty four hours, you never know, theoretically he could be this close to being named the next head of NBC Sports. For now, Pernetti's the man in charge though, deputized as a member of the coaching staff to help keep a waivering recruiting class in the fold. As such, there is a ton of pressure to act quickly. Rutgers has a top class, and was widely seen as a favorite to sign local star Darius Hamilton. Getting a new guy in place quick would be ideal, but the search also cannot be rushed. That is a tricky balancing act, but what other options are there?

Let's at least make the following assumptions:

1. Rutgers is not going to lure a coach from most top tier college programs. Budget will be an issue, obviously (TP's track record suggests flirting with a big name, before landing a lesser guy with a bit more substance), although not to the extent that erroneous reporting about athletic department finances would suggest.

2. Rutgers wants to win, but not at all costs. The new hire will have to have a commitment to top academics and keeping players out of trouble.

3. Rutgers won't land the next Joe Paterno, but presumably they will try to go after another ten-year coach. This isn't a fly-by-night athletic department like Cincinnati, who build into their business model the assumption that whoever they hire will quickly move on. So basically, they're not going to jump on the biggest mid-major name out there, only for him to turn out to be Todd Graham in a year.

4. The next hire will have ties to the region, or the school (aka, the Mario Cristobal exception.) So, it most likely won't be Gus Malzahn/Kirby Smart/Chad Morris/Brent Venables, etc.... This isn't brain surgery. The next coach will have spent a considerable portion of his life in the area east of Pittsburgh, and north of Washington D.C. That's hardly over-the-top parochialism. After Terry Shea's disastrous tenure in the late 90s (where an inept mid-major coach from California came in, and drove a mediocre program off a cliff), Rutgers will never again take the chance again on a complete outsider. They could hire a Frank Cignetti from Pittsburgh, or a James Franklin from Maryland; but they're not going after the next big coach in the Mountain West. Not going to happen. Yes, Doug Graber was halfway decent at Rutgers, and he was from Michigan. The right outsider, who comes in humble and willing to listen, could well succeed. They just are not going to take that chance again any time soon.

With that being said...

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The first reaction

If there was one coach in college football who even had a snowball's chance in hell of lasting as long in one place as Joe Paterno, it was one of his coaching progeny in Greg Schiano. Given the age of coaches like Frank Beamer and Mack Brown, Greg Schiano was the only bowl subdivision coach in America to have a decade-plus tenure at his current job, and to still be in his forties. Greg Schiano is a good man, and an honest man, one of the few left in the sport, but he was not Paterno. He (thankfully) did not follow his mentor to Happy Valley, and really, who could blame him? Schiano built his own legacy in Piscataway, and another college job clearly would not be enough to draw him away after he spurned the likes of Michigan and Miami. The NFL? Now that's a different story.

Kids in Bergen County in the seventies didn't grow up dreaming about the Nittany Lions. They grew up with the Jets and Giants, and naturally, that mindset was enough to lure Schiano to the NFL. The biggest stage in the world and a gigantic paycheck tend to do that. Listen, it sucks. Everything was going our way over the past few months, and that magical run of good fortune finally ran out. You can't blame the guy in that respect. You only wish it wasn't this close to Signing Day. Not after Signing Day; Schiano wouldn't do that to a recruit, to promise them the world and then leave them in a lurch. It's going to be hell for the football program to pull everything together with that crucial deadline right around the corner, but it would have been far worse, almost Edsall-ian, to directly screw over the kids by lying to their faces. Greg Schiano is leaving, but at least he can hold his head up high.

Seriously, why would the NFL want him?

It's weird. A few weeks back, when Peter King started talking about those Miami rumors, they seemed completely out of left field. Greg Schiano turned in the same 8-4 season he always turned in. The only difference from last year was that the offensive coordinator was at least halfway competent. Schiano is by no means a bad coach, but he has distinct pluses and minuses. He's a great defensive coordinator, obviously. He's a great program builder, and a very good recruiter. With all of that put together, he could have had a lifetime contract at Rutgers. Clearly though, there were minuses too. His teams consistently were mired in mediocrity in the Big East. One or two games a year, they just wouldn't show up. When you think of college coaches built for the NFL, you think a Kirk Ferentz, a Randy Edsall - guys who win with elite scheming, scouting, or talent development.

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In the postgame radio interview, Mike Rice said Rutgers blinked, then curled up and went away. Other fans used the phrase choke. Basically, the Scarlet Knights blew it to a team that was 1-6 in the Big East. The Knights fell to 3-5 in the Big East after blowing an 11 point second half lead.

Not much good happened here tonight, but there'll be more info after the jump....

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