PISCATAWAY, N.J — After weeks of speculation about his future, Rutgers coach Greg Schiano decided to stay at home.

Amid talk he might return to Miami to take over the troubled program, Schiano told the Hurricanes’ athletic director, Paul Dee, yesterday to take his name off a list of coaching candidates.

“Rutgers is where I am going to be and Rutgers is where I want to be. I am not a candidate for that job and I won’t be a candidate for that job,” Schiano said.

A New Jersey native, Schiano, was Miami’s defensive coordinator in 1999 and 2000. Miami coach Larry Coker was fired after going 6–6 in the regular season.

Schiano has orchestrated no. 16 Rutgers’ rise from one of the nation’s lowliest programs in the past six seasons, and led the team to its first bowl appearance in 27 years in 2005.

At 10–2 (5–2 Big East) this season after winning their first nine games, the Scarlet Knights are headed to a Texas Bowl matchup against Kansas State. Rutgers narrowly missed the Bowl Championship Series and a likely Orange Bowl appearance by losing Saturday night in triple overtime at West Virginia.

As Rutgers continued to win this season and Coker’s position became more tenuous, speculation grew that Schiano was one of the top candidates, perhaps even no. 1, for the Hurricanes job.

Schiano never wavered from the message that he was happy at Rutgers and looking forward to the program’s continued growth — yet he never explicitly said he would stay at the school.

That only fueled more rumors, which persisted through the West Virginia game and into yesterday.

“People kept asking if it was a distraction for the players during the season, but I knew once Saturday came that we needed to address it and that’s exactly what happened,” Schiano said.

Schiano said he had not signed a new contract with Rutgers, but said his agent is in discussions with Rutgers officials. He made $191,000 last year before the athletic director, Robert Mulcahy, gave him a seven-year extension that will max out at $350,000 by 2012.

The extension raised Schiano’s annual income from private sources from $325,000 to $625,000. With incentives, his total compensation is in the $1 million range.

Coker, meanwhile, had three seasons left on a contract that paid him about $2 million annually.

Schiano had previously hinted that money issues were secondary to Rutgers committing to make the upgrades necessary to field a top-10 caliber team.

At the top of his current wish list is an expansion of 41,500-seat Rutgers Stadium. Several home games were sellouts this season, including the final two games in which temporary bleachers added 2,000 seats to the south end zone. Season ticket sales have already increased by 5,000 for next season, Schiano said yesterday.

He added that school officials “are all on the same page with what we want to build here.”

“We just need to keep moving forward. There are people committed at Rutgers to taking it to the level we’re talking about. That’s what’s important to me,” he said.

With the 40-year-old Schiano now considered a hot commodity in coaching circles, Miami doesn’t figure to be the last school to come calling. Already there are whispers that Schiano has his eye on replacing Joe Paterno at Penn State, another program where he was an assistant.

For now, Schiano’s enthusiasm for his current job remains boundless.

“We’re just scratching the surface here at Rutgers,” Schiano said. “The sky’s the limit. We’re going to do great things here. We haven’t done it yet. The seniors have laid the foundation for really, really big things. We’ve recruited really great young guys in this program and this is home.”