Why do some Rutgers fans act entitle? They mock Schiano, yet 99% of the fans have never experienced anything close what Schiano was able to accomplish. When you look at Schiano's BE record and his overall record you have to put it the proper context. Schiano's first half of his career at Rutgers was putting out the "Chicago" fire created by "O'Leary Cow" Shea. He then had to rebuild the program from the bottom up. Once, he started going bowling the perception of the team completely changed. You have to go back to Burns to find a coach who was regularly winning. There are better coaches out there then Schiano, but few mention them as candidates for the Rutgers job. Instead, they continue to take shots at Schiano. The truth is until Rutgers pony up money like the big boys, they will continue to fall short in the coaching ranks.
First off, I think Schiano would immediately improve fan enthusiasm, increase attendance, and improve recruiting - and that he'd be far and away better than what we have now.
But you can't say something like "put it in proper context" and then ignore the context.
Schiano played in two completely different Big East conferences during his time at Rutgers. He struggled mightily in one but built up our infrastructure and improved recruiting to be at least competitive.... and then he found success in the new iteration of the Big East that followed.
He did a great job building the Rutgers brand, found ways to improve our roster by taking second-tier guys out of Florida, gave us a defensive identity, and "primed the pump" as it were.... and then essentially won the lottery when the Big East of 2001-2004 essentially collapsed around him.
They say luck is just preparation meeting opportunity.... and that was absolutely true in Schiano's case. His preparation positioned Rutgers to capitalize on the upheaval of the conference and rise to the top. But if events totally outside Schiano's control never happened, then our rise would have similarly never happened.
Miami and VTech left and UConn was added in 2004... BC and Temple left and USF/Ville/Cincy were added in 2005.... Pitt lost Harris to Stanford and hired Wanny (2005)... Cuse fired Pasqualoni and hired Robinson, which let Rice/Greene fall into our lap (2005)... bowl eligibility rules were changed in 2005 to allow an FCS game every year instead of just once every four...
All of those things contributed to Rutgers turning the corner in 2005-2006, as much as Schiano's program building and schemes. Expecting Schiano to come in in 2020 and do what he did from 2001-2006 isn't realistic, because you can't bank on those other factors to open the door in a similar way.