Ohio State will be staring into some familiar sets of eyes against Rutgers on Saturday, and not just because the Buckeyes have played the Scarlet Knights every season since 2014.
Greg Schiano is entering Game 3 of his second stint as head coach at Rutgers, but he spent more time over the past decade at Ohio State, where he spent the 2016 through 2018 seasons becoming quite familiar with the current coaching staff and team roster in Columbus.
Urban Meyer may have hired Schiano at Ohio State, but the former Buckeye defensive coordinator said Monday he developed a strong relationship with Ryan Day in two seasons as a fellow assistant coach.
“Ryan’s a standup guy, he’s an excellent coach,” Schiano said. “I actually know that before he got there, but when Urban told me he was gonna hire him, I said, ‘Man, that’s gonna be a great hire.’ And sure enough, you could tell the day he got there he’s a rising star."
Schiano was complimentary of what Day has done to “put his own stamp” on the program while keeping many things unchanged.
However, Schiano said Meyer’s impact on the conference as a whole is still felt today, and that he was happy to have contributed to that for the period of time that he did.
“What Urban did not only for Ohio State, but I feel for the whole Big Ten. I mean, he took that job in 2012, the Big Ten was not doing what it’s doing now,” Schiano said. “I give a lot of credit to Urban. He set the bar at a different level in recruiting in the Big Ten. I think that continued on, and I got to be a part of that for three years. Three great years.”
Schiano was far from a slouch in the recruiting department in his own right during his tenure at Ohio State. In fact, he was integral in landing many of the 2020 Buckeyes’ key contributors.
Schiano is credited as the primary recruiter for players like starting right tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere, safety Josh Proctor, defensive end Tyler Friday, tight end Jeremy Ruckert and a host of others.
However, Schiano shied away from taking all that much credit on Monday.
“Everything is team recruiting these days, so to say one guy recruited them, that would be inappropriate,” Schiano said. “But I was involved in the recruitment of a lot of these players, and they’re really good players and equally good people.”
But those ties have also helped Schiano land a key piece of his new-look Scarlet Knight roster, as 2019 Rose Bowl MVP Brendon White transferred out of Ohio State and into Schiano’s program last winter.
In his second year on the field with the Buckeyes, White recorded 46 total tackles as a safety in the Ohio State secondary, and figured to be a leading candidate in the defense’s new Bullet position in 2019.
However, his playing time was limited almost from the get-go, and by December, White’s name was in the transfer portal.
“I certainly had a great relationship with him at Ohio State,” Schiano said. “At the beginning, it was a lot of tough love, and then he really came on the latter part of ‘18. When things didn’t work out there for him, I certainly was really pleased that he chose to come join us. So he’s an integral part of our program.”
Now two games into his Rutgers career, White has already recorded an interception and a career-second-best 10-tackle performance.
“I think Brendon’s doing a tremendous job. From the day he got here, he was a leader on our football team,” Schiano said. “He works extremely hard, he’s extremely focused on being the best player he can be and helping others around him be that, and then I think he’s played well on the field the last two weeks.”
Rutgers won’t make a worst-to-first transition in Schiano’s first season back, but the Scarlet Knights already have an upset win against Michigan State under their belt, and Day said on 97.1 The Fan Monday that he knows with Schiano at the helm, this won’t be the same team his Buckeyes played a year ago.
