PISCATAWAY -- While his predecessor in the Rutgers Athletics Director post, Julie Hermann, didn't hire a head coach to lead one of the marquee programs in her 2 1/2 years at the university, Pat Hobbs has hired two in just four months on the job.

In fact, once he signed the contract to serve as Rutgers AD on Nov. 29, 2015, Hobbs said he was told by university President Robert Barchi: 'Hey, congratulations. Now, go find us a football coach.''

Three months after appointing Chris Ash to lead the Rutgers football program, Hobbs found himself undertaking another coaching search. After firing Eddie Jordan on March 10, Hobbs only needed nine days to identify Steve Pikiell as the new Rutgers men's basketball coach.

In all, it took 15 days for Hobbs to make the two hires that will shape the future of Rutgers' top revenue-producing programs.

"They're my guys and I have 100 percent confidence in them,'' Hobbs told NJ Advance Media in a recent interview. "Look, I have 24 head coaches and I want to be supportive of all those coaches. With (new coaches in) both football and men's basketball now, I'm actually more relaxed than I've been since I took the job. So now it's about making sure that they have the resources they need to be successful.''

Hobbs understands that if Rutgers had its house in order over the past year, he would probably still be working as an ombudsman for Gov. Chris Christie's office or getting ready to return to Seton Hall in some capacity.

"Look, I probably wouldn't have this job right now if everything was running smooth,'' said Hobbs, a dean emeritus at Seton Hall, who was signed a five-year contract starting at $560,000 annually on Thanksgiving weekend last year. "So because of what was going on, because of the events in the past, people looked at my resume, they looked at my body of work, and Dr. Barchi said 'I think Pat Hobbs will be a good fit.'

"To be able to then pick the leadership for your football program, pick the leadership for your men's basketball program, it's a tremendous opportunity because now you have guys that you have confidence in coming in the door, you know what you have to do to support them. It's been an incredibly busy and hectic (four) months. But it's been a wonderful (four) months.''

On Tuesday, Hobbs celebrates the four-month anniversary of inheriting the Rutgers AD post. It's also his 56th birthday.

"The last six months have been surreal, completely unexpected,'' Hobbs said. "When I stepped down as dean and started taking some time, doing some traveling, I thought that would be what the year was going to entail. But then to get the opportunity here at Rutgers, immediately have a football search to be engaged in, go through some bumps in terms of our men's basketball program, and then to have to make this hire, all while launching a $100 million facilities upgrades plan, there's no way I could've predicted this six months ago.''

Hobbs has been lauded by top Rutgers officials, most notably Barchi, who said, "Without a doubt ... recruiting Pat was a huge step for me.''

For both coaching searches, Barchi said he spoke with Hobbs beforehand to address the qualities he wanted for the men leading the university's marquee athletics teams. A history of winning coupled with a documented commitment to academics and a demonstrated profile of ethical behavior were the key characteristics, according to Barchi, who added: "Pat and I agree on the qualities we're looking for, and then it's his job to go out and recruit the candidates. He shares my vision. He's able to project that vision, he's able to convince people on where we're trying to go. And I'm comfortable stepping back and letting him do that. That's a major step forward, I think, for the (athletics) program.''

There were common traits to both searches, with Rutgers appointing the Eastman & Beaudine consulting group to assist Hobbs with the search.

"I listen to everybody,'' Hobbs said. "When I do a search, any information people want to bring to me, I listen to it, I try to bring it all together, filter that, and make decisions about who I think is best. I appreciate the confidence that Dr. Barchi and the Board have shown in terms of making this hire. But you absolutely listen to everybody, and get the counsel of everybody, and you try to bring all that into making the right decision.''

As for the number of candidates, Hobbs said after initially casting "a very wide net'' he ended up interviewing approximately six coaches for the respective football and basketball vacancies.

For football, a widely reported shortlist (or, at least, one that Hobbs would concede to) never emerged. In the basketball search, Danny Hurley quickly emerged as the frontrunner to replace Jordan. Once the Rhode Island skipper withdrew his name for the position, Hobbs said Pikiell moved to the top of his list.

"I looked at a lot of names,'' Hobbs said. "Some of those you see right away and say, 'I don't know if that's the right fit.' What was different in this (basketball) search was -- you know the confidence I had in Chris Ash, (even though) he had not been a head coach. Here (with basketball) I thought I needed to really stick with a head coach as a profile because this is a difficult job, there are a lot of challenges to it, and learning how to be a head coach while you're also taking on those challenges, I thought that that would be a step up. I didn't eliminate everybody as an assistant, but I really wanted to focus on a head coach.''

Pikiell, Hobbs said, "was the only person who actually got an offer'' to take over the basketball program.

"We had a couple of other coaches in the mix who removed themselves from consideration,'' said Hobbs, who did his best to keep information from the public in both searches. "In some ways that information gets out in different ways in basketball than it does in football. I'm very comfortable with the way the process went.''

While serving as interim AD at Seton Hall, Hobbs on March 31, 2010, tapped Kevin Willard as the Pirates men's basketball coach. Now, nearly six years to that day, Hobbs now has the distinction of hiring arguably New Jersey's three highest-profile college coaches.

So what has Hobbs learned through his first four months as Rutgers AD?

"I learned it's a hard job,'' he said, adding with a smile:

"I don't know if there's such a thing as a normal day in the life of an AD.''

Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KSargeantNJ. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.