Rutgers head coach Chris Ash just made his first public appearance at Big Ten Media Day as he is set to enter his third season at the helm in Piscataway. Ash stepped up to the podium and addressed the media as the Big Ten Media Day event started to kick into high gear this afternoon.

One of the first things Ash talked about was the potential for Rutgers to reach a bowl game for the first time since the 2014 season.

“Year two was about being more competitive and winning more games, which we did,” Ash said. “We went form two wins to four wins, zero wins to three wins in the Big Ten. Had the opportunity to get some others, it did not happen but we made progress. In year three, it is about trying to build your team and have an opportunity to go to the post-season play and right now I feel like we are right on track to get that done.”

While Ash is optimistic about a return to the college bowl season, he acknowledged that there is plenty of work to do before Rutgers fans can book a December ticket for a bowl destination.

“A lot of things we still have to do to get to that point and reach that goal,” Ash said. “But right now, going into year three, some of the things I am excited about it is one, our coaching staff. We’ve had some changes in our staff. I feel like we have the best staff we’ve had at Rutgers in my time there. We’ve got great coaches, great teachers, guys that really care about our players. They do a great job of developing those guys.”

Rutgers added five new assistant coaches this season as Ash added offensive coordinator John McNulty, cornerbacks coach Cory Robinson, safeties coach Noah Joseph, defensive line coach Corey Brown and running backs coach Nunzio Campanile.

Ash also mentioned that he will rely a great deal on his upperclassmen this season.

“We need to have a great senior class, we don’t have a big senior class. We have 13 seniors, but the quality is outstanding. We have three of them with us today, Tariq Cole, Deonte Roberts and Blessuan Austin; great representatives of our program. We have an outstanding senior class. We’ve had the best offseason and the best summer that we’ve had. The standards that we have with our behavior and our performance and just overall work ethic has been outstanding and I am very excited about that.”

MORE: Stay logged onto Scarlet Nation as we will continue to provide updates and insight from Big Ten Media Day in Chicago throughout the day.

Correspondent Jim Cotter contributed to this article.