Greg Schiano will be back at Rutgers in 2027

The news broke a little before 11am ET on Tuesday, and once the national insiders had it, it was settled.

Pete Thamel

@PeteThamel

Sources: Rutgers coach Greg Schiano will return to coach the Scarlet Knights in 2027. It will be his 19th season as head coach at the school, which have come over two stints. Rutgers is 2-7 and amid back-to-back losing seasons. Schiano has the most wins (101) in school history.

Next season will be Schiano's 19th as the Scarlet Knights' head coach, and the 8th of his second stint in Piscataway. He's the winningest coach in school history with 101 wins. He's also coaching a team that's 2-7 and 1-5 in the Big Ten, on its way to a 2nd straight losing season. Thamel reported that the decision came out of meetings with Zinn where Schiano laid out a plan to get better next year. His contract runs through 2029, and firing him now would have cost $18.6 million.

That number did most of the talking for the rest of the day. Once you add the staff, the total gets a lot uglier, and the beat writers didn't bother pretending this was mainly a football decision.

Brian Fonseca

@briannnnf

Rutgers would have owed Greg Schiano and his staff roughly $28 million over the next three years if they were fired after this season (subject to offset/mitigation). Evidently, it was too much money to overcome for an athletic department in a half-billion dollar deficit.

Brian Fonseca

@briannnnf

BREAKING: Greg Schiano is returning to Rutgers for the 2027 season, multiple sources tell @njdotcom. An official announcement is expected Tuesday. t.co/b7NNzW6Nnc

Around 30 minutes later, Zinn put out her statement, and she clearly knew how the move would land. She called the results "not acceptable" and insisted that keeping Schiano is "not reflective of a lowering of standards or an indication that everything is fine. It is not." Her case was that bringing him back is in the program's best long-term interests, and that he has an offseason to strengthen the roster and make changes.

Nicole Auerbach

@NicoleAuerbach

Rutgers AD Keli Zinn announces that Greg Schiano will return as the Rutgers head coach for the 2027 season:

Fair enough. But no statement can make 2-7 sound like a plan. A department deep in the red looked at an 8-figure buyout and decided to run it back. That's the real decision, and plenty of people said it in fewer words than Zinn used.

By early afternoon, Schiano was taking questions himself, and he didn't go for the 'we're close' routine. He said he hadn't evolved quickly enough with the times, which is a lot of self-awareness for a 60-something coach who built this program twice.

Rutgers Scarlet Knights | The Knight Report

@RutgersOn3

Rutgers Football HC Greg Schiano spoke for the first time since the announcement of his return in 2027. “I haven't evolved quickly enough with the times, so we need to do that, and I'm ready to do that.” STORY: t.co/zakWQSR7cp

He also said Rutgers is 'not a million miles away,' and that's the line he'll be judged against. It's a hard sell with the Scarlet Knights headed for their worst record of his second stint after the biggest roster investment the school has ever made. He has at least said out loud that the way they've been doing things isn't working, and we'll find out what that means in transfer portal season.

By the evening, people were already asking about next year's buyout, and it's built to come down fast.

Brian Fonseca

@briannnnf

Had a few people ask what the buyout for Greg Schiano and his staff would be if he was fired following next season. Rutgers would owe Schiano roughly $11.7 million and DC Travis Johansen $1.5 million — so about $13 million. t.co/ux77ommNiA

That's the real stakes for 2027. About $13 million is still a lot of money, but it's a number a broke athletic department can eventually stomach, unlike the $28 million it wouldn't touch this year. Schiano gets 1 more offseason to fix the roster and 1 more fall to prove Zinn's 'not fine' was a warning and not just a press-release line. If it's another losing season, Rutgers won't have the money excuse next November.