The Greg Schiano hire happened on Thursday, which is long enough ago to look at this with some objectivity. So, here are three things I like about the hiring of Greg Schiano as the Buccaneers' head coach.
He can turn around the culture in a building
The number one thing a new head coach has to do is create a culture within the team. What that culture is isn't as important as getting every player, coach, scout and employee to buy into it. To win games, the team must have direction and a certain culture - a way of doing things. And for that way to be successful everyone inside the building has to buy into that culture.
Greg Schiano did exactly that at Rutgers. He completely transformed that program, from a perennial loser to an annual contender in the Big East. While he never won that conference, he completely changed the culture for the Rutgers football team. Before he arrived, the stands were empty and the team struggled to win 2 games per year. When he left, Rutgers had expanded its stadium, was selling out games every year, had added luxury boxes, was recruiting talent and, most importantly, was consistently winning games.
Schiano is a builder, and that's what the Bucs need.
He ran an NFL program at Rutgers
Supposedly Greg Schiano implemented an "NFL program" at Rutgers, scaled down to meet the time limits of college football. This shows up with Rutgers prospects who make it to the NFL, as they are generally ready to play and make an impact early. They understand how the NFL works, because they were in an NFL-style program before. Or at least that's what Bill Belichick tells us.
This speaks to Schiano's adaptability to the NFL level. He's not a college coach moving to the NFL level so much as he was an NFL-style coach operating at the college level. In that sense the move to the NFL shouldn't be a huge adjustment for Schiano.
He's renowned for having tough, physical, effective defenses
Throughout his tenure at Rutgers Schiano had tough, physical defenses. The same was true when he was the defensive coordinator at the University of Miami. The Bucs haven't had that tough, physical defense in a while and it would be good to get back to that. Maybe he can teach players how to actually tackle ball carriers, for instance.