Rutgers football rumors: Brian Kelly floated as option to replace Greg Schiano if he’s fired appeared first on ClutchPoints. Add ClutchPoints as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Rutgers took a 37-30 victory on Saturday, their second win of the year. It was the first win over an FBS opponent for Greg Schiano’s squad, as the other victory was over Howard. With the bad season for Rutgers, Schiano is on the hot seat, and his second tenure at the school could be ending soon.
If Schiano is fired by Rutgers, there is the question of who would replace him, and Bruce Feldman of The Athletic has the answer.
“If Rutgers can split and go 5-7, is that really going to trigger a big financial move to make a change with the 60-year-old? His buyout is almost $20 million, which is quite a bit for Rutgers. How aggressive will new AD Keli Zinn be? Is former Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly a much more attractive option? Zinn worked with Kelly at LSU,” Feldman wrote.
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Schiano had a highly successful first tenure at Rutgers. The school had not been to a bowl game since 1978 and had just four winning seasons since 1980, when Schiano took over ahead of the 2001 season. Rutgers went 2-9 in 2001, and then 1-11 in 2002. Schiano and Rutgers went 12-34 in his first four years, but then it turned around. In his final seven seasons at the school, they had six winning seasons and went to six bowl games, winning five. They also finished ranked 12th in the AP Poll in 2006.
This tenure has not been at the same level. He has had just two winning seasons, but has made three bowl games. This year, they are 2-4 and opened the season with a loss to UMass, which was on a 16-game losing streak. They also had a loss to Boston College, which went 2-10 last season.
Brian Kelly was fired after a 5-3 start at LSU last season. Despite not making the playoffs at LSU, he won a lot more games than Rutgers has ever done. He went 34-14 in his tenure at LSU. He is 297-109-2 as a head coach, not including the 21 vacated wins from 2012 and 2013 at Notre Dame.
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