CBS Sports Radio: Rutgers football is ‘closer to being a bowl program now than they were when Schiano took over three years ago’

“This was a big rebuild that Greg Schiano took over and for those who remember about 20 years ago, he took over a very similar Rutgers program and it took about four years till when you begin to see things kind of shift and turn a little bit in terms of the rebuilding project,” Dyer said on Sunday morning in his conversation with Dave Smith.

“And then in 2005. his fourth season, they went off to Arizona, they played in the Insight Bowl against Arizona State and narrowly lost that game and then the next year was the ‘Pandemonium in Piscataway’ season when they knocked off Louisville, they finished top 25 in the nation and kind of had that run of bowl games where in the next six years that they made five bowl appearances – winning them all. And  (they)became somewhat of a pipeline of defensive backs and offensive linemen to the NFL, and particularly the New England Patriots.

“It became a more established program. So this is the point now for Schiano -this is year four (but) really you’re at (year) three since his first season was the pandemic season.

“But they’re starting to refill that pipeline. They’re starting to get more talent into the roster. It was a pretty extensive rebuild given the state of the program where they were as the program that Greg Schiano inherited but I think an exciting Rutgers is good for theBig Ten. It gets the New York City market buzzing.”

“Their first year in the Big Ten – 2014 – they were 8-5. Almost beat Penn State, won a bowl game – beat North Carolina. So the potential is there for them to not necessarily be the laughingstock program that I think people very often knee-jerk think of when they think of Rutgers. But I think things are headed in the right direction and they’re closer to being a bowl program now than they were when Schiano took over three years ago.”