After one of the more impressive builds in college football, Greg Schiano left the familiar confines of New Jersey in 2012 for the opportunity to become an NFL head coach.
Reflecting back on it there were a number of factors that weighed into that move, but one lesson shines brighter than all the others.
It's an important lesson he shares annually with his players.
In a candid conversation with Adam Breneman, Schiano opened up about the lesson he learned when he left Piscataway after an impressive 9-4 season for the Tampa Bay Bucs back in 2012.
Schiano shares that he had spent his entire initial tenure with Rutgers trying to get them into the Big Ten, but that idea always seemed to get swatted down. As the Big East fell apart, from a football perspective, things began to change for him.
As the realignment picture for the football schools of the former Big East began to clear up, Schiano wasn't excited about a transition to the American Athletic Conference
"I had turned down a lot of really, historically 'great' jobs to stay here, but then our league fell apart. No disrespect to The American Conference, because I think they play great football, but after 11 years [with the program] that is not the level that I wanted to be at, I wanted to be at the Power Five level."
He didn't know it at the time, but the Scarlet Knights (along with Louisville) would spend just one year in the new league before Rutgers ended up in the Big Ten and Louisville moved to the ACC.
Despite having a historic top ten recruiting class on tap, there was a level of uncertainty regarding their future league home that made Schiano uncomfortable about being able to compete at the level he expected to consistently compete at.
Schiano shares that he repeatedly told the recruiting class, as well as Rutgers players, that he wasn't leaving for another college job like Penn State and believed he was going to be at Rutgers for the rest of his career.
"I couldn't go to another college. As this thing fell apart, quite honestly, I got concerned."
"I couldn't look the kids in the eye and go to another school. The only other choice I had was the NFL, and luckily they came calling."
"So I learned a valuable lesson, and I share it with the players every year - I ran from something, I didn't run to something."
"The National Football League was the only thing I was not prepared for. I never prepared to be a head coach in the NFL. It just came to me and I took it because I was afraid to be here. So I ran from this."
Schaino goes on to reflect on the emotional day he got the call that Rutgers had been invited to the Big Ten.
"I'll never forget the day that I got the call. I was sitting in my office in Tampa, with palm trees blowing outside my window, and most people would say 'It doesn't get better than that,' but they called me from Rutgers and said they'd just been invited to the Big Ten."
"I did my best to be excited for them, but I hung up the phone and literally started crying because that's what I had dreamt of. I had dreamt of Rutgers being a part of the Big Ten, but the only part of the dream that was missing was I wasn't the head coach there."
Breneman has an hour-long conversation with Schiano spanning a variety of subjects from his time at Ohio State, why landing back at Rutgers had to be some kind of divine intervention, how they use analytics, and so much more. Give it a listen.