Where was Greg Schiano ranked for his playing career among Big Ten football coaches?

There is a compelling argument that Rutgers football head coach Greg Schiano consistently isn’t ranked enough among a recent pecking order of the top Big Ten football coaches.

But the order has nothing to do with the acumen or success of the Big Ten’s coaches ( Rutgers after all went 7-6 last year with a bowl win over Miami). Instead, Schiano (set for his fifth year at Rutgers), and his colleagues were ranked by On3 for their playing careers.

Topping off the list, and it shouldn’t be a surprise, is DeShaun Foster . The first-year UCLA head coach had a distinguished career in the Pac-12 with the Bruins and was a second-round pick in the 2002 NFL draft.

Schiano was ranked as having had the No. 11 career among all head coach in the Big Ten according to On3’s Tom Dinehart .

Dinehart called Schiano , who was a multi-year starter at Bucknell as “the ultimate tough guy.”

“A three-year letterwinner for the I-AA Bison, Schiano was named to The Sporting News’ preseason All-American team in 1987…was a captain his senior year after leading non-scholarship Bucknell with 114 tackles as a junior en route to garnering All-Patriot League honors.”

Dinehart’s list is good and really solid, but there are a couple of issues with it.

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He ranks Penn State head coach James Franklin as fourth on the list. Franklin, while enjoying a distinguished career at East Stroudsburg, played at the Division II level.

Tough to see him above several people on the list including Ryan Day (an FCS standout at New Hampshire) who was fifth on the list.

No. 6 Ryan Walters (a starting safety at Colorado ) and No. 7 Luke Fickell (a multi-year starter for Ohio State ) both deserve to be higher on the list than Franklin.

That is no knock on Franklin and his distinguished career at ESU. Just a hard, analytical look at career accomplishments.

This is a big year for Franklin and Penn State, who are having a strong offseason in recruiting and the transfer portal. It could be the year where the Nittany Lions take a step forward as a program and move into the upper echelon of the Big Ten.

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Oh for what it is worth, Dinehart is really good at his job with tremendous insight into the entirety of the Big Ten. Just taking issue that Franklin is a bit too high on this list.