Ohio State Buckeyes

Former Rutgers, Bucs coach Greg Schiano to become Ohio State defensive coordinator

Published Dec. 11, 2015 2:55 p.m. ET

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Bruce Feldman

Ohio State announced Friday that former Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano will become the Buckeyes’ new defensive coordinator, pending approval by the school's board of trustees.

A source previously confirmed the hire to FOX Sports. 

OSU says Schiano will coordinate the Buckeyes' defense with Luke Fickell.

Schiano's experience as a secondary coach in addition to recruiting will be a big plus for the Buckeyes as Urban Meyer looks to replace Chris Ash, who coincidentally accepted the Rutgers head-coaching job earlier this week.

The 49-year-old Schiano spent two seasons as Miami's DC under Butch Davis before going home to New Jersey, where he took an awful Rutgers program and made it a perennial bowl team. From 2001-11, the Scarlet Knights went 68-67 under Schiano, going to bowl games in six of their last seven seasons.

Schiano has been out of coaching the past two seasons since being fired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He spent two seasons as head coach of the Bucs, going 11-21. He also spent three seasons as an assistant with the Chicago Bears and five years working for Joe Paterno at Penn State.

Schiano does have a rep as a micromanager, but he also consistently produced some of the highest academic-achieving programs in college football. He proved to be a shrewd evaluator and developer of talent at Rutgers, where many of his players have turned into solid NFL talent. He always worked hard to maintain and build a strong presence in the state of Florida. In 2006, Schiano won National Coach of the Year honors. His career record in bowls is 5-1.

"[Schiano] is someone I have known for quite some time now and someone who is going to align with our staff extremely well," Meyer said in a statement.

Schiano was in the mix for recent head coaching vacancies filled at Miami, Southern California and South Carolina.

At Rutgers, Schiano took over a program that was at the bottom of the Big East and barely competitive with the rest of major college football. It was a slow climb at Rutgers for Schiano. The Scarlet Knights won three games in his first two seasons, then nine total in the next two. Rutgers went 7-5 in 2005 and went to a bowl game for the first time since 1978.

The next year Rutgers went 11-1 and finished the season ranked No. 12 in the country. He had opportunities to leave for other schools, and was pursued by Miami and Michigan, but he did not leave until the NFL came calling after the 2011 season.

The Buccaneers went 7-9 in his first season and slid to 4-12 in 2013. The team had issues on the field and off, with players complaining about Schiano's unrelenting discipline and micromanagement.

Now he returns to college, with one of the country's elite programs. Ohio State is 49-4 in four seasons under Meyer.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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