Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano has been hired as an assistant head coach/defensive coordinator by Ohio State, NFL Media's Albert Breer reports through a source within the program.
Schiano will fill a role that was partially vacated when Ohio State's co-defensive coordinator Chris Ash was hired to be head coach at Rutgers, which is where Schiano got his head-coaching start.
Schiano was the Buccaneers' head coach from 2012-13, where he compiled an 11-21 record. Prior to his time in Tampa, Schiano was head coach at Rutgers from 2001-2011. Under Schiano, Rutgers football emerged from national afterthought into a regular bowl game participant.
Prior to Schiano's arrival in Piscataway, N.J., Rutgers had gone nearly a decade since its last winning season (7-4 in 1992) and hadn't reached a bowl game since playing in the 1978 Garden State Bowl (which it lost to Arizona State). In a 10-season span from 2005-2014, Rutgers appeared in nine bowl games, winning six of those games. Rutgers' 2006 season was Schiano's finest at the school. The Scarlet Knights hit the AP Top 25 rankings for the first time since 1976, becoming ranked as high as No. 6 in the BCS standings. Rutgers completed the season with its first ever bowl win, defeating Kansas State in the inaugural Texas Bowl for an 11-2 finish to the season.
That 2006 team featured a number of future NFL players, including running backs Ray Rice and Brian Leonard, wide receivers Kenny Britt and Tiquan Underwood, and defensive backs Jason McCourty and Devin McCourty.
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