Everything Rutgers Football HC Greg Schiano ahead of Miami (OH) game week
Rutgers Football head coach Greg Schiano met with the media again today as the Scarlet Knights prep for the upcoming game against Miami (OH) this upcoming Saturday afternoon inside of SHI Stadium.
Full Press Conference Transcript
GREG SCHIANO: Okay, guys, thanks for coming out and for covering us. Happy Labor Day. So on to game two, all right, a new season.
It’s Miami Ohio season. Miami is a really good football team, as you watch them against
Wisconsin, but as we watch them last year, and they’ve been in the MAC championship game
the last two years, really, Coach Martin is certainly an experienced coach. He’s won a lot of
games, he’s won everywhere he’s been, a lot of respect for him and the way he runs his
program.
Their quarterback is a transfer, Daquan Finn, who’s a seventh year senior and leads the
country. Touchdowns, 93 touchdowns involved. They get their running back back last year who
had coming back from a torn ACL.
And then a lot of different guys, new guys on offense, four transfer receivers, transfer offensive
linemen. So there’s still some, we’re still working on getting background on all of them. And
we’re working on watching all of them, we’ve got all the background on them.
On defensively, they’re really strong. They have a lot of players returning. They’ve played really
good defense the last four years.
They’ve played top 40 defense, and in some cases, top 20 defense. So really good, they don’t
give up easy points, they make you earn everything. And the number 20, I think his name is
Trick, was a little bit of a game wrecker last week.
So we gotta make sure we know where he is. And then special teams, it’s always been a part of
Coach Martin’s formula, very similar to ours. And you can see it’s a programmatic belief, they
play across the board, they play very hard.
But on special teams where some programs may play hard on offensive defense and play
marginally on special teams, that’s not the case here with Miami. They play really, really hard on
special teams, and they know what they wanna do. So definitely gonna be a challenge, one
we’re looking forward to.
And we have our work to do this week to improve, right? And I talked about fundamental
improvement. That’s really been the war cry around here right now. So I’ll open up for
questions.
Just didn’t get a chance to ask you this after the game, but Dante Chin getting the start at left
tackle. I guess, what did he show you kind of to earn that spot, to earn that role? And how do
you feel like he performed?
GREG SCHIANO: Well, Dante had a very good training camp, for sure. We had some injuries on the offensive line during camp. So Dante moved out there out of necessity and then did a really good job. And we felt like he deserved to get the start. We’ll see, I think it’s gonna be, like I said earlier, those three guys are gonna rotate and we’ll see how it ends up.
Similarly, we can get to ask about Doug Eli, him being out for the year. How much does that
impact the defensive tackle room? Do you anticipate guys getting more snaps than expected?
Or do you expect someone else to kind of fill in his spot in the rotation?
GREG SCHIANO: Well, it’s a good question. Doug was a big loss. I really felt Doug was gonna be a difference maker. He had had a really good, leading up to that, really good experience. So that hurts, for sure. And it’s kind of a silly way we lost him, which is frustrating. We can’t do that, right? Good teams know how to practice. And I think we do a good job of that, but that was one of those instances that shouldn’t have happened.
But as far as filling in, guys just move up. I mean, that’s the way it is, right? It’s cliche, but next
man up. And the one thing is we started the year with good depth, but you can’t have too many
injuries and continue to say that. So we gotta make sure that we practice smart, and then games are the games. You gotta go have it.
Tight end position, you get Kenny back, you got Collin in there. Just your thoughts on that position and your assessment of the depth there as well.
GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, I mean, Kenny and Collin are gonna be a good one-two punch. You gotta keep them both healthy, right? But I think they bring different skill sets to the game. And I think Coach Ciarrocca and Coach Vallone know exactly how to use their skill sets. Then we have some guys behind them that I think are growing and getting better. So I’m encouraged with the tight end position. But as you know, Kenny and Collin are one and done. So we need to be developing behind them for sure.
When breaking in so many new defensive starters, what’s the process kinda like for both the coaches and the staff now having a whole game of film to kinda teach off of?
GREG SCHIANO: I think the film may be a little overrated in that we’ve had film of them. But look, you can say whatever you want to them over and over again, both the coaches and the players. But when you go play a game and now it’s real, now I think it has a little bit more of an urgency on some of the things that are being mentioned. And that’s what we need to do.
Defensively, we need to be better fundamentally. It’s not where we tackled hard. We had eight
missed tackles, which when you look at it, the way we always look at it is if you can contain it to
two per level.
So two missed tackles for the front, level one, two missed tackles for the linebackers, level two,
and then two missed tackles for the secondary. If you can have six missed tackles in a game, it’s
a pretty good game. Cuz again, you’re playing against good players. To have eight missed tackles against that quarterback is pretty good. So usually tackling something you really worry about to start the season, I don’t think that was an issue. We lost contain several times and you just can’t do that against a quarterback of that caliber and we’re gonna have it again this week. Daquan Finn is a really talented athletic quarterback with a big arm and you’re not part of 93 division one touchdowns by chance. That’s by being a good football player. So we need to take what we see, what we’ve made mistakes on, and really improve on it this week. And then the things that we’re doing well, we need to just enhance that. The defense seemed to struggle a little last week with Navarro’s legs.
Is there anything specific being done as Finn is a rushing threat as well?
GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, just as I mentioned, I don’t know if the actual run game of Navarro was the issue. Navarro, the bigger issue was when he created, when there was a pass rush that didn’t have contain, he created plays. And that’s the struggle, right? We have to make sure that we keep him contained. And if he beats you throwing the ball, he beats you throwing the ball. You can’t let him get on the perimeter. There’s a couple balls that Navarro threw that were just, I mean, the one he threw out of the end zone with a hand in his face and fading away, he threw it like 20-something yards on the dime. I mean, that one, that’s a good player, really good player. And again, Finn’s a really good player. So we’re getting it two weeks in a row.
CJ Campbell and Antwan Raymond seem to be the two premier backs in that last game.
Is that something you see going forward the rest of the season, or could that change with guys
like Sam Brown coming back?
Well, Ja’shon Benjamin is the guy that I think we needed to get in there more than we did, he had a really good training camp, we’ll continue to work him in the mix. I think those three are gonna be, Sam, we’re trying to gauge where he is coming back off the surgery. And we have some decisions to make there.
But those three certainly need to continue to play and we’ll keep playing them all unless
someone pulls away. If someone pulls away or somebody gets hot in the game, then we’ll keep
them going. But otherwise, we wanna give everybody an opportunity to win the job, become
the primary ball carrier.
I guess when they’re also learning a new scheme and trying to execute a new system for the first time, I guess how much does that lead into kind of some of those, that slow start that you felt like maybe they were having?
GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, I think, as I said, I don’t think we’re far off, but sometimes that final piece is the hardest piece, right? And we have to do a better job as coaches, like making everything crystal clear and then holding them accountable to that. I think there were some things that weren’t crystal clear that we need to clean up, exactly how we wanna play this, how we wanna play that. And I can promise you we’ve been working hard to get that cleaned up, but you won’t know until you go out and play again on Saturday. And hopefully we can make improvement. It’s about incremental improvement every day. And
then when you look up over a longer period of time, all of a sudden, look at that.
So we just need to keep doing that and keep our head down, and as we say around here, keep
chopping.
You didn’t play any true freshmen in the openers. That’s some unusual, usually you have somebody in there. Is that something you can expect to continue and just talk about that class?
GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, well, some played on teams. Some true freshmen played on special teams, I think. Houston, I think, played some, a little bit. But we’re gonna work the freshmen in. That’s kind of a process. We have some veteran guys that we’re gonna make sure they get in first, unless a freshman comes in.
And as you know, I’m not afraid to play freshmen, but they need to earn it. We don’t hand
anything out around here.
Miami’s already played a Big Ten team going up against a physical Wisconsin team last week. Does that impact your preparation, if at all, going up against them this week?
GREG SCHIANO: Well, I think you look at their history. They’ve beat two power four teams in the last, what, two or three years. So we didn’t need Wisconsin to tell us that they’re not gonna come in here in awe of a Big Ten team. We know that. By chance, we happened to schedule the two teams that played in the MAC championship last year. And they’re both really good football teams, and they both happen to
have really good mobile quarterbacks. Which makes, when you have an athletic quarterback that can throw and run, anything can happen. And they’re a good football team. They’re not a team that is in awe of Rutgers or the Big Ten or any of that stuff.
Chuck Martin’s a proven winner at every level. His team plays in his personality. They’re a tough football team that play really, really hard. So, yes, going into Wisconsin, Camp Randall and playing, this team isn’t gonna sweat coming into here and playing, that’s for sure.
What did you think of how Jacobie Henderson played, and just what has he done since he’s gotten here?
GREG SCHIANO: I thought Jacobie played well. I really love coaching Jacobie. He loves football. And I love coaching guys who love football. He wants to always watch tape. He wants to come in and talk scheme. He wants to talk about our opponent. Here’s a guy who lives it, and we need to just keep doing that. And we need some guys to follow his way. That’s the kind of preparation. That’s the kind of juice that I like to coach. And I like guys that are lit, that are on it, wanna go. I think he’s been a great addition, and hopefully he can pull some with him. All right, guys, appreciate it again.
The Knight Report joins On3 Sports
With the merge of Rivals and On3 Sports, The Knight Report has joined the On3 family! For those of you that don’t know, On3 is a leading sports media and technology company delivering trusted coverage, data, and connectivity across youth, high school, and college sports.
There’s also no better time to join the premium side of The Knight Report and get access to all the inside scoop on the football team with training camp in full swing, latest recruit scoop, team news and more.
If you are having issues with accessing or logging in to the On3 network or The Knight Report, please email us at [email protected] and we will do our best to help you shortly!
💬 Wondering what other Rutgers fans are saying?
Head to The Round Table and jump into the discussion →
