Tennessee Vols coaching candidate Greg Schiano

As Tennessee embarks on its fourth coaching search in ten years, here’s a quick look at Vols coaching candidate Greg Schiano.

Greg Schiano’s coaching experience (51 years old)

Schiano has a great mix of NFL and college coaching experience. He’s the current defensive coordinator at Ohio State. Prior to that, he’s been a head coach for the Tampa Bay Bucs and long-time coach at Rutgers (from 2001-11). Before that, he was a defensive coordinator at Miami, a defensive assistant at Penn State and was an NFL assistant with the Bears from 1996-98.

GRT taxonomy of college football coaches: Great Coordinator, Pro

Why the Tennessee Vols might want Greg Schiano

If you’re going to hire a top assistant who can talk to kids about what it takes to get to the League, he’s the guy. He’ll bring a hard-nosed, tough mentality that quite frankly was missing with the soft Vols during the Jones era. Schiano is a dark-horse good fit if he gets the right kind of staff in place. He’s proven he’s an exceptional recruiter, and at his highest points at Rutgers, had the Scarlet Knights as a national contender. But does he know the SEC?

Why the Tennessee Vols might not want Greg Schiano

He wouldn’t say no. This is an ideal situation for him to get back into a college head coaching role, but he hasn’t been a successful college and NFL coach consistently. Can he build the staff of recruiters it would take to coach at Tennessee? This would be a dicey hire that could work out.