My apologies for my lack of clarity. Let me instead say this: based on the post-Rutgers employment history of every head coach RU has had after Frank Burns, I cannot imagine any head coach with any prospects risking his career taking this job if Schiano is fired. Chris Ash is unemployed. Graber didn't work for six years after being let go here. Dick Anderson, Terry Shea and Kyle Flood (so far) spent the rest of their careers bouncing around as assistants. My impression is most of the college football world figures this is a place only Schiano can make a go of.
Yes, historically coaches have struggled to find success in football at RU. But I suspect, with no way of proving it, that much of that was circumstantial and that most of those negative circumstances have changed.
One circumstance that greatly hindered the ability of coaches prior to GS to have a lot of success was the lack of funding for the football program. That also applies to the Flood and Ash eras. If a football program wants to win but can't regularly recruit 4 and 5 star players, then that program must have assistant coaches who are above average at player identification and player development. We didn't really give Flood or Ash much in the way of assistant coach hiring funds so they could go out and grab such great experienced assistants.
GS did more with less, assistant-wise, in his first stint. I think his biggest trick was scheduling as many cupcakes as he could so as to get to bowl games so as to raise the profile of the team so as to be better able to sell the program to some solid to great recruits. That was very smart (and it was very dumb of our fanbase to not realize the value in that and spend so much time whining about OOC quality as if we we needed that to get to the playoffs anytime soon - incidentally I was one of those dumb whiners back then, so shame on me).
That lack of coach funding circumstance has changed now. In this second GS stint, he has much more reasonable funding for assistants. And the school now has the funds to hire an experienced new head coach (like GS) versus hiring first timers (like Flood or Ash).
I also think the school has become more mature in how it leverages modern brand marketing to ensure that HS football players get sold on RUFB in ways that didn't really happen nearly as well back in the GS1, Flood and Ash days. Things had started to improve in the GS1 era, and throughout the Flood and Ash eras. But they have continued to improve and that helps more than I think people appreciate.
This is already a too-long post. But I think there are other circumstances that have changed for the positive with the RUFB program that will help to attract a quality HC who can then attract quality assistants.
We better hope that's I'm right about replacing Schiano not being that big a deal. If not, then what will RU do when Schiano tires of the immense daily struggle that is D1 head coaching in the Big Ten and leaves the program (my guess is that he'll either retire, or be fired, or maybe leave for the NFL in under 10 years)? Are we just gonna give up at that point and cancel the program?
