Everything Rutgers Football HC Greg Schiano said ahead of Purdue game week
Rutgers Football head coach Greg Schiano met with the media again today as the Scarlet Knights prep for the upcoming game against the Purdue Boilermakers this upcoming Saturday afternoon inside of Ross-Ade Stadium.
Full Press Conference Transcript
So first, let me thank you. Sorry about the late change. I thought it was necessary.
We’ll do this the rest of the year, if that’s OK with you guys. But yeah, preparation for Purdue is well underway. Guys are working hard.
We had a good practice, and looking forward to tomorrow, introducing some more things, and getting into more things, and just keep getting ready, keep preparing. Questions?
Just after taking these last couple days to reflect, I guess, what changes are you making with the defense?
Yeah, I’m not going to get into the specifics of that, because that would not be a competitive advantage by any means. But there certainly was.
We’ve made some changes in a lot of ways, right? In personnel on the field, personnel off the field, adjusting responsibilities, guys doing some different things, doing them differently. That’s one of the reasons that we move this till Tuesdays from now on. So there’s a lot of stuff that we’re working on, but that’ll be internal.
Unless you do something officially, I don’t like to share stuff that we do internally.
Do you plan on getting yourself more involved in defensive playing games?
GREG SCHIANO: “Yeah, again, I’m going to stay away from the specifics. But it’s my job to make sure we get better on defense.
That was not good enough, obviously. So whether I’m involved or not involved, I better make sure it gets fixed. Purdue quarterback Ryan Brown, his status is in question.
So preparing for the backup quarterback, how does that add an extra layer of preparation for a defense that’s already trying to find its bearings itself?
GREG SCHIANO: “Well, he already plays, even when 15’s playing. They have a package for him, because he’s a really talented guy. If he ends up being the starter, they’ll probably, like he did in the game.
When he came into the game, he didn’t just do his package stuff. He did what was on the game plan. Now, when you prepare a whole week for a guy to be the starter, that’s different.
Then you may shape the game plan more to fit his specific talents. So yeah, there is some uncertainty there. But look, we have to get ready for him either way, because he plays. So we got a good look at him on tape. And we’re going to have that every week. There’s always so much to get ready for as a defensive coach.
You just have to pick what you think’s going to be the focus. Because when you get to this point, you have, what, seven games of data to work off of. That’s a lot of plays, a lot of football.
Greg, we saw a lot more freshmen on the field on Saturday. Do you foresee that being the norm going forward?
GREG SCHIANO: “You know what, guys are getting their feet underneath them, some of those young guys. And I think they can help us.
Plus, I haven’t talked a lot about it, but we have a pretty substantial, when you look at that injury list, some of it is not by my choice. It’s by necessity. So some of it is improvement to the point where I think they can help us win. And some of it is, it’s the best choice available.
What do you think about the mix now, the defensive side of the ball with the staff? You talked a lot about having some experience, having some young guys. How are you seeing that at this point of the season?
GREG SCHIANO: “Well, we’re not playing well defensively. So that’s kind of a loaded question, right? And I’m not saying don’t ask the question. I’m just saying it’s a loaded question because you have to look at things. You know, I have to look at things critically and say, OK, why that? Now, I sat with the defense, and I showed them Sunday probably eight or 10 plays that were monstrous plays that didn’t have to be.
Now, they may have gotten monstrous plays another way. But the way they got them, I’m not saying that they didn’t have a lot to do with it. They did, but we didn’t give ourselves a chance.
So I’d like to see if we did it correctly, but that’s coaching. We have to get our guys to get lined up and do their job. It’s not, you know, it sounds easy, right? Well, get lined up and do your job.
They were shifting people and moving people, and we did not do a good job of adjusting. So we certainly have to get better, and that’s what we’re working on. Just for point of clarification, has anybody been fired on the staff? No, what I said is if there was something official, then I would make it public.
It’s all internal, and we’re all working our tails off, literally, to get to where we need to get to.
Safety seems to be a position that’s been struggling in particular. Is there anything you could point to why Kaj and Jett have had a bit of a harder time than maybe you expected?
GREG SCHIANO: “Yeah, some of it’s technique.Some of it, you know, we’ve got to put them in better positions to succeed. Yeah. Jordan Walker said after the game that he feels like some guys maybe aren’t playing with the most confidence and some have some doubt.
I guess, how do you kind of change that? And are you seeing that from your perspective?
GREG SCHIANO: “Well, I don’t think there’s any doubt that some guys have lost their confidence. Confidence is a tricky thing, right? It’s funny, people will say, well, you can pump them up and give them confidence. No, you can’t.
If people say that, they’ve never played. Because no one knows players better than players. And when you’re playing well, you know you’re playing well.
You feel like, I got it. Everything slows down. And when you’re playing poorly, everything speeds up, and you know you’re not playing well.
So you can’t talk somebody into it. Now, what you can do is coach them, spend more time with them, make sure that what the things we’re doing, they fully understand it, and then practice it. So if it’s too much, maybe we do less.
If it’s too hard, maybe we don’t do that. Does it not fit our skill set? You may want to do something, because that’s really what you want to do. But if your players can’t do it, do something else.
The old saying, there’s many ways to skin the cat. I never really understood that saying, to tell you the truth. But I get the meaning of it. That could be a project. Let’s figure out what. With AI, that’s not that hard. You just punch it in and find out. But yeah, there is. There’s many ways to skin the cat. We’ve got to figure out what that way is here at Rutgers on our defense. Time for two more. Purdue has six games of film under them as a team.
With a roster as much as any in the country, it’s had a ton of turnover. Does that affect the preparation at all, knowing that you’re seeing guys that have played all over the place in their college careers?
GREG SCHIANO: “No, not really. Because the skill set they bring with them, but the coaches at Purdue are excellent coaches.
And I don’t know Coach Odom personally, but I know him professionally. And everywhere he’s been, he does an excellent job, whether it was as a defensive coach or a head coach. And I know the kind of staff he’s put together.
I mean, I got a lot of respect for their whole staff. They work together well. And they have a really good plan, ODK.
And they challenge you on that plan at every turn. So yeah, they do have a lot of players that transfer from other places. But they’ve been there.
They’ve been there for a training camp. Some came in the summer. Some came in the winter.
But they’ve been together now for, like you said, seven games, right? So you have a pretty good read.
You talked after the game about your ownership and everything beginning with you. How much of this, especially with the culture you built here, also falls on the players and they’re taking their own ownership and kind of making the culture their own in these moments?
GREG SCHIANO: “Well, look, a big part of why I still coach is I have the opportunity to teach young men how to act like grown men. And when you go through adversity, that’s a great teaching tool of how to grow up, how to face things. So I don’t let them off the hook. To the public, I don’t hang them out either, right? Because I don’t think that’s my job.
They know when they’re not doing things the way I want. Because I’m very clear and they’re clear back with me. Like, they’re not afraid to share with me a coach.
This doesn’t work. All right, let me look at it. I think the good thing is that our players are comfortable sharing.And I’m comfortable listening. Sometimes 37 years trumps somebody’s feeling. And sometimes somebody’s feeling means more than 37 years.
And finding that sweet spot is what you try to do as a head coach. And you try to do that with your coaches and staff and everybody in every area. So really good question.
But we’re in it together. Like, it’s not coaches and players. It’s us.
When we don’t do well, it’s us. And when we do do well, it’s us. And I think that’s the one cool thing about our program.
It’s a tough place to work. I mean, you’ve really got to put in your time and your effort. And the standard is very high.
But it’s also a very rewarding place because it prepares you for life. Thanks, guys.
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