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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 30, 2019

Pat Hobbs

Piscataway, New Jersey

PAT HOBBS: First I want to say thank you to Chris Ash and his family for their unbelievable efforts here the last three and a half years. Chris came in here and worked his tail off. He does everything with integrity. He does it the right way. He worked hard for these kids and I couldn't be more appreciative of his efforts.

I think most of you know, when he came in here, there were a lot of things he did not have. We didn't have practice fields. We didn't have a strength and conditioning room. We didn't have a football locker room. We were under NCAA investigation, so a hard job. And I will tell from you back then, there was a lot of football coaches who didn't have the courage to take this job, and he did, and I will be forever grateful for Chris and the efforts that he's brought here, and I have no doubt that Chris will be a head coach at a significant level in the future and that he will have success. But unfortunately, I thought we had to make a change at this time.

I also want to say to Coach McNulty, thank him for how hard that he's worked to be successful here. Obviously an extraordinary career. Was here at Rutgers before. I thank him, his family, for all his efforts. But I felt with our offensive production, we needed to make a change there, as well.

I want to thank our student athletes. They are an extraordinary group of young men who every day bring their very, very best for Rutgers University. They represent us on the field and off the field, incredibly well. I've spoken with them. I've gotten to know many of them very, very well. What I've told them is I admire them. I think they are outstanding young men, and I know that they are going to work really, really hard over the next eight weeks for Coach Campanile as he goes forward.

I want to thank our football staff. We have a great group of men who are working, and I include our strength and conditioning staff and Kenny Parker. Great group in that room who are committed for the remaining eight weeks to bring everything they can to have success for Rutgers University and for these young men. They deserve it.

Any number of them, really, could have served in the interim role here, but I felt that Coach Campanile brings a let of leadership skills and an offensive mind that he will bring to this effort which will give us an opportunity to have success going forward and that's what I want.

This season is not over. The new season starts on Saturday against Maryland, and so we are really excited about that. With that, I'll take questions.

Q. When did you know that you had to make a change here?
PAT HOBBS: Saturday night. Saturday night. I came home from the Michigan game, and look, our barometer going into this season, as everyone knows, was significant improvement and that wasn't just my barometer. That was Coach Ash and it was our shared measure of what we wanted to see this season.

I know some football coaches will say, well, the games coming up -- there's no days off in the Big Ten. I just saw some things in terms of lack of offensive production; my concern about penalties and some of the things, and I think we have more talent in this room and on this team than we were showing in the game.

So that's why Saturday night, I concluded that we needed to make a change. It was really hard, very hard to do that in-season. Obviously it's difficult for your student athletes, difficult for the coaching room, but I wanted to give our kids the best opportunity to be successful going forward for the remaining eight games of the season, and so that's why I made the decision.

Sunday morning, I reached out to Dr. Barchi which I and Greg Brown, chairman of our athletic subcommittee. Told them that was the direction that I wanted to go and they offered their support for that and for the decision to promote Coach Campanile to interim head coach.

Q. The process, it's a two-month process. I assume you're not going to hire anyone before the end of the season?
PAT HOBBS: My intention right now is that we would hopefully be in a position to announce at the end of the season.

Q. Do you plan on forming a committee, search firm or board of trustees?
PAT HOBBS: No. Thank you for the question. No, we're not going to have a search committee. Obviously this is a very important decision for myself, for Rutgers University, for our fans, as we go forward. I'm always open to opinions and information from football coaches, and I always seek out a lot of advice for football coaches.

But we need to be deliberate in this. We need to be able to move quickly, if necessary. You know what happens in coaching right now, and likely as we near the end of the season, we'll see some other openings open up.

Obviously I'll continue to consult with Greg Brown, our chairman of our athletic subcommittee, and obviously bring a recommendation to Dr. Barchi at the appropriate time when we are ready to go.

You asked about a search committee. Probably will employ a search committee. We'll probably start having some conversations with some of those organizations late this week, next week, before we make a decision. But they can be invaluable in the process. They act as a funnel for information.

Obviously if football coaches want to reach out, either themselves or through intermediaries, I would rather not be handling that part of the process, because we want to use all of our efforts and our time to make a considered decision to bring the very best coach here to Rutgers University.

Q. How do you make a move like this so early in the season? Is it acknowledging a mistake to retain him in December?
PAT HOBBS: No, I disagree with that. Look, I think one of the things you have to do is you have to give the coach an opportunity to be successful, and I wanted Chris Ash to have this off-season and this training camp to come forward into this season and to be successful.

Look, if you're going to get somebody to come here to Rutgers University, they have to know you're going to be patient with them and that's why I made the decision I did at the end of last season. As you know, we had a very young team, and we continue to have a very young team. I thought we made great progress through training camp this summer, but unfortunately we have just not seen that on the field.

So now I want to give us the best opportunity to bring the very best coach to Rutgers University.

Q. Will you look at an offense guy, a guy with head coaching experience, is there anything you can share in that regard?
PAT HOBBS: I'm looking for the very best coach who will make Rutgers Football competitive and compete for Big Ten Championships. That's why I came here. I want to go to a Rose Bowl, right.

So I want a coach that I believe is capable of making us competitive on the field and competing ultimately for Big Ten Conference championships.

Q. You knew this was going to come but I assume you don't want to talk about anyone who is obviously a current coach, but Greg Schiano, a lot of talk about him.
PAT HOBBS: Anyone who can help Rutgers Football be competitive and win conference championships is a candidate for this position.

Q. Have you talked to any candidates so far?
PAT HOBBS: No. And I repeat that, because I know there's been reports out there of agreements and other things. I have had no conversation with anyone about the permanent position of being head coach here at Rutgers University.

Q. You talk about you want the best, the person that will make this program competitive, bring you to a Rose Bowl. Still have $8.5 million to pay on Chris Ash and another on McNulty, and then have to hire new staff, all of that. How constrained will you be, if at all, financially in that regard?
PAT HOBBS: Well, we are in a very fortunate position to be part of Big Ten, and obviously that means a very different financial position as we go forward.

We also have a great opportunity in terms of season ticket sales. The excitement of a new coach that comes in; every 10,000 season tickets that we sell is another $4.5 million dollars. That's not insignificant.

So I believe we will have the resources going forward and I know I have the full support of Dr. Barchi and our board athletic committee chairman, Greg Brown, to go out and hire the very best.

Q. Did anybody come to you at some point and say, hey, we can't make that kind of commitment for X or Y Coach?
PAT HOBBS: I have not been told anything other than go out and get the very best coach for Rutgers University.

Q. You mentioned when Chris came here, all the things you didn't have. You have them now. Do you have enough here right now to go to a Rose Bowl?
PAT HOBBS: Let me tell you something, Rutgers University -- this is a great job. This is a great job. We have other things. We have not closed the gap fully, but this is a great job here.

We have a wonderful strength and conditioning facility. We have a few football locker room. We have a pledge to build a new team lounge that will get started hopefully in the next 12 months. We have the Rodkin Academics Success Center that the steel is now up, and that will open next December; so they will have the very best in academic support.

So we have many, many components. The Marco Battaglia Football Practice Field is the best in the conference. So I think coaches are going to look at this and they are going to say, they made some real investments at Rutgers University.

Is it an easy job? No, it's not an easy job. Is it a great job? It's absolutely great job, and I think we are going to get a lot of interest around the country.

Q. Giving Nunzio both the responsibility of interim coach and offensive coordinator, that's a lot for any veteran coach. Any concern in your minds, given his lack of experience at this level, dumping all that responsibility on him?
PAT HOBBS: No, fair question. Look, Nunzio has a skill-set. He brings an energy and enthusiasm to everything that he does. He did it at the high school level.

I'm a big believer that a lot of those skills translate very, very well and we've seen that happen around this country where we have football coaches that have been relatively new to the college coaching ranks and they have had great success.

He's an innovative offensive mind, but he's going to have great help in that room. There's a great group of coaches in that room and so this is not going to be anything that's going to be, you know, dictated on high. This is going to be very much a collaboration in that room, and I think that's one of his great skills. He's going to bring some innovation.

I think we're going to see some fun things on offense here because we've got to raise -- we have to score points. I mean, you can't win football games if you don't score points. So I have great confidence in him, and I know he'll do a great job.

And you look at what he's done with quarterbacks in the past, right. He's the guy who brought Mike Teel along, Gary Nova. He has a reputation for working very well with quarterbacks and we want to get more production out of that position here.

So I think he's very much up to the task, and he has 100 percent of my confidence.

Q. Can he be a candidate for the job?
PAT HOBBS: Anyone who can help Rutgers University become competitive and compete for conference championships is a candidate for this position.

Q. The second part of the question. For your own personal legacy here at Rutgers, how important is it for to you get this one right, to make sure that people remember you in the light that you want to be remembered here?
PAT HOBBS: It's not about my legacy. It's about the student athletes who are in this room on a daily basis and it's about our fans. It's about the people who are dedicated to the success of Rutgers. We have passionate, passionate fans and what I hope -- and I say thank you to them, because I know how they labor, and one of the things that I've stated is, I want to remove two words from the Rutgers vocabulary: "Long suffering."

I thank them. I look forward to competing against Maryland on Saturday. I know they are going to be supportive and for them, we'll get this decision right.

Thank you -- one more? One more.

Q. From the process, do you plan on consulting any former players?
PAT HOBBS: Look, I love getting counsel from -- particularly our letter winners. I'm going to singling out two, Todd Frazier and Bobby Brownlie were tremendously helpful in the search that led to Steve Owens, and we are all excited about the Steve owns tenure beginning.

Absolutely I will reach out and talk to and consult with anyone who I think can bring an informed opinion to this search process.

Thank you.

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