Like everyone who grew up with Rutgers football, I remember exactly where I was the night of November 9, 2006. That night the 8-0 Scarlet Knights were headed into a showdown with 8-0 Louisville, the third ranked team in the country, while my brother Andrew and I were clawing our way to the finish line of our second week in Colorado.

We’d left New Jersey 15 days earlier intent on scoring jobs that offered free season passes so we could spend the winter on the slopes, but after two weeks of rejection, all we had to show for our efforts were a stack of classified sections in our apartment and dwindling bank accounts. After two weeks of paper cuts and unproductive phone calls, Greg Schiano, Brian Leonard and the rest of the Scarlet Knights were going to provide a much needed respite from the monotony. In spite our financial distress, Andrew and I made our way to a local brewery to take in the game. Amazingly, on this Thursday night, there was a palpable buzz for the game at a bar 1,800 miles west of New Brunswick. Considering the state of Rutgers’ football team only six years ago, this was a minor miracle.

Rutgers hired Greg Schiano on December 1, 2000 after his predecessor Terry Shea had posted a 3-8 record and failed to win a game in the Big East. The program was such an embarrassment that prior to his final season with the Scarlet Knights, Terry Shea’s son, the short stop for a rival high school, routinely got heckled during his high school baseball games. By me. And a bunch of other people from my school. “RUT-GERS… RUT-GERS… RUT-GERS.” Just mentioning the name of his father’s program sent him into such a state that he had no recourse but to launch a ball over the first baseman’s head and into our student section during warm-ups. (Which was probably unintentional, but screw it, he went to Immaculata and I’m still bitter. Sorry, Z.)

Schiano didn’t fare any better in his first two seasons in New Brunswick, posting a combined record of 3-20 and failing to win a Big East game in 14 tries. The program was such an afterthought that my friends and I could head to Rutgers Stadium on Saturdays, wait until halftime and then sneak our way to field level through apathetic stadium security and a sea of empty seats.

The difference Schiano had made in only five seasons wasn’t lost on me as Andrew and I weaved our way through the crowd to find a spot to post up and watch the game. For the first time, outside of a few rowdy Saturdays I’d spent at the Olive Branch, Knight Club or Old Queens, a Rutgers football game mattered. Not just in New Jersey, but to an audience without a rooting interest in anything other than a good football game. “I don’t care who wins tonight,” I thought to myself, “Rutgers football has arrived.”

That thought was quickly contradicted when Louisville raced out to a 25-7 lead through a quarter and a half. I looked up at Andrew and asked, “You wanna head home so that we can get drunk and yell at the TV?” He didn’t even bother answering; he just got up, headed towards the car and we went home to watch the meltdown without being judged.

But a funny thing happened, Rutgers didn’t melt down. In his first season with the team, Schiano brought a sports psychologist in to speak with the team. The psychologist gave the team an image of being stuck in a dark, dense jungle, where the only escape was to chop their way out of the darkness and into the light. “Keep choppin’” became the program’s mantra. That night, Rutgers kept choppin’. Choppin’ away at Louisville’s high powered offense, choppin’ away at their lead and choppin’ away at the doubt anyone may have had that Rutgers was a team to be reckoned with. When it was all said and done, the defense didn’t surrender another point, Jeremy Ito split the uprights with 13 seconds left to give the Scarlet Knights a 28-25 win and its student section a reason to pour onto the field, creating a scene that still puts a lump in my throat.

1,800 miles away, Andrew and I raged. We went out the back door and screamed at the top of our lungs, shotgunned beers, ripped heaters, shook our heads in disbelief and started the process all over again. The next morning I woke up still drunk, but reality had managed to creep its way into my head. Greg Schiano was the hottest name in coaching, and every respectable college football program in the country with a vacancy was going to do their damndest to lure him away from New Brunswick. I was so distraught over the idea of Schiano leaving that I actually sat down and wrote him a letter, which I realized was absurd a paragraph in, but continued to write nonetheless. I told him how much appreciated how earnestly he went about his work, that he had succeeded in creating “a state of Rutgers,” that thousands of miles away to the team was relevant and that if he just kept choppin’ he would achieve legend status in the Garden State. I never sent the letter, but simply writing down my thoughts helped me to come to peace with the inevitable and head off to a successful job interview at a hotel in Breckenridge with a clear head and a Rutgers hoodie on.

After the season, Miami came calling. Schiano didn’t waste much time in turning them down, despite making the trip to Coral Gables to hear his previous employer’s sales pitch. A year later it was Michigan. Schiano would ultimately remove his name from consideration for the job in Ann Arbor as well, although his flirtation with the Wolverines was a bit more substantial. The day news broke that Schiano had turned down the Michigan job, I talked to a stunned college football coach that I worked with who told me, “There are certain jobs that you just don’t turn down, and Michigan is one of them.” I explained to him that Rutgers was Schiano’s baby and he wasn’t going to leave it for a program that someone else built. Schiano was going to be doing his choppin’ at Rutgers for the long haul.

Three years and three bowl games later I returned to New Jersey, and one thing that I’ve enjoyed most is the opportunity to immerse myself in Rutgers football. Whether that’s following the program through the Star-Ledger, seeing the block “R” whenever I step out my front door or tailgating outside Rutgers Stadium on game days, it’s been something that’s helped me appreciate coming home. In a way I can’t fully explain, I felt like the football team’s growth somehow mirrored my own. I was so into Rutgers football that some friends and I were even batting around the idea of buying season tickets together and making game day tailgates at the stadium six or seven sacred Saturdays every autumn. I was looking forward to aging along with Schiano’s program and continuing to use one another as a measuring stick for our progress.

Yesterday, we learned that wasn’t to be when Schiano signed on to be the next head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I’m happy for him in a lot of ways. The move to the NFL is a strong career move by any standards, and Schiano spent more seasons with Rutgers than anyone could reasonably have expected given the success he’s had. Nonetheless, it’s unlikely that anyone will be able to rally the support of New Jersey behind Rutgers football the way that Schiano has.  His departure suggests that, at best, Rutgers will be a stepping stone job and fans can expect a revolving door at the head coach position to rotate every four or five years, regardless of the team’s success or failure on the field.

For everyone who expected to keep choppin’ with Schiano for years to come, it’s a cruel fate.