Greg Schiano lost it on the sideline Saturday, and it is not hard to understand why.
Late in the third quarter of Rutgers’ 42-35 loss to USC at SHI Stadium in Piscataway, the broadcast cut to Schiano screaming at a referee. With the Trojans facing third-and-2 and 22 seconds left in the period, the 60-year-old head coach had to be physically held back by a member of his own staff. On the way through, he knocked a marker out of a chain crew member’s hands with a swing that could easily have hit a person.
This Is What 0-3 Looks Like
Rutgers is winless through three games, and the way they got there is worse than the record.
The season opened with a 37-21 home loss to UMass. Then came a 28-21 loss to Boston College. Saturday’s 42-35 defeat to USC was the most competitive of the three, which is not a compliment when the first two were what they were.
Losing to UMass at home is the kind of result that ends coaching tenures at programs with higher expectations than Rutgers. Losing to UMass and then dropping to 0-3 is the kind of result that ends them at Rutgers too.
Seven Years Is a Long Time to Not Arrive
This is Schiano’s seventh season in his second stint running the program. The Scarlet Knights went 5-7 in 2025. The trajectory has flattened, and this year it is pointing down.
Schiano’s first run at Rutgers is why he got the second one. He took a program that had nothing and made it respectable, and that earned him enormous goodwill in New Jersey. Goodwill has a shelf life, and three straight losses to open a season with a loss to UMass in the middle of it burns through a lot of it fast.
The Outburst Is a Symptom
Yelling at officials is normal. Having to be restrained by your own staff while swinging near a chain crew member is a different category. That is a coach who has run out of places to put the pressure.
It is worth saying plainly: nothing in that clip suggests Schiano meant to make contact with anyone. It also does not matter much. When a head coach reaches that point in a game his team is losing, it tells you the state of the building.
Howard Is Next, and That Is Its Own Trap
Rutgers hosts Howard on Sept. 25. On paper that is a win and a chance to reset. In practice, a team that already lost to UMass at home does not get to treat any game as automatic.
A win over Howard does nothing to fix what is broken here, and a loss would be the end of the conversation. That is where the program is after three weeks.
Schiano has earned the right to be evaluated fairly, on the full body of work at a job that is difficult by any measure. Fair evaluation right now still says this is the worst start of his second tenure and the pressure is legitimate.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.