Greg Schiano addresses team safety, tunnel-sharing procedures ahead of Michigan game

Following a pair of tunnel incidents in games involving Michigan, Rutgers is making sure it has its tunnel-sharing procedures down pat prior to Saturday’s game against the Wolverines.

Coach Greg Schiano is not worried about anything happening in Piscataway this weekend.

“I witnessed the same thing, so I understand the question,” Schiano told reporters this week. “We’ve never had an incident that I know of. At least when I’ve been here we’ve never had an incident. I think our guys do a great job of who goes when, and it’s all very controlled.

“Maybe some people feel like it’s too controlled but, case in point, it needs to be controlled. That’s just the way we’re built right now.”

Michigan’s issue stems from having only one tunnel that leads to both locker rooms. There’s supposed to be a bit of lag time between the two teams taking turns to get to their respective locker rooms, but that timing broke down in both the Penn State and Michigan State games the last two weeks.

Rutgers has a similar one-tunnel setup, but Schiano is confident everyone has been further brought up to speed on the importance of sticking to the proper tunnel-sharing procedures.

“There will be a day when there’s two tunnels, I’m not worried about that,” Schiano said. “But right now this is the way we’re built, so this is the way we’ll do it. But we have a plan, that’s for sure.”

Tunnel-sharing procedures broke down at Michigan

Whatever procedures were in place at Michigan, it’s clear they need some scrutiny after the Penn State and Michigan State snafus.

In fact, Nittany Lions coach James Franklin and Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh had even traded barbs publicly over the issue in that game prior to the much more serious incident on Saturday in which two Michigan players were assaulted by Michigan State players.

Eight Michigan State players have been suspended as a result of that incident.

At this point, it’s probably safe to assume nobody will want to make a similar mistake on Saturday.

Michigan and Rutgers are scheduled to kick off at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday with a broadcast on the Big Ten Network.