Ryan Dunleavy

Staff writer

NEW YORK - The arrival of most Rutgers football newcomers remains on track for June 1, but the unveiling of the remodeled weight room does not.

By Ash’s estimate, about 75 percent of the incoming class will join the returning players due back on campus from a three-week break next Wednesday as summer workouts get underway.

“It’s a big time of year for the program,” Ash said Tuesday before throwing out a first pitch alongside Rutgers athletics director Pat Hobbs at Yankees Stadium. “We made huge strides here the last few months. We’ve got to make even more in the next three months before we play.”

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The wake-up call is both literal — strength and conditioning coach Kenny Parker dragged the team through early-morning boot camp in the winter — and figurative for the true freshmen.

“It’s a huge transition for them,” Ash said, “and we have to do a great job as a staff and as an organization with academics, our training staff and the strength staff to make sure we do a good job of acclimating those guys and getting them oriented to everything that they need to do from a day-to-day standpoint.

“It’s one of those days when they report that moms cry a lot, the players try to be tough, but it hits them in about a day or two that their family is gone and this is for real. So you have to monitor that very closely.”

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Parker was expected to have a shiny new weight room — paid for by a $1.25 million donation from boosters Ron and Joanna Garutti — in place by then, but the timetable for completing the project is delayed.

“When they pulled up the floor, there was some structure issues with the existing concrete that they had to get repaired,” Ash said. “So it’s backed us up maybe about a week. We’ll have it all set hopefully by the second week of June, the middle of June.”

In 2014, the NCAA instituted a rule allowing on-field coaches up to eight hours per week of interaction — with a two-hour cap on team meetings or film review — with players during the summer. Previously, almost all forms of contact were off completely off limits.

Ash plans to allot most of those hours to time with Parker’s staff as he reshapes bodies.

“I’m looking forward to (seeing) all of them,” Ash said. “It’s a chance to get some new blood. The guys are going to come in really excited.

“It’s always fun to watch newcomers show up on your campus and get to meet new friends, go through the process, watch the bonds come close together in that class of guys that went through the recruiting process. It’s a fun time of year, but as a coaching staff we have to understand it’s really important that we connect to them because we’re their new family.”

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Coaches are finishing an on-the-road evaluation cycle in recruiting this week before a quiet period — when off-campus contact is prohibited — begins June 1. Ash’s travels also have taken him to Jets and Giants workouts to see two of his former Ohio State proteges as rookies.

“This time of year I love to go out and go to OTAs and mini-camps,” Ash said. “I’ve been doing it for a long time, and the fact that we can do that within a 45-minute drive to two really good organizations and football teams and we have some players there that we’ve coached, it’s cool to be able to do that.”

As much as he has enjoyed catching up with Giants cornerback Eli Apple and Jets linebacker Darron Lee, Ash is always taking mental notes.

“Anytime you go to a practice, you would be foolish not to be looking at ways to improve your own program,” he said. “That’s why you do it. You watch practice and former players and all that.

“But for me it’s more about identifying ways that can help us in our program, whether it’s a coaching point, something organizationally with practice, field layout, different types of pads. I’m looking at all of it and comparing it to what we do and what we have. Is there something out there that can make us better?”

Staff Writer Ryan Dunleavy: rdunleav@gannettnj.com