Q&A with Greg Schiano offering final thoughts on Miami (OH) game
Rutgers Football head coach Greg Schiano met with the media again on Wednesday after practice, as he offered his final thoughts on his team ahead Saturday afternoon’s matchup against Miami (OH) inside of SHI Stadium.
How do you guys take this step toward improving at the screen? How much is that determined
by the opponent and how much is it determined by the fundamentals of the game?
GREG SCHIANO: Well, certainly the opponent. I mean, you have to have a mobile quarterback to be able to get out, but we made it too easy. You know, the saying is you high cage the guy, so that means you get
to his upfield shoulder, the shoulder that’s away from the line of scrimmage, and you do your
work from that position.
If you don’t, and you do like we did, and you come at him from his frontal position, he feels you,
sees you, and then whirlybirds out, and now there’s nobody out there. Kenny returned, and
how did he look from that game, and are you comfortable with the depth of that position? I
think Kenny performed well, especially first game back after the injury. I really like Colin, I think
he’s played well also. After that, it’s got to clean itself up a little bit. So, but there’s bodies there, it’s just like who’s gonna rise up and perform. But I think to have two, when there’s been times we’ve had none,
two is better than none, that’s for sure. And then hopefully we get a third and a fourth and keep building the depth.
Rutgers has a long tradition of walk-ons becoming captains. How did Jordan Walker get that position?
GREG SCHIANO: By a lot of hard work. I can tell you that when he first started here, that would not have been my prediction. Right, and that’s the fun part about coaching, is that when you see a young man not only grow as a football player, but grow as a person, and now he is a consummate leader. I think one of the
guys, one of the top two vote getters in the captain’s vote.
So that’s really impressive, and he’s still an underclassman, so it shows how much he has
progressed.
I know you’re not watching the TV copy, but you grew up in North Jersey in the 80s. Is it gonna be cool to have Phil Simms calling a game that you’re coaching?
GREG SCHIANO: It is, I got to see Phil. I have a long history with Phil, and certainly a great, great player and a long time broadcaster as well, so yeah, that’ll be cool.
Obviously, a lot of rotations earlier in this season, looking at defensive line, defensive end. How do you feel like that room is kind of figuring itself out as the season goes along?
GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, I think just that, we’re figuring it out. We have young guys, we have transfers, we have older guys. As I say all the time, though, you earn your piece of the pie. There’s only so many plays, and depending on how well you play, you get more, you get less, and I’m not the one who decides that, they decide it. I just administer it.
This week, you’re going up against another mobile quarterback in Finn. After going up against Parker Navarro last week, how do you look to contain Finn this weekend?
GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, a lot of the same ways, actually. It’s not a very different challenge. We just have to do it better, for sure. We’re not gonna be in a spy all the time or anything like that. I mean, because when you start doing that, you take away from other things. So, but we have to be disciplined in our pass rush, right? We have to strain in our pass rush. You can’t allow yourself to get washed out of your pass rush lane.
So then, sticking with defense, how do you guys generate more pressures and turn those into
sacks? You had a few hurries, but didn’t get any sacks last week.
GREG SCHIANO: When you think about it this way, if you rush something into a wall, it can’t go anywhere. If there’s no
wall and you rush, it just goes away from the rush, and that’s really what happened to us several times Thursday night. So we have to be disciplined in our pass rush and make sure that no matter what we’re doing, if it’s a three-man rush, a four-man rush, an eight-man rush, that we have contain on both sides.
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