Rutgers Football HC Greg Schiano's Maryland Postgame Press Conference
Rutgers Football head coach Greg Schiano met with the media following the Scarlet Knights’ win versus Maryland on Saturday afternoon inside of SHI Stadium.
Following the game, Schiano spoke with the media to offer an immediate reaction to his program’s performance and talked about what he saw in the 10th game of the season.
Full Press Conference Transcript
Guys, thanks for coming out and for covering us. I’m excited for our team. I’m really proud of our team.
It’s kind of been a stretch where I think guys really trusted what we were asking them to do and they did it. I was glad to see them get the result that they did. With that, I’ll open up for questions.
Greg, you talked about the defense. You’re getting more stops now than in the past. You might not have gotten. What’s really changed with that group?
GREG SCHIANO: “Well, we’re a long ways from being what we want to be, but we’re making incremental improvement. That’s all I asked them to do is let’s just keep getting a little bit better every day. We’re playing from behind.
We’ve got to catch up here. We’re getting better, but we’ve got work to do. I’m proud of them. Led up three points in the second half. That looked like real defense. You got 41 carries from Antoine Raven.
Big day for him, obviously, but did you anticipate using him as much as you did or was that just the way the game kind of played out? Every game has a – we anticipated really wanting to run the football, but to say that I anticipated 41 carries, that would not be true. I thought the staff did a really good job, and Antoine certainly in the O line. We really thought this game would be one of those games, the cumulative effects.
Two and three yard runs turn into eight and nines and then turn into 14 and 16s, and I think that’s how it happened over time, which that part was part of the plan.”
I wonder how it stood out to you about the way that – the season that Antwan’s had and the kind of way he’s put these games together. How much also do you feel like playing behind Kyle for a year and learning from him has helped his growth this year?
GREG SCHIANO: “Yeah, you have to ask him that, but I’m sure it has. You have an opportunity to learn from Kyle who handled – the way he approached college football was very much like a professional football player, and I thought he set a great standard for the room. I also think Coach Shaw does an incredible job with that entire room. As I’ve said many times, that can be a very selfish position because there’s only one ball and only one guy plays at a time in that position.
But Coach Shaw has done an incredible job of building a brotherhood, a camaraderie in that room. Look, I know it’s hard. Everybody wants to be the guy carrying it, but I enjoy watching those guys.
No one was more happy for Antoine than Benji, which to me, that’s what team sports is about. The offense as a whole just looked a lot more efficient than in recent weeks. 8-for-12 on third down.
Obviously the run game and the pass game got going too. What do you think was the biggest flip from the past couple weeks to this week to get that effect of his back? Well, we got Taj White back. He missed last week, so I think the shuffle – we had to move Tai over to the other side.
There’s a whole bunch of things that aren’t small things, but we don’t talk about because nobody cares. That’s what we have and that’s what we have to do. But I think maybe kind of just getting back into a groove of the people that usually are playing where they’re supposed to play.
You remember two weeks ago Ian was out. Last week he comes back, but he’s playing first time back and out with a lot of practice. I thought he played a great game today as well. I think kind of just being a little back to normal.”
Coach, with the exciting factor that this quarterback has, he ran the first touchdown. But I was impressed with the fact you guys held him to 98 yards passing. Talk about that today.
GREG SCHIANO: “Yeah, I mean their quarterback is a fine young player. We recruited him. We know him well. He’s an exceptional person, an exceptional athlete, an exceptional quarterback. I thought our defense did a good job of limiting that, but he took off and ran.
We didn’t do a great job there. I was just proud of the guys that they were able to keep him to three points in the second half. That’s what was needed.
They did it and kept playing and believing. That to me is everything when guys continue to believe. Going 35 minutes time of possession and also 8 of 12 on third down conversions.”
Was the balance to a little bit more what you want to see moving forward and maybe a bit of a blueprint for these final two games?
GREG SCHIANO: “Well, yeah, I’ll take that performance, yeah, for sure. I’ll take that. But the reality is every game is its own season. And I know people say, oh, it’s coach speak. It isn’t coach speak. It’s so hard to win in the Big Ten Conference.
At this level, it’s so hard to win. And you put everything you got into the week. So when it turns out like the week before, you’re crushed. And literally, I’ve said to the guys, there’s nothing wrong with that, man. Like if you’re not crushed after an Illinois loss like that, then you haven’t put enough into it. And when you win, it’s really gratifying because you put everything you have from Sunday till the game’s over on Saturday, every ounce of what you got you put into it.
And then they get a little break here and then now this week because we have a bye, they got a little better break, which is nice. They need it. We’re beat up. We need to heal.
Five wins, two games left. Does the potential of getting the sixth one, is that still a motivator for you and the program?
GREG SCHIANO: “Yeah. I mean, our motivator is to continue to just get better, Steve. Certainly that’s out there. And that’s what you start the minimum of a year, right, is you want to get to a bowl game. That’s not our goals around here. I’ve said that many times.
I didn’t come back to do that. Do I want to do that? Yeah, I want to do that. I want to do that for a lot of reasons. They deserve it. We get extra practice, all that stuff. But you start looking ahead, then you usually trip over what’s right in front of you.
Right now we have, I told the players, they’re going to have a little time off and then we’re going to come back and certain guys are going to need to heal up. We’re going to intensify treatments and things like that. And guys that are developmental players, they’re going to get a lot of work this week.
And then maybe some of them can play in the final two games. There’s some guys now that can play and still maintain their eligibility for the season, still redshirt. So there’s certainly going to be opportunities like that.
It seems like we got out of it pretty healthy, but you never know until tomorrow morning when the medical check happens. Sometimes things pop up. So we’ll see.”
Coach, Athan with 2,500 yards now in back-to-back seasons, first quarterback to do so since Mike Teel, what has impressed you about him, especially in this season, in his second year with the program?
GREG SCHIANO: “Yeah, I’m really proud of Athan. I’ve said it before. He came in here as a transfer, and we had an incumbent quarterback, so he had to beat the guy out. And I love the way he did it. He came in, didn’t politic, didn’t try to become buddies. He just came in and worked.
And everybody recognized that. Then he got the chance to be the starting quarterback, and it was a slow, gradual start. Mid-season last year, his career took off. And I think he picked it up where he left off this season, has it been? Never. It’s never like that, right? It’s always a little choppy. But to do what he did, you know, to have two back-to-back 2,500 yards, we still got two games and maybe more to play. So, yeah. And he’s been a great leader. I’ve said this to people. He’s taken over this team. He’s not only the leader of the offense, he’s the leader of this team. And that’s usually the best quarterbacks I’ve been around. That’s how they do it.”
You seem a little down. Is there something from the performance that’s bothering you, or are you exhausted from the season entering the bye-week? Am I reading too much into it?
GREG SCHIANO: “Yeah, you’re reading into it. I mean, I’m excited, trust me. I celebrated with our guys. I am exhausted. There’s no doubt about that. But so is everybody downstairs. This comes at a good time, you know. Grateful, grateful to be able to do what I do for a living and to have people in our organization that really care about Rutgers and Rutgers football. You know, our players, you look across America, there’s a lot of teams that just say, eh, not this year.
And certainly they had plenty of opportunities to do that. They just keep showing up and doing what we ask. Staff does it, you know, so I’m proud of them.”
Jordan Walker popped up on the availability report. I don’t believe he played much, if at all, today. I guess how was the defensive line able to rally around not having their senior leader, and how much did he try to get to 100% out there today?
GREG SCHIANO: “Yeah, he did not play. And something popped up late in the week, and just, you know, didn’t think it was the best thing for him to play.”
Greg, you had two last games, Ohio State, Penn State, measuring sticks in the Big Ten for all time. I’m just curious about, you know, obviously we have to look ahead. Your thoughts on having them left on the schedule?
GREG SCHIANO: “Yeah, well, you know, you look. I guess Ohio State had a chance to win the game. I haven’t seen any of the scores, but somebody told me that on my way up here. And then you look at, did I say Penn State? Yeah, Penn State. I’m sorry, Penn State had a chance to win the game.
And then you look. You know, we’ve been on crossover with Ohio State a lot, just kind of trailed them in schedule. So when you do crossover film and Man Alive, are they good? So, yeah, tonight I’m not worried about them.
Tonight I’m going to relax a little bit, and then tomorrow we have some recruits I’ve got to take care of, and then I’ll start on Ohio State. And I’m sure, you know, look, I know it all too well. I was there three years.
I know the machine that they have there. But I know one thing, our players are going to be ready to play when that time comes. You know, we hit the clock downstairs like we always do, and it’s 13-something days until we play.
So I’m going to take a quick break. But, yeah, and then to have Penn State, obviously, that school that’s right down the road, you know, we were the reason to bring Rutgers in, you know, a little more eastern flavor in the Big Ten. So certainly, you know, it’s Maryland, us, and Penn State.
But we’ll deal with all that as we go. Right now it’s about getting healed up and putting together a game plan. We’ll hit the road recruiting this week, which will be important.
Everybody will kind of be different times, myself included. So it’ll be a busy week, but one that can be real productive if we have a plan, which I know, you know, our plan is already set, so we just got to go execute the plan. Guys, again, thanks for covering us and there’s nothing wrong.
I’m excited about it.”
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