Can new Bucs coach Greg Schiano get Tanard Jackson back to tackling again, and back to consideration as a top safety in the NFL?

Football is hardly a huge passion on the campus of Rutgers University, located in the armpit of the nation, better known as central New Jersey. Games don’t sell out despite a big campus, a massive surrounding population to draw from, and no other big football program nearby.

That’s one factor in what led Rutgers to be a true bottom-feeder of college football when new Bucs head coach Greg Schiano showed up there 11 years ago to lead a turnaround. Tyler Barto, of the campus Daily Targum newspaper, chronicled Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti’s take on Schiano’s legacy yesterday.

Pernetti can attest to the depleted circumstances in 2000, when Schiano took the job. Pernetti called it the “worst program” in the nation 11 years ago, when the Scarlet Knights were Big East afterthoughts.

The Knights never won the conference championship Schiano once promised, but the foundation Schiano implemented remains.

“This program is not a rebuild,” Pernetti said. “This is a move forward. This thing is priced to move in every way.”

Pernetti said he learned of the Buccaneers’ interest in Schiano a week ago, days before Oregon head coach Chip Kelly reportedly declined the Buccaneers’ offer. But talks between Schiano and Tampa Bay intensified during the last two days, Pernetti said, culminating with yesterday morning’s reports of the head coach’s hire.

So Schiano saved Rutgers and sent streams of quality players to the NFL, four on the current Super Bowl–bound Patriots roster. But Joe knows those accomplishments don’t mean much now and are hardly any guarantee of his NFL success.

Can Schiano convince Ronde Barber to return? Can Schiano, a former college tackling machine linebacker himself, develop Mason Foster and get something good out of Quincy Black? (No. Joe doesn’t believe the Bucs will cut ties with Black owing him a pile of money.) Can Schiano get Tanard Jackson playing like a Pro Bowler again? Will Schiano hire the right defensive line coach(es) to mold the pile of talent on the line?

These are just a small handful of the many questions Schiano will answer in 2012. Joe doesn’t think it will take much to rescue the Bucs from the cellar of the NFC South, but it will require Schiano to be damn good at his job.