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Rutgers coach Kyle Flood tried to hire former Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen as his offensive coordinator a year ago, but Friedgen declined because his daughter was getting married.

(Associated Press file photo)

Rutgers’ courtship of Ralph Friedgen as the school’s offensive coordinator was actually a year in the making and a season delayed for a reason that few people will have a hard time faulting.

Friedgen’s daughter, Kelley, got married last Oct. 5. Yes, in the middle of football season.

“Coach (Kyle) Flood contacted me last year and I had originally told him I was interested in talking to him. But then I found out my daughter was getting married during football season, which I probably couldn’t believe that she would do,” Friedgen said during his official introduction today. “So I had too much money sunk into (the wedding) to say I could coach unless he had an open date on Oct. 5.”

Turns out, Rutgers didn’t. The Scarlet Knights played SMU that day.

But when Ron Prince left in January after one season as offensive coordinator to take a job on the Detroit Lions’ staff, Flood made another run at an offensive guru whose credentials immediately stamp him as the most accomplished offensive coordinator in school history before he calls his first play.

“I guess he remembered that and he asked me again this year,” Friedgen said.

Friedgen, 66, is the biggest name on a staff overhaul that Flood has made as Rutgers prepares for its inaugural Big Ten season this fall. He also elevated special teams coach Joe Rossi to defensive coordinator and brought back Bob Fraser, the Scarlet Knights’ former co-defensive coordinator, as special teams coordinator and linebackers coach. Fraser spent the past two seasons as a defensive assistant for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

But it’s the addition of “the Fridge” that has made the biggest splash. Though no terms have been announced yet, he has a two-year deal that will make him the highest-paid assistant in school history.

As the head coach at Maryland, his alma mater, Friedgen went 75-50 from 2001 to 2010 before being fired following a 9-4 season that saw him win ACC Coach of the Year honors. That was his last year of coaching.

He previously served as the offensive coordinator at Georgia Tech (twice, from 1987-91 and then from 1997-2000), with the San Diego Chargers (1994-96), at Maryland (1982-86) and at Murray State, William & Mary and The Citadel. During those years, Friedgen has been part of a national championship staff at Georgia Tech (1990) and part of a Super Bowl staff (Chargers in 1995).

He has spent the past five days meeting individually with players, saying he is trying to meet “each and every one of them” to get to know them, and was in individual meetings today.

The approach he takes on offense, he said, will be dictated by his assessment of the personnel.

“The first thing I want to do is evaluate what our players do best,” said Friedgen, who inherits an offensive line and backfield that returns intact. “I’ve run a lot of different offenses, from option to pro to one back and two backs, and I don’t believe in trying to do something the kids can’t do.

“I try to find out what they can do well and build around that.”

Friedgen, Rutgers’ fifth offensive coordinator in as many years, said he believes “in having a balance between the run and the pass.”

“Not so much to be equally divided,” he added, “but to have the ability to throw the ball just as well as you run the ball.”

Philosophically, Flood said he does not anticipate “wholesale” changes from the three new coordinators and still has one staff hiring to make – an unspecified offensive that will likely be a wide receivers coach.