Rowan hires ex-Profs LB Pat Ruley as head coach

When Jay Accorsi retired in April, the football program at Rowan University had to search for a head coach for the first time in 22 years.

After a two-month process, the school announced Wednesday morning that Pat Ruley, who played linebacker for Accorsi at Rowan from 2009-12, will take the helm. Ruley is rejoining the program from Susquehanna, where he served as defensive coordinator for six years.

“It’s pretty surreal,” Ruley said. “This place was always in the back of my mind. I knew that Coach Accorsi was on the back nine. I felt like if at some point in time, this was an opportunity that made sense for me professionally, it would’ve been a dream. "

Ruley, from Margate, says he was sold on the position when it became clear that his desire to win was shared by athletic director John Giannini. He felt he had the inside track after the interview, and though some nerves surfaced following a lengthy period without hearing back, the job was his.

“There’s no reason to be anxious,” Ruley recalls Giannini saying on the phone. “It’s time to come home.”

Accorsi has left his predecessor big shoes to fill — he won a program-record 143 games with the Profs, and collected seven New Jersey Athletic Conference titles and five NJAC Coach of the Year awards. The two have a cordial relationship according to Ruley, whose coaching resumé suggests he’s a smart pick for continuing Accorsi’s success at Rowan.

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Susquehanna led the Centennial Conference in total defense in three of Ruley’s four seasons as defensive coordinator and led its league a fourth time after moving to the Landmark Conference last year. Before joining the River Hawks, Ruley had stints as the linebackers coach at Alderson Broaddus University and Muhlenberg College.

Ruley has never coached a team that lost more than three games in a season and doesn’t see that changing with his latest change of scenery.

“I think the standard of this program … that’s something that always drew me back to it,” Ruley said. “Every program I’ve been a part of … the expectations were super high and I’ve never been one to be a part of a program where the standard wasn’t competing for championships.”

After years of working under Susquehanna coach Tom Perkovich, Ruley believes he’s fully prepared. Perkovich gave Ruley full autonomy to run Susquehanna’s defense and also brought him to exclusive meetings with the school’s director of admissions, director of financial aid, and athletic director — meetings that typically happen with just the head coach.

“I can’t thank [Perkovich] enough for that, because those meetings gave me a ton of insight of being a head coach before it was my time,” Ruley said.

Ruley will have work to do right from the start, as Rowan has hit some turbulence in recent seasons. The Profs haven’t won an NJAC championship since 2014 — their longest drought since the conference formed in 1985 — and have gone 40-39 in that period.

“You have to start building the house from its foundation,” Ruley said. “There’s a phenomenal foundation here with the history of the program. That being said, in the last handful of years, for whatever reason, it hasn’t exactly lived up to the standard.”

Rowan finished last in the NJAC in total defense in 2022, allowing 324 yards per game. Last season, they gave up 55 points to Johns Hopkins, 44 to Ursinus, and 35 to Salisbury. The Profs are playing all three of those teams again this year, and Ruley has no intention of allowing the same outcomes.

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“We’re going to play tough defense,” Ruley said. “Every guy that plays defense for us here moving forward, the standard is being a runner and a striker. Do you want to be physical, or are you going to be a guy that’s turning down contact?”

When the fall comes around, there will be no stronger motivation for Ruley than revenge. In his senior year at Rowan in 2012, the Profs went 6-1 in the NJAC but fell short of the title by one game to an undefeated Cortland. Their game against Cortland in the regular season ended in a 24-21 defeat after the Red Dragons threw a game-winning touchdown with 1 minute, 26 seconds remaining.

That contest ultimately decided the championship, and Ruley knew it at the time — he suffered a broken wrist in the third quarter and played the remainder of the game anyway. Now, back for his first season in the NJAC since that year, Ruley will try to steer Rowan to the title he missed out on 12 years ago.

“I remember that game snap by snap,” Ruley said. “Super motivation.”