Over his time as a coach at both the college and professional ranks, Greg Schiano has had an impact on the coaching and playing careers of many.

That includes current Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck. He worked under Schiano during Schiano’s first stint as Rutgers head coach.

Schiano is now back leading the Scarlet Knights. While they may now be conference rivals, Fleck still has a lot of admiration for his former boss.

This topic came up in the first episode of “On The Bench” podcast, which is hosted by Big Ten Network’s Mike Hall. Fleck was the first guest on the show.

If you look at the video, there are a lot of topics covered in this podcast. At about the 22-minute mark of the 45-minute conversation, the talk of Fleck’s relationship with Schiano begins.

“For the last however many years, I’ve called Greg for a lot of things going on in my career,” Fleck said. “I worked with him for four years and now as a head coach, I’ve talked to him for eight years. Now when I call him, he doesn’t give me the advice he used to.”

“He’s not as open as he usually has been. We’ve even had a few recruiting battles and I’m like, ‘Wait a second. You can’t say that about me.'”

Some honesty there from Fleck, but also interesting to explore their background. Fleck worked under Schiano in Piscataway in 2010. The two reunited in 2012 when Fleck became the wide receivers coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

As Fleck points out, their relationship has changed as they now both compete against each other in the Big Ten.

However, the two teams are in different divisions which means less frequent meetings. As of now, the two squads aren’t set to meet until 2022 in Minneapolis.