Greg Schiano rebuilt the Rutgers program once, and in his second stint leading the program he has every intention of doing it again.
After making a change at offensive coordinator heading into this fall, parting ways with Sean Gleeson before bringing in veteran offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca, the Scarlet Knights have started this season 2-0 with wins over Big Ten foe Northwestern as well at Temple.
Heading into year four of his second stint in Piscataway with just one bowl trip since his return, Schiano is focused on three key areas during the continued rebuild, Urban Meyer recently pointed out on Big Ten Network.
"His whole focus is on finding that edge - what is that edge?" Urban asks before adding that while he was at Ohio State it was the ability to go get the best players in the country.
Urban then went into detail on the three areas of focus Schiano and his staff have.
"Number one is the ball, which is the most important thing in football. If they take care of the ball - in his mind and his players mind - they wont lose. Right now they are +2 in turnover ratio, and they're 2-0."
"The second one is swarm. They want to out-effort everybody. He feels that they will not go into a game this year where the team on the other sideline will outplay them. You watch them play right now, and there is effort all over the place."
"He considers himself the ball coach, the swarm coach, and then there's number three, the chop coach. That has been around Rutgers for quite some time, and that's Greg's word that he uses. But chop means this - he trains his players to focus on the moment."
"In the game of football, one of the worst things you can do is get caught think about something that happened before, like a turnover or a mistake. That paralyzes a player. The second thing you don't want them to do is worrying about the future, or what is happening next, or why am I not getting the ball. Live in the moment. Play as hard as you possibly can in that moment, and that's their edge."
Fellow host Gerry Dinardo goes on to share that a lot of other coaches do the same type of things, but what separates Schiano is that he is a "fanatic" about it.