Rutgers is set to hire Bergen Catholic (Oradell, N.J.) head coach Nunzio Campanile as running backs coach, a person with knowledge of the hiring confirmed to NJ Advance Media.
The hire is expected to become official Wednesday, opening up Rutgers to potential recruiting success in North Jersey.
Rutgers' running backs are currently being coached by Lester Erb, and it's unclear as to whether he will still coach the position in some capacity or move to another role.
By hiring N.J.'s preeminent high school football coach, Rutgers earns an instant connection to not only recruits, but the culture of what was formerly the Big North -- rated the top football conference in the country. And Campanile is known to have produced more FBS talent over the past few years than any coach in the state.
Known as one of New Jersey's top offensive minds, Campanile has been at BC since February of 2010, when he ascended from Don Bosco (Ramsey, N.J.), where he ran the offense as its star coordinator. Also, due to his national acclaim, Campanile has coached in the Under Armour All-American game the last few years.
He is coming off a 10-2 record Non-public Group 4 title, The Crusaders' first since 2014. Bergen Catholic was also NJ.com's team of the year.
Despite two early season loses to out-of-state opponents, Campanile and staff finished the season 10-0 against Garden State teams, becoming the first N.J. team to come out of all of it's North Jersey parochial battles unblemished since Bosco did it in 2011.
Campanile also coached Javontae Jean-Baptiste, N.J.'s 2017 defensive player of the year, who Rutgers had prioritized at times throughout the 2018 recruiting cycle.
This isn't Rutgers' first time Rutgers is going down the road of getting help in North Jersey, as former head coach Kyle flood attempted to hire former Paramus (N.J.) Catholic head coach Chris Partridge, before Partridge jumped ship for the Michigan Wolverines, where he's attained great success as a special teams and linebackers coach.
Campanile comes from a family of coaches. He is the brother of rising Boston College defensive backs coach Anthony Campanile, who is coming off national off-season awards, including defensive back coach of the year via 247Sports.com and Football Scoop.
His father, Michael, was a head coach at Paramus Catholic and Paterson Catholic as well as an assistant at Bergen Catholic and DePaul.
His brother, Vito, is the head football coach at Seton Hall Prep (West Orange, N.J.), and younger brother, Nick, is the offensive coordinator at DePaul Catholic (Wayne, N.J.).
Anthony was on the Rutgers staff when Ash was hired in December of 2015 but was not retained as Ash cleaned house to start from scratch.
Todderick Hunt may be reached at thunt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TodderickHunt. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.