Canada has been good to Greg Schiano, even though it was the place where his football playing career ended.
Being cut by the Toronto Argonauts way back in 1988 turned out to be the start of a coaching journey that continues to this day with even more Canadian flavour.
The Rutgers Scarlet Knights coach has seven Canadians on his New Jersey-based team’s roster, an extremely high number for a football team from one of the NCAA’s four power conferences.
They’re not a bad team, either. After a tough 14-7 road loss at windy Nebraska last week, Rutgers carries a 4-1 record into a Saturday home game against Big Ten rival Wisconsin.
“We are actively recruiting Canadian players, whether they’re in U.S. prep schools or in Canada,” Schiano, a 58-year-old New Jersey native, said over the phone recently. “We want players who fit our culture.
“…Ask me about any one of (the team’s seven Canadian players) and I’ll tell you good things. They’re just very good players.”
While Canadians have made a bigger mark in men’s basketball, there have been record numbers of Canucks taken in the NFL Draft in recent years, with most of them coming from the NCAA ranks.
Just a few years ago, Syracuse had six Canadians on its roster for ACC play, including Atlanta Falcons offensive lineman Matthew Bergeron.
“I think football is growing every year in Canada,” Schiano said. “The whole world is shrinking with social media and all the technology. You’re going to have more guys end up in the NCAA than ever before.”
Defensive linemen Wesley Bailey of Ottawa and Tyclean Luman, Tycoolhill Luman (brothers), Djibril Abdou Rahman and Farell Gnago of Montreal, linebacker Dariel Djabome of Longueuil, Que., and running back Antawn Raymond of Montreal make up the Canadian seven on a Rutgers team that figures to have a shot to win a bowl game for a second year in a row.
Djabome and Bailey, in particular, have stood out.
Djabome, a junior linebacker, got the opening-day start after injuries affected his position and has taken full advantage of the opportunity. He leads the team with 43 tackles.
Bailey, a senior D lineman, notched a safety against Virginia Tech after missing the first two games of the season due to injury. He was ranked ninth in the CFL Scouting Bureau’s fall rankings for the 2025 draft.
“Very talented, big, long guy,” Schiano said of the six-foot-five Bailey.
Djabome, who forced a fumble in that Virginia Tech game, was spotted by a former Rutgers assistant at a camp in Buffalo in 2022.
The coach encouraged Djabome to come to campus for a camp, but the schedule wasn’t perfect. After another camp at UMass, Djabome, his high school coach from St. Catharines, Ont. and a couple of teammates drove to Jersey, but were unable to get a hotel. So they slept in the car before Djabome impressed again at Rutgers, earning an offer from Schiano.
“That was crazy. I would never do that again,” Djabome said with a laugh. “No room and it was really uncomfortable. But it was worth it.”
Schiano echoes that sentiment.
“He’s done a great job and played really well,” said the coach, noting the 2023 Academic All-Big Ten team member also plays a key role on the punt unit. “Just a joy to coach.”
Djabome, whose brother Rossini Sandjong played five games as a D lineman for the Edmonton Elks in 2021, shares a place with Rahman in Jersey.
He says the seven Canadians use their home country as motivation.
“There’s a pride with Canadians, just because we don’t get as much exposure as Americans,” he said. “That’s one part we take as a positive.”
Like Djabome, Schiano was a linebacker in his day.
At that 1988 Argonauts camp at the University of Guelph, two of his teammates were two of the greatest linebackers to ever play for the double blue — Willie Pless and Don Moen. That team, without Schiano, went on to finish 14-4.
“I think I was there to take a lot of reps in practice,” Schiano said, chuckling.
In a 2006 article in the New York Post, Greg’s father, Barry Schiano, who died in 2023, recalled picking up his son at Newark Airport.
“For the first time in his life, I saw a tear in my son’s eye,” Barry said.
But instead of giving up the game, Greg turned to coaching. He started by helping out a high school team before landing a graduate assistant job at Rutgers the next year.
After working his way up the coaching ranks, Greg got the head coaching job at Rutgers in 2001 and stayed there until 2011, before beginning a two-year run as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Although things didn’t go great on the field in Tampa, Rutgers came calling again in 2020 to ask Schiano to help turn around the program following his time as an assistant at Ohio State.
“While I was very disappointed I got cut (by the Argos), it was really a blessing because then I got started in coaching,” Schiano said.
The coaching gig took him back across the border for one game — a Rutgers win over Ball State in the 2008 International Bowl (which no longer exists) at Rogers Centre.
Now, 34 years after his failed CFL tryout bid, he’s leading what might as well be NCAA football’s Team Canada.
“I know he loves going up north and recruiting Canadians,” Djabome said.
A strategy that seems to be working rather nicely.
