Rutgers hires Robb Smith as Defensive Coordinator

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Nice! The prediction of being relevant in the next 50 years just turned to never.
 




Yeah I don't foresee that going well for them, but some Rutgers fans seem okay with the hire...maybe schiano can mentor him more and the scheme will have a bit of schiano's input...
 





Schnauzer said:
I see this as a strong move by Rutgers to preserve their identity.

Congrats to them as they seek some stability among all the changes that are being undertaken with their program.
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If there is one thing Robb Smith is going to do for Rutgers, it's going to give them stability that's for sure!!
 


WinLoseOrTy said:
But has he really?
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WinLoseOrTy said:
But has he really?
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I don't get what you are saying. I would consider Arkansas, Minnesota and Rutgers, all D-1 schools major college jobs. He is making at least a half mill a year for garbage!!
 



This, paired with a historically poor offense will certainly do the trick.

Once a guy is in the circle, he’s in. Failed experience is better than no experience. There’s gotta be hundreds of position coaches rolling their eyes across America at this one.
 



Bad Gopher said:
That guy must interview well.
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The biggest indictment of Smith was that as soon as he was fired the defense got immediately better. How any team can hire him as the DC after what happened here is beyond me.

Coaching positions are flukey and a guy who is an idiot one day can be a genius the next with the right players but it is still surprising to see him get another DC job given how things ended here.
 


With the sudden upswing in defensive performance, it's easy to understand the crowds distaste for Robb Smith. But in reality, it wasn't like Joe Rossi came in an implemented a brand new defensive plan. If I recall correctly, even Fleck said that the plan stayed basically the same, but the emphasis on speed and minimization of decisions was the real change. Perhaps just the communication just wasn't there.

Doesn't make Smith a bad DC. Maybe with a little more time, the frustration would have passed and results would be the same.

To Flecks credit, he recognized the need and made the change. But I find it hard to believe Fleck would have trusted him if he didn't have confidence in his planning.
 

MNVCGUY said:
The biggest indictment of Smith was that as soon as he was fired the defense got immediately better. How any team can hire him as the DC after what happened here is beyond me.

Coaching positions are flukey and a guy who is an idiot one day can be a genius the next with the right players but it is still surprising to see him get another DC job given how things ended here.
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Yeah that change was sudden.

I'm not sure Smith understood what was going wrong and Rossi managed to figure it out quick.
 

fmlizard said:
This, paired with a historically poor offense will certainly do the trick.

Once a guy is in the circle, he’s in. Failed experience is better than no experience. There’s gotta be hundreds of position coaches rolling their eyes across America at this one.
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Sounds like Minnesota school Superintendents.
 

Gopho Sapiens said:
With the sudden upswing in defensive performance, it's easy to understand the crowds distaste for Robb Smith. But in reality, it wasn't like Joe Rossi came in an implemented a brand new defensive plan. If I recall correctly, even Fleck said that the plan stayed basically the same, but the emphasis on speed and minimization of decisions was the real change. Perhaps just the communication just wasn't there.

Doesn't make Smith a bad DC. Maybe with a little more time, the frustration would have passed and results would be the same.

To Flecks credit, he recognized the need and made the change. But I find it hard to believe Fleck would have trusted him if he didn't have confidence in his planning.
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I'm sure in one week he didn't install an entirely new defense, but if you even just look at where players were positioned that next game it was obvious things had changed. I'm assuming those formations (if you call them that) were in the playbook, but not being utilized by Smith? It was a significant change in position on the field and responsibility.

The fact that Smith couldn't figure out where to put people on the field in order for them to be effective says a lot. I still think his entire defense was predicated on having an Antoine Winfield type safety that could cover up everyone else's sins, and there ain't that many Antoine Winfield type safeties out there.
 

Can we get them on the schedule next year.
I want to see our offense go against his defense and soon!

Now all Rutgers needs to do is hire Jedd Fisch to coach QB's and/or be the OC.
 

I actually think Robb Smith might do well at Rutgers.

The key difference to his previous stops? Rutgers absolutely sucks, and Schiano will have a super long leash as HC, which I think he will extend to all of his staff. I don't think Schiano even thinks about firing anyone on his staff until at least 5 years in. Once he has established his coaching culture and his first full recruitment class (2021) is seniors, then if something isn't working he'll start to think about firing someone.
 

MNVCGUY said:
The biggest indictment of Smith was that as soon as he was fired the defense got immediately better. How any team can hire him as the DC after what happened here is beyond me.

Coaching positions are flukey and a guy who is an idiot one day can be a genius the next with the right players but it is still surprising to see him get another DC job given how things ended here.
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Smith himself does have a couple strong years at Arkansas to his name. I didn’t realize he is only 44 and only has handful of years as a DC.
 

I remember looking up Smith's progression of defenses at Arkansas when he was named Gopher d coordinator. What I saw frightened me. His defenses got progressively worse during his time there and when he was hired here people were arguing/hoping that was due to Bielema losing favor and there was speculation recruiting had dropped - or some other reason the defense had fallen off so dramatically under Smith.
 


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