By William Bowman
LEWISBURG -- Joe Susan admitted he and his family did not get a lot of sleep in the nights leading up to his announcement as the new football coach at Bucknell.
Now the real work begins and it begins right away.
No matter how good the coaching is, a football program like Rutgers, one long-known for its struggles, does not ascend to national prominence without talented players.
And to get those talented players coaches have to hit the road and recruit, recruit, recruit and then recruit some more.
So when Rutgers emerged as a BCS contender in the Big East, there was no doubt the squad's head coach, Bucknell grad Greg Schiano, and his staff were doing a phenomenal job keeping some of the top talent in New Jersey and poaching some of it from Pennsylvania. The driving force behind that surge was Susan, Schiano's recruiting coordinator in Piscataway since 2003 and Bucknell's new boss. Since Susan became the Scarlett Knights' top recruiter, Rutgers has been to four bowls in five seasons and last year's class was ranked in the top 25 nationally.
"(Joe) has been a key part of a coaching staff that has really built something special at Rutgers," said Nick Carparelli, the senior associate commissioner of the Big East.
So there is no question that Susan can recruit and the new Bucknell coach will have to do as good a job as he has ever done and quickly. National signing day is next week and while Susan said Wednesday the holdovers from Tim Landis' staff have done a good job, he knows there is still work left to be done in the next few days.
With several recruits already signed, Susan will now look to exploit his strengths to give the Bison a strong finish after a late start to the recruiting season.
"I have a lot of relationships around a lot of geographic areas," he said Wednesday. "We will be aggressive and the present staff has done a great job recruiting. I actually fielded quite a few calls as I was driving here. The neat thing about them is that they are from people that I know who have sons and they want to send their sons here, which is exciting for me.
"I consider than a privilege and a responsibility. Someone is entrusting me with their child."
"While I'm sad to be losing such a valuable member of my coaching staff, I couldn't be happier for Joe," said Schiano, who was recruited by Susan to come to Bucknell. "Ever since Joe recruited me, the University has held a special place in both of our hearts. I have always said that Joe is the type of man I would want to coach my own sons."
Schiano was more than happy to see one of just two coaches who have been with him since he arrived at Rutgers get another shot at being a head coach. During his only season as a head coach in nearly three decades in college football, Susan led Davidson to a 10-0 mark in 2000.
"(Greg) has been very supportive about this," said Susan. "They came to him as a resource for information on me. He understood how important it was to me to be a head coach again and what this opportunity meant for me."
"I'm going to miss Joe myself," Schiano told the Newark Star-Ledger. "Joe did a lot of things over the years for me and when you work with someone that long and you know him as long as I have, there's a lot of anticipation that occurs just through familiarity.
"I'm going to miss him because he's a good friend as well as a good coach. I'm happy for him. I think he's the perfect guy for that job. I think he's going to do a great job. He's going to get that football program cranking and I'm going to enjoy watching them."
