 Here he is, the new former and new head coach of the Rutgers football team, Greg Shiano. Greg, it's Michael Donham. Peter, congratulations. Thanks guys, I really appreciate it. What does it mean to you? I mean, you're from New Jersey, you did so much with this program. Previously, coming back, I said earlier, you're the Billy Martin now of Rutgers, so what does it feel like? Well, that's lofty praise, but I'm really thrilled. I'm really thrilled I am. Life has a funny way of throwing curveballs at you. In the last eight years, there's been a lot of good. There's also been some tough things and to be able to come back home, and I don't wanna say finish what we started because it's a different job, it's a different landscape. Heck, everything's different in this world, but it's a new job and I really am excited that I believe with all my heart I wouldn't have taken the job that we can do really, really neat things here. Now, we're playing in a tough league, I know all that, and that makes it challenging and fun for me, but we have an incredible group of football players in our location, and what we need to do is figure out, as we did last time, how to keep them home, how to develop them, and then eventually you get to be a pretty done good team. And as much as the league is much tougher than the Big East was when you were here, doesn't that help in recruiting though, coach? It frustrates me as a kid from New Jersey. I grew up in Hawthorne and now I live near Rutgers and I care about the university and its success and it irritates me when I watch games around the nation and see so many kids from New Jersey playing around the country and not here. Does being in the Big Ten, is that gonna help you recruit a better job than when you were in the Big East? Well, it's certainly a historically an incredible conference, right? The tradition and the Big Ten East is, in my opinion, the best football conference in America, at least division-wise. But you gotta remember even back in the Big East now, in 2006, we had the sixth rated team, the eighth rated team and the 12th rated team at the end of the season. Not a lot of leagues have been able to do that before or since, right? And when they do, it's usually the Big Ten of the SEC. So at that point at that stretch, we're playing some really good football in that league. So I know that we can do this again and the goal is, though, to do more than that. You know, when we came here, we set out and people laughed their tails off when I stood up in 2000 and said, we're gonna win national championships at Rutgers and we didn't get there. We got as high as seven at one point but we never reached number one. That's my goal. I don't do anything in life that isn't to be the very best. So we'll see. We got great players in this area. We're gonna hire a great staff and the thing that doesn't change in our sport, at least, is football is an unselfish sport. You need to find guys that are willing to really sacrifice for the guy next to them. And if you can get a bunch of coaches and players that believe that, the growth is expectantial and we're expecting that. Now, this will be a tough one you answer because you don't wanna disparage anybody that came before you, but what happened? Why haven't they been able, they have not been able to compete coach, essentially, in the Big Ten. What happened? Well, you're right. That is a great question. Sometimes things are in your control, sometimes they're out of your control. It doesn't matter because it affects the program either way. There were some things that occurred over the last eight years that had a hard effect on the team, had a hard effect on the program. So what we need to do is make sure that those mistakes stop and in addition to that, we start doing things better and better. Like what were those mistakes? I think there were all kinds of, when you're a part of a university, it's not like an NFL team. When you're an NFL team, your NFL team, that's it. That's the entity. When you're a university, it's not just your football team, but it's an entire athletic department. And when you have some issues and everybody takes a hit and if you don't recruit quite as well and then you lose a kid here or there, it's a fine, fine line between turn in the corner and not turn in the corner. And you never know. It could be the last kid you take. We took a kid by the name of Ronnie Girolt at a St. Joe's High School in Montville and we took him at 3.30 on signing day morning because a kid passed on us and we had a scholarship left. Ronnie Girolt ended up starting every game he played here. Now how'd that kid from Florida take him? Who knows what he would have become, but I know what, we were not at a 48 game starter. So those are the things that you have to just turn over every rock. You have to go and follow every lead. You have to develop guys constantly. 24-7, developing as people, developing as players, in the weight room, all that. When you do all that, then you have a chance. Nothing more than that, but you have a chance. Now you went to Tampa in Ohio State since the last time you were here. How were you a better coach than you were in 2011? Well, I think being a head coach in the national football league certainly exposes you to a lot of different things. I learned a lot of things. Quite honestly, I was humbled in certain areas. But I had another thing that really changed my outlook on college football, on coaching, on how you approach and handle your players. I had three sons get recruited and all play college football. And it's incredible, it doesn't matter what level. It's incredible the pressure these kids have on them. It's incredible, all we get to see as fans is what happens on Saturday afternoon or Saturday evening. But these kids go and they get hit in the head, and they're not feeling so good. Well, they still gotta go to English class and they still gotta do their homework at night. And I'm talking to my sons on the phone, you know, I hurt my ankle today. It's killing me. Yeah, but they still gotta go take care of business. They gotta do their schoolwork. They gotta get up broke. All that stuff adds up on kids. And then you throw on top of it social media. And we really, really gotta help these kids because there's a lot of pressure on them and they're not always equipped to handle that pressure. So I think that's gonna be the biggest difference for me is I think I can be a better aid and assistance to them in other areas than just football and academics, but their overall life. What's wrong with Greg? It's John, a new coach of Rutgers. Greg, were you moved by the reaction of fans, politicians, former players when the talks broke down last week? It was amazing, the people that stepped up and just shouted out to the sky that Rutgers was wrong. You have to reignite this and make this happen. What did that mean to you? You know, it was really cool. I gotta tell you, and I'm not like a big nostalgic person, but it really made me stop and think. Like, you know what? We actually did do something pretty cool. And I started to think about, you know, some of those Thursday night games where it was a who's who in New York City on our sideline, whether it was Yankees, Mets or Giants. And that's what we gotta get back to, right? That's what we aim for. And what those fans did was powerful. And I think it shows everyone that the power that the fan base can have. Now we have to harness that energy. And as I said today in the press conference, and I said later to a bunch of supporters and boosters, everybody can contribute to the program in a different way. Some people can write big checks. Some people can be at the Scarlet Walk to make sure those kids feel your support. Some people can buy tickets, so the stadium's packed. You know, some people can give us calls and say, hey, I saw this great high school player. You might not know about way out here on the Eastern tip of Long Island where a lot of people don't get out to. Things like that are true life scenarios. And if everybody who cares about having big time football in the New Jersey, New York metropolitan area, everybody can help in some way. They just have to make a decision that they care enough to help. If we can do that, if we can do that, there's no stopping us. This area's full of players. It's got all the things that anybody would want. We're just going to give these kids a reason to stay. Now, my son's five and Don's son is two. Can we count on us colleges or Rutgers? Yeah, great point. That would make it 2031 and probably 2036, right? So I'm just in the courting system, and we'll start mailing them as we speak. Now, I asked you about how moved you were at the support. Now, on the flip side, a lot of people, and I disagree with this, this is the big 10 we're talking about. A guy like Chris Christie comes out and says, he's asking for too much money. How dare he? He want all these things. No football coach should have that. What are your thoughts when people say that? When you look at other people in the big 10, other coaches in the big 10, that will make twice as much as what you make. And was it awkward to go back to them and be like, hey, guys, got to get paid a different rate this time? Yeah. I'll tell you what, it was really interesting because at the end of the day, everybody wanted the same thing. When Rutgers decided to, they were invited and decided to accept the invitation into the big 10, the train left the station. But up until now, it wasn't an all-in commitment. And I can tell you that I was not going to come back unless there was a commitment that would give us the chance to be successful. And Rutgers has made that commitment, whether it's in staff pool salaries, whether it's in facilities, whether it's in travel for recruiting, they've made the decision that we're going to be a legitimate big time, big 10 football program. And that is the step. Now, they've entrusted it to me as the head coach. I need to make sure that we're prudent with that, that we don't waste money, but there's a cost to doing business when you're in the big 10. But the payoff is gonna be extreme. It's an investment. But that investment, we saw the dividends it paid back in 2006 and 2007 with joining a state, taking an area, making college football important in New York. It never happened before, right? So we got to get back to there and then we got to go past it. And that's what this investment's gonna do. But we got a lot of work ahead of us and we need everyone's help. Is there a timetable for all this to happen? Well, the timetable is yesterday, right? No, that's the world we live in. But we're gonna do things the right way. We're not gonna take shortcuts. We're gonna make sure it gets done right so it lasts. And at the stage of my career now, where I've done a lot of things, hopefully my experience will help us shorten the time it takes to get there. Hopefully the some things that have come about by NCAA rules like the NCAA transfer portal where players have more flexibility to move around where you can get a player that maybe is stockpiled at one other school, he can come in and help you immediately. Those are things that I think will allow us to do it a little more quickly than it was in the first time we did it. But at the end of the day, it still comes down to great coaches connecting with great players and everybody giving it up for each other, being unselfish, loving one another and going out and doing something that's not natural. The game of football is not natural, right? You know, as a family technique, you don't put on a hardshell helmet and start hitting into each other. It just doesn't work like that. So it's a tough sport that you gotta be in it for all the right reasons and you gotta be doing it for your teammates. Those are the kind of young men we're looking for and we found them before, we'll find them again. And one of the guys that you found was with us about three weeks ago, he loves you and that's Eric LeGrand and he's been talking you up and that's you're the guy that could turn the program around and I'm sure you know what a booster you have in Eric LeGrand. Now, he's like a fifth child to me. I mean, that guy is special beyond belief and anyone who knows him knows that, right? Yeah. It's amazing when people go to visit or Eric comes to visit you, you know, you're worried about him. The next thing you know, he's making you feel good. He's got a, you know, he's been blessed with a special, special character and you know, I consider it just a huge, huge benefit to have him in my life and I can't say enough good about him. Now, I can't let you go without asking because Johnny and fans care about this. For two years you coached Chase Young. How good is he? Oh, he's off the charts. Would he translate to the NFL? Great. Yeah, he's got all the tools to be as good a player as he wants to be and I'll tell you, you just watch him. I mean, that will be a guy, you know, and you see what Nick Bows has done. Well, this is gonna be another guy who's gonna have immediate impact in national football week. Yeah. Well, Greg, just quickly because we have that drop about me at Chipsie Pond and Clixie's. Yeah. Greg Shiana would know a lot about Clixie's. If you ever, you were at Clixie's, you grew up in White Coffee, do you know what Clixie's is? Everybody knows what Clixie's is. The thing you better be aware of is when you have Clixie's, you better not wanna have to go out on a date afterwards for about a day and a half, okay? Yeah. Those onions will get you every time. But when my dad was alive, he always wanted me to take him to Clixie's and so we joke around about Clixie's. I'm like, you know what, here's somebody that can back me up on Clixie's. But did you drink? Fortunately, he's no longer there. Now, Don says he used to drink Bud Nips by Chipsie Pond. Did you do that too? Well, I have to say, now my players aren't gonna hear that, but an eight pack of nips was not a bad thing. I thought it was. Greg, you know what? We never get a chance to talk college football here. You have supporters here. We hope you do great. And if you ever need anything from us and you wanna come on the show, you're always welcome. I really appreciate that, guys. And I'm gonna take you up on that because we need to get the word out there and we need to get people really excited about it and contributing. Well, and no pressure, but I really think that this team and this run you're having is a real opportunity for college football to change in the tri-state. Yeah, absolutely. Well, there's no doubt and it's going to. So thanks for having me on, man. Good luck. Merry Christmas. Thank you, you too. All right, you got it.