Everything Rutgers Football HC Greg Schiano said ahead of Ohio State 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 Ohio State Buckeyes this upcoming Saturday afternoon inside of Ohio Stadium.
Full Press Conference Transcript
GREG SCHIANO: “Thanks for helping me out here and doing this here on Tuesday. I appreciate it. I’ve had a good bye week.
You guys are ready to go. We have a great challenge ahead of us, playing the number one team in the country, and looking forward to the opportunity. Questions?
I’ll get the obligatory health question out of the way. How are the guys doing after the bye week? Can any of the guys who missed the last couple months come back?
GREG SCHIANO: “There may be one or two that can come back. We’ve got to see how they progress during the week. I think the guys… We had prescriptions for every guy at this point in the season.
Some guys really did nothing but recovery, lift, and treatment. Other guys practiced and we had kind of an individualized plan for each guy. Definitely that plan has helped them feel much better this week.
Like I said, great challenge going out to Columbus. They have the best defense in the country.”
In addition to their sheer talent that they have, what do they do so well that has allowed them to play at that level week after week?
GREG SCHIANO: “You hit it on the head. First off, they’re very, very talented. Second off, they are really well coached. They execute very well. Matt Patricia has done a magnificent job. You can see his fingerprints all over it. I’ve known Matt for a long time.
It doesn’t surprise me one bit. They have a very good coaching staff that is coaching very good players very well. When you add all that up, it adds up to a very good defense.”
How much of a game changer can a bye like this be, right? Two weeks left in the regular season when everybody feels like is dealing with some sort of bumper bruise?
GREG SCHIANO: “Yeah, byes are a tricky thing. When you get them, you always say, oh, it’s a good time, it’s a bad time. It is what it is. I stopped trying to figure all that stuff out. It was good for us to be able to come off a win, recover, and get ready for this challenge. We’ll see what it results in.
To kind of go off that, the nature of bye weeks has kind of changed across the country. What was the biggest focus for the players during the bye week and then as they transition into game prep for Ohio State? I think, like I said, last week was all individualized prescriptions for the guys that were playing a lot of plays this season. There’s also the developmental phase that, as I mentioned to you guys, with all the injuries we’ve had, our developmental has suffered just a little bit because we had to make sure that we keep the scout team healthy enough to give us a good look.
Last week was an opportunity to get some really good developmental work in with our younger players. Overall, I thought it was very helpful. We’ll see.”
Antwan Raymond being a semi-finalist for the Doak Walker Award, he took a little bit of a non-traditional path to get here to Canada and then his school closing. What allowed him last year to kind of come in and be able to get so many reps and play as well as he did, in particular in that bowl game and ramp up to this year?
GREG SCHIANO: “Well, Antwan is certainly a very, very talented guy, right? So that’s first and foremost. I think he had a great opportunity to come here and have people mentor him.
Between Kyle (Monangai) and coach (Damiere) Shaw, I think he was really put in a position where he grew quickly. You don’t always walk into a meeting room and a position room that is kind of staffed and has a veteran player like that. But really it’s his talent and his want to.
You could walk into that room and if you’re not mature enough or you’re not hungry enough, the opportunity could just pass right by you. But that certainly wasn’t the case with Antwan. He was chomping at the bit.
And if you remember, he and Benji had come to the Minnesota game last year. They really stepped up in the bowl game again. In the games that Kyle didn’t play.”
Coming off this bye week, you mentioned there’s only two games left in the regular season. You mentioned the developmental phase as well. I guess in these last two games, do you foresee any guys that may not have had a lot of snaps so far get a little bit more running in the stretch of the season?
GREG SCHIANO: “Yeah, not from a developmental standpoint. If they can help us win, if we feel like they give us the best chance to win, then they’ll play. The developmental stuff takes place out here on the practice field. Now certainly there’s no substitute for game experience, but we’re never going to sacrifice the opportunity to win a game to just have development on the game field. That’s what practice is for.”
Jeremiah Smith is being talked about as one of the best players in college football, maybe the best wide receiver in quite some time. How big of a challenge does he pose?
GREG SCHIANO: “Yeah, he is a fantastic talent. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s fast, he’s detailed, runs great routes, great catch radius. The last 18 targets, he’s caught them all. That’s like going four or five games in baseball without getting out.
It’s like being on base every time for four or five games. That’s hard to do. Certainly it takes a quarterback throwing you the pass, which Zane is an excellent player, my goodness.
You can really say that across the board on their football team. They’re an elite level team. That’s why they’re number one. I was reading a stat somewhere, I think it’s like since 2014, 90 something and nine in Big Ten games. That’s pretty impressive.”
Building off of that with the defense, three points allowed in the second half against Maryland. Big second half performances in the two Big Ten wins. Have you seen something build or change with the defense these last few weeks that’s allowed them to perform a little bit better?
GREG SCHIANO: “I don’t think. We’re making improvement at some things that we weren’t doing as well at the beginning of the year. We’ve continued to do that in the bye week and the last two practices. Again, I don’t know what that will amount to Saturday. We’re gonna find out.
That’s why it’s such a great challenge and such a great opportunity. As was mentioned, they have elite players at every position offensively and elite players at every position defensively. When you do that, you have to… You try to do this and your game plan, well then this guy’s gonna get you or you do that and that guy can get you.
It certainly is a challenge, but we’re looking forward to it. Kobe’s going back to Ohio.”
What’s the history with Kobe and just what you saw in him?
GREG SCHIANO: “We really liked him in high school and boy are we glad we got him.
He’s been a great player for us and a great teammate for us. Great guy to have on the squad. I really think he’s come into his own as a player.
I’m sure that’s exciting for him going back to his hometown. Again, all those things have to be kept in perspective because anything that can get you off your chop could be a problem. Use it as fuel, but don’t let it be a distraction.”
In Columbus, the mission game, the game is the biggest thing in town for all year. Is there any benefit to being the team that plays Ohio State the week before the game?
GREG SCHIANO: “I’d love to tell you yes, but I don’t think I can tell you that because historically when you look back there hasn’t been any kind of significant better or worse in that game.
I look at this team that they have put together out there now, they kind of just go out and execute. There’s a difference between being a really talented team and being a really talented team that executes. This is a really talented team that executes, and they’ve changed kind of the way they play.
It used to be, and I remember when I was there, it was run as many plays as you can, fast, fast, fast, fast. Now that it’s NFL, they’re huddled. They’re averaging about, snapping the ball at about 11 and a half, 12 seconds on the play clock.
That’s a different approach, and I get it. When you’re playing as many games as they are every year, you need to make sure that you don’t have an unlimited number of plays. Every time you have a play, there’s an opportunity for someone to make a play, but it’s also an opportunity for someone to get injured.
I think a really, really smart programmatic change that they’ve made. We good? Thanks.”
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