New Jersey ...
beloved home state of Bruce Springsteen, wellspring of sluts, guidos and toxic waste, eternal butt of all manner of jokes. While Jersey will remain a source of humor on several fronts, you can no longer mock their college football offerings. That's because Rutgers yes, that souped-up junior college in New Brunswick has emerged as a genuine college-football powerhouse.
Rutgers may have topped Princeton in the first college football game ever played way back in 1869, but there's been a heapin' help of prevailing lousiness ever since then. At least until Greg Schiano came to town. Schiano has his Scarlet Knights at 9-0 this season and ranked sixth in , and they're coming off perhaps the biggest win in school history.
Yes, when Schiano's troops pulled off the recent 28-25 upset of Louisville, they joined the sport's elite. Seeing Rutgers among names like Ohio State, Michigan, USC, Florida and Notre Dame is a bit like seeing K-Fed jamming with the Stones, but in Rutger's case their status has been earned. So for working miracle after miracle in New Brunswick, we call Coach Greg Schiano the Man for this week.
The 40-year-old Jersey native has, of course, rebuilt the Rutgers program in a big way. Way back when, though, he was a star linebacker at Bucknell. Schiano didn't quite have the chops for the NFL, so he promptly turned to coaching.
After one season in the high school ranks, he landed at Rutgers as a grad assistant. Then it was on to Penn State, where he coached DBs, and the it was on to the Chicago Bears, where he filled the same role. After that, Schiano accepted a job as the University of Miami's defensive coordinator.
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