COLUMBUS – Greg Schiano could be a head coach right now.
Ohio State’s defensive coordinator and safeties coach was offered two head coaching jobs with other teams this offseason, as Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer disclosed Monday at Big Ten Media Days. While neither Meyer nor Schiano has specified which schools offered him those jobs, Meyer described them both as "significant."
Schiano, however, decided to turn those offers down and stay at Ohio State for at least one more year.
"You do what’s right for you at the time," Schiano said Thursday in regards to his decision. "You do what’s right for you and your family. Every decision I’ve ever made in coaching has been based on that."
Staying at Ohio State was the right decision for Schiano, he said, because he agrees with the way Meyer runs his program.
"I think we have a tremendous head coach, a tremendous program," Schiano said. "It’s a tremendous university, so you put all that together, and the best part is coming to work every day with our staff and the players, because they’re elite guys."
While Meyer’s assistants at Ohio State have typically signed two-year contracts upon being hired, Schiano signed only a one-year contract when he joined the staff last offseason. He was rewarded for his loyalty to Ohio State when he signed his new contract this offseason, receiving a new base salary of $700,000 (compared to $600,000 last season), as reported by former Eleven Warriors beat writer Eric Seger.
Schiano could have potentially made more money by taking a head coaching job, yet decided staying in Columbus was the best move nonetheless. One potential reason for that: Schiano’s twin sons, John and Matt, are entering their senior year of high school at Columbus Academy, as noted by Frank DiRenna of ThisWeek News.
“The best part is coming to work every day with our staff and the players, because they’re elite guys.”– Greg Schiano
Eventually, Schiano likely will be a head coach again. Meyer fully expects him to.
"He will be a head coach (again)," Meyer said Monday. "I’m going to keep him as long as I can. He’s one of the best I’ve ever been around."
Schiano was the head coach at Rutgers from 2001 to 2011 and the head coach of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2012 and 2013, so he has no shortage of experience leading a program. Even so, Schiano says he has grown in “countless ways” from working with Meyer at Ohio State.
"I think you never stop learning in any profession, but in this profession, I think it’s even more accelerated," Schiano said. "There’s some things that unless you’re involved in the program in a day-to-day nature, you get it from just talking and visiting, so it’s really living it, living the culture, living the alignment that to me has been educational."
