TAMPA, Fla. — According to one Tampa Bay Buccaneers media member, it took approximately 15 seconds for the Greg Schiano era to begin here.
It was back in April, the first practice, when the first-year NFL head coach stood on the football field eyeballing his players before the first stretch exercise. Except Schiano was eagle-eying every body part from head to toe.
Fifteen seconds was all it took. Schiano blew his whistle like the lookout on the Titanic.
“Toes On The Line!’ he yelled at his players.
Toes on the line?
“Toes on the line!” Schiano barked.
“You heard the, ‘Toes on the line?’ That’s been a great mantra for Coach Schiano,’’ Buccaneers general manager Mark Dominik told The Post.
If Schiano, the former Rutgers coach, gets these young Bucs to toe the line and become a playoff team, if not this year then in the near future, then that first outburst indeed will be his mantra. But to some, he sounded much like a college coach trying to man up pros.
“Schiano came over there and he [yelled], ‘Toes on the line! Toes on the line!’ Blowing the whistle. You can’t laugh. You can’t joke around. So, I decided not to go to OTAs,” veteran tight end Kellen Winslow told Tampa reporters.
In June, Winslow, one of the most gifted tight ends in the league, was traded to Seattle, and safety Tanard Jackson was shipped to Washington.
Why? Simply put, they were not, in Schiano’s lexicon, “Buccaneer men,” who were willing to doing things the “Buccaneer way.”
Uh, coach, this isn’t college any more, you do realize that? Steve Spurrier tried this in Washington and raced back to college faster than a Capitol Hill page fetching the morning papers. Nick Saban took a shot with the Dolphins and quickly decided that Tuscaloosa, Ala., was more his cup of Gatorade than Miami.
Either Schiano is going to be the next college coach to flop like a low-budget reality show, or he will become the second coming of Jim Harbaugh, who went from building Stanford to reviving the 49ers.
Until then, Schiano is in a coaching Limboland.
“Guys that’s been in the league a while, they’re going to say college,’’ said guard Carl Nicks, one of the first free agents Schiano and Dominik signed. “Me personally, I’m going to go out and say this is half college, half NFL. And that’s to be expected. He was coaching in college but he has experience in the NFL. So we kind of got the best of both worlds.’’
Schiano was an NFL coach — in 1998 he was defensive backs coach for the Bears. Since then he was the defensive coordinator at the University of Miami before transforming Rutgers from a punchline to a respectable program. He never won a Big East title, but he got the Scarlet Knights to more bowl appearances than every other Rutgers coach combined.
His M.O. in the Sunshine State will be very similar to that in the Garden State — detail, detail, detail. Training camp opened Thursday with a conditioning test. Divided into skill, combo and linemen groups, players huffed it through
16 110-yard runs, with a 45-second rest period. Not all passed. Later that day, defensive tackle Brian Price, the team’s second-round pick in 2010, was traded to Chicago, and wide receiver Dez Briscoe was cut.
Two hours into a two-hour, 40-minute practice on a blistering hot Friday morning, Schiano had every unit practicing how to fall on a fumble — even linemen.
Several breakfasts were left on the field. Ah, it’s good to be a Buccaneer Man!
“They ask me how he was in college,’’ said former Rutgers wide receiver Tyquan Underwood. “I just be truthful — coach is tough, but if you are doing the right thing, not getting in trouble, studying your playbook, you’ll be fine.’’
There could be a method to the madness, or this could turn into Mutiny on the SS Buccaneer. It’s a young team that lost it’s way under former coach Raheem Morris, who personally could escort a visitor to any of Tampa’s numerous night stops. The 2011 Buccaneers finished 4-12 and were last in the NFC with a minus-16 turnover margin.
Schiano’s idea of nightlife is reviewing practice film. The eyes that look back at him in meetings still are adjusting to a new picture. Schiano might have beat South Florida four times, but can he beat the Saints?
“I’ve got to earn that,’’ Schiano said. “Right now it doesn’t matter [what they see]. Hopefully six months into it, they’re starting to get a sense that the guy’s got a plan.’
“To me, the whole thing, this is how they’re feeding their families. This is a job. Once you get that scholarship in college, unless you do something really bad, you keep it. This is a job. It’s totally performance-based. You keep your job if you perform, and you don’t if you don’t.’’
lenn.robbins@nypost.com