It was beginning to look like Sun Belt Conference member Florida International University was facing signing day without a head coach as Mario Cristobal seemed to be on his way to Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights lost their head coach Greg Schiano to the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

Cristobal stated he turned down the job because he was too close to signing day, he didn't want to hurt recruiting for FIU and he didn't want to leave the team. He also thought he would have to work with Schiano's recruits and did not have time to find the ones he wanted.

Immediately, Rutgers took off the interim head coaching label from Kyle Flood and gave him the top spot.