How Rutgers AD Keli Zinn handles Greg Schiano’s future will define her legacy | Politi

Days after the unthinkable loss to UMass, the hits were still coming for Rutgers. The hosts of multiple ESPN shows lined up to take their shots , predictable but painful. The trolls and content creators used the aftermath — and, specifically, history's most ill-timed fireworks show — to fill their social media feeds with meme after meme.

Even the head coach of the defending national champions couldn't resist delivering an uppercut. "We all saw Rutgers-UMass, right?" Curt Cignetti asked on national TV before Indiana crushed North Texas on Saturday afternoon, using the Scarlet Knights' 37-21 loss as a cautionary tale for what happens when a Big Ten program doesn't take its nonconference opponents seriously.

That was bad. This is arguably worse: Diehard fans — i.e., the paying customers — are turning their scarlet "R" magnets upside down on the back on their cars and posting photos for the world to see. It would be impossible to overstate just how bad of a loss this was for Greg Schiano.

The vultures will find fresh carrion somewhere else eventually. That doesn't erase the damage that this loss has done to the ongoing efforts — and the real progress — behind the scenes to build Rutgers into college program its alumni can support with pride.

For Keli Zinn, the leader of those endeavors, the job just got much harder. The athletic director entered her second year hoping Schiano would be her chief ally in this Rutgers reclamation project, and instead, the head coach looks like he might be her biggest obstacle.

How Zinn handles the next few months — and what likely will be her biggest single decision — will define her success and her legacy.

No one should feel sorry for Zinn. She signed up for this with her eyes wide open. Even still, it's hard to imagine she had "two-touchdown loss to 0-12 UMass" on her September bingo card. Just hours before that outcome turned Rutgers into a laughingstock again, Zinn set out her clear expectations for the seventh year of Schiano 2.0.

"That is, in its simplest form, is to improve what we saw from last year," she said.

With 11 games left, that's still possible. Schiano was defiant on Thursday night, insisting that one game will not define this team despite the many red flags that were on display for three and a half hours against an opponent paid $1.5 million for the game.

"I've been down this road before," Schiano said. "We know our way out, and we'll get this thing right."

But if Rutgers follows this disastrous loss to UMass with another stink bomb at Boston College on Friday, the writing will be on the wall in bright scarlet paint. Zinn isn't likely make a move on Schiano in Week 2, but with powerhouses USC and Indiana coming to Piscataway over the three weeks that follow, a change will be inevitable.

And, if that happens, Zinn will be on the clock, too. She must first find the resources to pay Schiano's $18 million buyout — a challenge that might be easier than it would seem given a bloated football budget with fat to trim. Rutgers has more than doubled what it spent on football in Schiano's first season to $76 million , a number that's bigger than even what Tennessee and Texas spend.

Even once Zinn figures out the math, she has to find a diplomatic way to make the change with a man who holds an important place in Rutgers history. His 18 seasons, including that one shining moment in '06 against Louisville, has earned Schiano more than an unceremonious pink slip slid under his office door. The emotion that accompanied his return in 2019 doesn't vanish simply because he didn't finish the job.

Can Zinn work out an agreement in which Schiano is fired but coaches the remainder of the season? Would the prideful head coach even entertain that possibility given his history here? These unthinkable questions are on the table now if Rutgers crashes and burns — and they're just the beginning of the challenge facing this AD.

Anyone who followed the last coaching search understands just how difficult it was to get top candidates to even consider this job. Zinn will not only need to find a coach undaunted by the challenge but one who can bring some players — like what Matt Campbell did at Penn State and Bob Chesney accomplished for UCLA last winter — to fill this roster.

She knows she needs the football program to thrive for her to achieve any of her biggest goals in Piscataway. Before the UMassacre ( trademark pending ), Zinn was trumpeting the news that Rutgers had mostly solved the Name, Image and Likeness funding problems that had sent its coaches trudging into competition with both hands tied behind their backs for the past five years.

"I came in at a time when a lot of people talked about Rutgers having an NIL problem," Zinn said on ESPN New York . "We do not have an NIL problem going into Year 2. We now have infrastructure to support exactly what needs to happen there in order for us to be successful in that space."

That's a major development, and one of many. In her first year, Zinn has restructured the athletic department, goosed corporate support and launched plans for much-needed facility upgrades. None of these incremental improvements will matter if the football program is cratering on national TV each weekend, and Zinn knows it.

Even the most loyal Schiano supporters are waiting and wondering what Zinn will do next. If the football team doesn't recover immediately, the athletic director will need to make the kind of legacy-defining leadership change for the team that changes the narrative in Piscataway.

Then — and only then — will the loss to UMass be remembered for something more than just memes and migraines.

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