The sold-out crowd at the Rutgers Athletic Center was at a fever pitch during the first half of the Rutgers men’s basketball team’s meeting with No. 22 Seton Hall. The Scarlet Knights raced out to a 14-0 lead, taking a 36-23 lead into the break that left the crowd at a 10 out of 10 in excitement.

Greg Schiano cranked it up to an 11.

The Rutgers head football coach gave an impassioned speech to the sold-out crowd at the RAC during halftime.

Here’s what he said in full, which you can watch in the video above:

"I want to thank all of our fans. You guys have done an unbelievable job, your voice was heard. We had a workout the other day, and I told our players ‘this program is not broke. This program just needs a little juice, a little life and we need you. We need you, our fans. Number one, we’ve got to do this. I’m asking you to help in any way possible. Whether it’s taking the block R magnets we’re handing out on the way out today and putting them on your car, on your family car, put it on your friend’s car. We need everybody in the state of New Jersey to know that Rutgers football is back!

In 2001, I stood at a podium and I said Rutgers football will win national championships. A lot of people laughed. We got up to No. 7. We didn’t reach number one. That’s why we’re back. To get to No. 1.

Our students, you’ll be known as the craziest student section in the Big Ten Conference.

I’m going to close by saying this. We have great student-athletes in our program right now. We’re going to bring in more great student-athletes. We’re going to hire a great coaching staff that cares, that are going to be able to show them the way to things they want to accomplish. But I will say it one more time, we can’t do it alone. We need Rutgers Nation to take what they did on that video and take it to another level. Whatever they can do to help, we need help. There’s sign to be tables set up on your way out, sign up. If you have money, we need that. If you have your time, we need that. Together, Rutgers will be number one!”

It was the second time Schiano pumped up the crowd on the day.

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He arrived 10 minutes before tip and took the long way around to his court-side seat, shaking hands in the student section, firing up the crowd behind the Scarlet Knights bench before meeting up with Athletics Director Pat Hobbs to take his seat.

By the look of it, the buzz paid off. The Scarlet Knight shot out to a 12-0 lead in the first four minutes, with each bucket getting a louder reception from the spectators.

Rutgers head men’s basketball coach Steve Pikiell praised Schiano earlier in the week.

“I love Coach Schiano. It’s been great," Pikiell said. “We’ve talked, we text, we communicate. He is awesome. His enthusiasm, people are excited here at Rutgers. I look forward to working with him. I know he is going to do some really great things for our football program and the university. He continues that trend, Rutgers – buy stock now. We are going to continue to get better.”

“(Schiano) has already generated a lot of enthusiasm and he is going to do a great job."

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Brian Fonseca may be reached at bfonseca@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @briannnnf. Find NJ.com on Facebook.