Rutgers football HC Greg Schiano: 'It's all eyes on Indiana'

Next up for the Rutgers football team is a home game against Indiana at 3:30 p.m. at SHI Stadium in Piscataway.

Both the Scarlet Knights and Hoosiers are 1-0 after the former topped Michigan State and the latter upset then-No. 8-ranked Penn State in overtime.

“It's all eyes on Indiana,” Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano said on monday. “Obviously a real good football team. Coach [Tom] Allen has done a tremendous job building the program. He took over and has really built a program where they're nationally ranked team. Kevin Wilson was there before and did a great job. Indiana football has been on the rise here for a while. This isn't a new thing. I really like the kind of team that coach has put together out there. They play really hard, and they're good in all three phases. So it's gonna be a big challenge, and one that we're looking forward to. We're excited about coming, playing in our stadium, although we're not going to have many people here. We're going to have loved ones and looking forward to playing another game here in about five days.”

Rutgers drew headlines with its seven takeaway, 38-point scoring victory against the Spartans. It was its first win against a Big Ten team since 2017.

Just like that, expectations are higher for the Scarlet Knights, and now it’s about blocking out the noise and trying to win. Rutgers already even earned its first primetime Big Ten game on Nov. 7 at Ohio State (7:30 p.m., BTN).

“Well it's gonna sound very coachspeak-ish but that's what we've talked about all along, there's going to be highs there's going to be lows. We have to be able to continue on, Our word is 'Chop',” Schiano said. “You have to be able to chop and not get distracted by the bombs that are going off on your right and your left. That's what we train them for. That's how we try to train ourselves. Obviously, every week in the Big Ten as I said after the game it's like the NFL in my opinion. Every week is a tremendous challenge. Can you be in it in the fourth quarter and have a chance to win? That's the goal.

“...We are a results oriented business and certainly when you win it helps all those areas. But I think the hardest challenge of coaching is to keep your entire program, everyone from the head coach, through the players, the assistant coaches, the support staff to stay in a process mode and that's really what ‘Chop’ is. It's staying focused on the process, whatever it might be. Yesterday it was a wrap up meeting and then a Sunday practice. Because the reality is when they're not with us, when you lose you hear a lot of bad stuff and when you're when you hear a lot of good stuff from the outside world. But we have to make sure that we are focused on the process and that's what chop is. And that's why we live by that. Because, as I tell them, the world will lie to you both in the good times and the bad, and you need to just stay on the process. And that's what we do. That's what we're going to continue to do, and that's what this program is built on.”

Rutgers wasn’t perfect on Saturday as it had an interception and two fumbles on offense to go along with some negatives on the defensive side, and Schiano will look to see some improvements going forward. He knows his team can’t bank on seven takeaways again.

“Again this will sound coachspeak-ish, but in all areas,” Schiano said. “I mean we are such a young, young group, and I don't mean necessarily by years of school, I just mean time together. It's been so choppy and forget what we don't have in, we need to get better at what we do have in. We don't really need to be moving into any new things right now, because our efficiency was not what we're looking for in certain areas. We need to improve and that's in all three phases. So there's a lot to work on and we tried to address some of those things yesterday in our first day out after the game. But today the players are off and then tomorrow we'll get right back at it.”

Between Indiana and Rutgers, there are some similarities in terms of the rebuilds of the two programs. Rutgers has struggled the last five years, but has found its leader (again) in Schiano. Indiana has hovered around the two, three, four, and five win mark for a long time since the early 1990s until Wilson and Allen have found more success in recent seasons.

Indiana has been to a bowl game in three out of the last five years.

“It's not only where we want to go, but also the way they did it is very similar to the way we did it last time. They recruited Florida very heavily,” Schiano said. “Tom has great connections in the state of Florida. And if you look at the quarterback and the receiver. The number one receiver, Whop (Philyor), who's from Tampa, and so is (quarterback Michael) Penix, and I actually recruited Penix when I was at Ohio State. So I'm very familiar with him. They have a lot of players on their roster from Florida which is something that we kind of built our program on our first go around. I have observed what coach Allen has done there before I got to Rutgers, and I've been very impressed so yeah there are several similarities.”

Under Schiano and his predecessor, Rutgers recorded a number of wins against highly-ranked teams. Allen and the Hoosiers did the same on Saturday. With its win over the Nittany Lions, Indiana defeated an AP Top 10 team for the first time since 1987 and first win over such opponent at home since 1967, its lone Rose Bowl campaign.

Indiana tied the game late in the fourth quarter and after Penn State scored a touchdown first in overtime, Indiana found the end zone and converted the 2-point conversion.

“I did see it. We had just landed and Brendan Bornder was sitting behind me and he had it on his phone. So, I was kind of hunched over looking at it, and I knew (Allen) was going to go for two,” Schiano said. “I was excited for him, 'I said come on man'. Not that, you know, I'm not rooting for anybody over anybody else but I love watching those situations. And when they went for two, Penix, what an unbelievable effort to get that ball on the pylon. I mean you're talking about just an unbelievable physical act of layout and getting that thing and keeping his legs off the ground which would have been out of bounds had they touched him and it was really, really good. So a big win for them for sure.”

Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisWasky.