Updated as Rutgers Football hires Sean Gleeson as offensive coordinator

Update: Rutgers announced the hiring of Gleeson on Saturday. Here is what head coach Greg Schiano said regarding his new offensive coordinator.

“Sean is one of the brightest young offensive minds in college football and we are happy to welcome him and his family to Rutgers,” Schiano said. “He has worked his way up the ranks with a history of developing quarterbacks and highly productive offensive schemes. Sean has shown an ability to devise game plans each week that are adaptable and capitalize on what would bring success against a given opponent. This is an exciting hire for our program and having another New Jersey guy come home to represent his state is special.”

Original Story:

It appears another Jersey guy is coming home. First reported by Yahoo Sports’ Pete Thamel, Gleeson is expected to be named Offensive Coordinator / Quarterbacks coach on Schiano’s staff. The official announcement and timing came after Oklahoma State lost a dogfight to Texas A&M in the Texas Bowl last week.

Gleeson went to high school at Glen Ridge (a few years after Tom Cruise) and after a year at Trinity-Pawling School, played quarterback at Williams College. He led the league in passer rating as a junior and then a NESCAC title as a senior.

Following his college career, Sean coached football, baseball, and bowling from what I understand at Delbarton before becoming the offensive coordinator at Fairleigh Dickinson-Florham (formerly known as FDU-Madison). Likely on the strength of a good word from FDU coach Brian Surace, Gleeson joined Brian’s brother Bob Surace on the Princeton coaching staff in 2013. Sean coached running backs for four seasons before becoming the the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Things went so well that by his second year as OC, Princeton went undefeated and set an Ivy League record for points in a season.

As a result of his success at Princeton, Gleeson earned a Big 12 offensive coordinator job at Oklahoma State. The Cowboys went 8-5 this year, ranked 25th in the country after the final regular season poll. Their offense was 36th in the country in scoring and 17th in rushing offense. Note that his offense in Stillwater was more geared toward the run than his previous stops based on the personnel he had available.

This is a good hire for the first year of a new coaching staff. Adding an offensive coordinator with Power Five experience, local ties, and a level of success everywhere he has been is not something we have had in the OC merry-go-round for the last ten years. What came as a bonus when reviewing his resume, is how well Oklahoma State ran the ball in 2019 since Gleeson is coming to a team that is much closer to being an average run attack than passing one. He will benefit from Nunzio Campanile being retained on the staff as to what did and did not work with the team’s current personnel. I don’t expect miracles, but have confidence Gleeson will be able to scheme something if RU can get passable offensive line play in 2020.

Gleeson joins Schiano, Nunzio Campanile, Fran Brown, Tiquan Underwood, and Jim Panagos, as the coaches officially confirmed for 2020 on field staff. Bob Fraser is also expected after the New England Patriots conclude their season.

Welcome to the banks Sean!

Any additional developments and a more detailed breakdown of how Gleeson ran the ball at Oklahoma State will follow in subsequent posts.