Rutgers Coaching Staff Midseason Report Card

Note: The grade is either an A, A+, B, B+, and so on... no minuses

Head Coach Kyle Flood | F

Simply put, it hasn't been a good year for Kyle Flood. The e-mail scandal is enough to give him a failing grade but in the games he was allowed to coach, he showed complete disregard for competent clock management. On the surface, it seemed like he did a great job with the clock against Indiana. However, the ball was spiked when Rutgers had extra timeouts, and Flood called his final timeout with 5 seconds left. It was 4th down so there was no reason to leave any time on the clock. He is very lucky that the clock ticked out considering most field goals only take up 4 seconds. Furthermore, when you look at what Flood has done this year, it is not very impressive. He let the team down in major ways and that is why he deserves an F.

Offensive Coordinator Ben McDaniels | C+

McDaniels is that student who failed the first test but still has plenty of time to bring his grade up, with an extra credit opportunity at a possible bowl game. My biggest complaint is that he was too conservative, especially against Washington State. There have been formations and plays that Rutgers ran against Michigan State that were never run against Washington State, a game Rutgers obviously should've won. McDaniels was probably an F up until Michigan State, when we saw the offense unveiled some new and effective looks. He also gets some slack for not having Leonte Carroo for 2 games.

Defensive Coordinator Joe Rossi | C

Of all Rutgers coaches, Rossi has angered me the most. Against Washington State, he ran about 2 plays. There were no blitzes or anything unorthodox to try to mess with Luke Falk's rhythm. Wazzu ran about 15 bubble screens, and Rossi refused to press the corners and put them in man coverage. It is soooooo easy for an offense to run quick pass plays like that when the corners are 7 yards off the line with their backs to the sideline. However, he gets a lot of slack due to all of the personnel he lost as well as Darius Hamilton.

Special Team Coordinator Phil Galiano | B

One one hand, Rutgers has 4 special teams touchdowns, which is very impressive. On the other hand, Galiano has been too stubborn with the kickoff specialist position. Chris Gough has been terrible, to put it nicely. All of kicks are line drives, and very rarely do they come close to the endzone. Way too many of them have gone out of bounds and haven't been close. Rutgers can do better than that and at the end of the day, that falls on Galiano's shoulders. In addition, the tight ends have gone ghost the past two games, also one of Galiano's responsibilities.

Recruiting Coordinator EJ Barthel | A

Let's be clear, Barthel's job is not to get kids to commit, as that falls on Kyle Flood's shoulders. Barthel does his job as well as Rutgers could imagine. Barthel has great connections and puts them to use. He always gets big names on campus, most notedly Rashan Gary during the Michigan State game. Expect another great turnout for the Ohio State game. Barthel has been working especially hard on 2017 kids such as 5-star Isaiah Wilson and 4-star Fred Hansard. In terms of his job, he has been outstanding.

Norries Wilson | A++++

See here