The Rutgers football has entered the third week of spring practice as it sets its eyes toward the Scarlet-White game on May 20.
Monday, head coach Greg Schiano discussed a variety of topics, and below are some quotes and notes from the interview.
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Rutgers added Joshua Youngblood as a transfer from Kansas State last December. Youngblood was the Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Year as a true freshman in 2019. He returned three kickoffs for touchdowns and averaged 35.9 yards per return.
With the Scarlet Knights, Youngblood, who hails from Tampa Bay's Berkeley Prep, Youngblood was expected to add a dynamic element to an already strong special teams return units with Aron Cruickshank and Bo Melton while also possibly seeing some run at wide receiver. However, Youngblood is a little banged up right now with leg injuries.
"You know, he's had a couple hamstring deals. So, from what we've seen we've been impressed, but he's kind of been on-again, off-again," Schiano said. "We gotta make sure that we get him healthy so he can come in and have a great summer and compete. Will he practice more this spring? I hope so. He did a little at the beginning. We'll see how much but he definitely has shown he’s an impressive, explosive athlete."
When Chris Ash came on board as the head coach of the Scarlet Knights in late 2015, one of the first things he did was get rid of the spring awards as he tried to make his own imprint and do things his way.
Fans were disappointed. But now, in Schiano's second year back and during his first spring ball, the Frank R. Burns Awards, the Mark Mills Second Effort Award, and Douglas A. Smith Award are all making a return.
The Frank R. Burns Awards honors a player who "displays extraordinary mental and physical toughness” in the team's 15 practices during the spring. The latter two awards is given to players who are the most improved on offense and defense, respectively.
"We are going to have the spring awards," Schiano confirmed. "I always thought that was a nice thing for the guys to receive, and it honored some guys that maybe otherwise wouldn't have that opportunity."
Captains for the 2020 weren't officially named until December, but this year, expect captains to be named a lot sooner than that.
"The captains thing every year is a little bit different," Schiano said. "The timing, I haven't gotten quite a feel yet, but I would say probably earlier than later this year as opposed to a year ago."
Bo Melton, Olakunle Fatukasi, and Adam Korsak were the captains last season.
This past weekend, Rutgers saw both of its players that were entered in the 2021 NFL Draft pool, Michael Dwumfour and Brendon White, picked up shortly after the conclusion of the three-day event as undrafted free agents.
Both players signed with the New York Jets after each played one season at Rutgers at defensive tackle and safety, respectively.
"Mike Dwumfour and Brendon White, I was really happy for them. I knew that they've been working hard in their training, and they both had, I think, pretty good pro days. And I think the local team to have them here is cool. It's gonna be cool to have that I'm sure they'll come train with us a little bit in their downtime. They are two guys that really really helped us jumpstart the program and get it off the ground. Very close to both of them, and I'm happy for them.
"As I told them when this process started, if you're not going to get drafted by whatever you want to use the cut-off, then you're better off being a free agent because you can get yourself in the best fit the best opportunity to make the club, so I'm happy that they both feel they're in a good situation and really excited for them and wish him the best."
Strength and conditioning coach Jay Butler has helped the players make significant gains in the weight room this offseason. The players look bigger even through a computer a screen. Based on roster comparisons from this spring and last fall, many players made significant jumps in good weight. A week ago, offensive lineman Raiqwon O'Neal said he's the biggest he's ever been and feels he is in the best shape he's ever been as well.
"There is a noticeable difference. I agree with you. I've said this exact line to the guys, 'they don't call it the Little Ten, it's the Big Ten'. We need to have big people, and we need to be able to play and operate at a high level of speed with big people," Schiano said. "Coach Butler's the best. He understands that football is a game of movement and change of direction, so we can get them big, but they better be able to change direction and move quickly otherwise if that matters, good for. I feel like we are bigger and stronger, but I feel like we're moving better, too, so that's winning on all fronts. We got to keep that up."
A week ago, Schiano told TKR that Alijah Clark has dealt with some injuries which has limited him this spring. Christian Izien is also limited due to load management. A slew of other defensive backs are also slowed this spring, so numbers are low as they try and get healthy. Brayden Fox, a freshman, already moved to safety as has walk-on John Guaimano. Both were wide receivers.
"I think they're developing," Schiano said of the secondary players. "We've had some injuries in the secondary. Some guys that have not been able to get as many reps as really I wish they had, and then we have some guys that have a lot of experience that I really don't want to get forced to have too many reps. I'm really encouraged by Patrice Rene. He's taken a lot of reps. He’s a guy that obviously transferred from North Carolina, and he's taken very quickly to the culture and to our schemes. So I'm excited about that. We have some young guys that are participating so overall I'm pleased. We're down in numbers, and they really are toughing it out because defensive backs run probably the most on the team.
"It's always the DBs and wideouts that have the highest player load, so we really have to be careful because it's getting to be a substantial number of guys that are banged up in one way or another in the secondary. You got to be careful otherwise you won't have enough to practice with."
Coaches across the nation make position switches all the time on their teams. Schiano is no exception. Khaseem Greene was one of the more notable ones as he moved down from safety to outside linebacker and was a wrecking machine, as he was named the Big East Defensive Player of the Year in 2012. He was then drafted by the Chicago Bears in the 2013 NFL Draft.
The goal to moving players is to not only find them a better fit for themselves to be successful, but to better the team as well athletically.
"We’ve done that and I think certainly it's not something that's going to go away. But if you can recruit players that are ready to play linebacker right out of the jump and have the same athleticism as those guys, the reason you did that back in the day is you have a guy who is an average athlete at one position and the day you move them to the other one, he's one of the best athletes in that position because athletically, you just take a jump up the closer you get to the line of scrimmage. So my hope is that we can recruit guys that can play that position right from the jump. Khaseem we didn't move until it was his sophomore season. It was kind of like the question last week about if evolved from smaller, faster linemen.
"Again, if we could have had the bigger faster guys I would have been all for it. We just weren't able to get them, so I think that's really the key. If we can recruit guys that are made for the position today, then we can jump right off and go with them and develop them even further. But we're not opposed to having to do that. We have experience of doing that so we're gonna have to play that by ear and it depends how well we recruit."
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisNalwasky.
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