Rutgers Football Head Coach Greg Schiano talks with the media about the loss to Wisconsin and previews the upcoming game against UCLA this Saturday afternoon.
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GREG SCHIANO: Thanks for coming out, guys.
It's been kind of a tough 45 or so hours since the game. But as I said Saturday, I'll say it again that was unacceptable. Our performance, my coaching, and really, tried to look at everything we possibly could all the way till about midnight last night and moved on to UCLA. What basically the findings are is there's no one major thing. It's a bunk of little things. Details of execution. Details of coaching.
And when you have a lot of change like we have in the last three weeks, you really got to double down on the details to make sure that everybody is on the same page, everybody is doing things with the same precision, and we did not do a good job and I did not do a good enough job of guaranteeing that happens.
So you add it up, and that's what happened. Every game takes on a life of its own. We certainly had our opportunities all the way up to the very end of the first half to make it a one-score game going into halftime, and we were not able to do that. We let the game get away from us, and you know, Wisconsin did a great job. I'll answer a question or two to clarify that, and then -- then I'm going to move on to UCLA.
Q. Starting offensively, you mentioned the details in the execution, what's your level of confidence that this could be corrected to the level it needs to be going forward starting with the UCLA game?
GREG SCHIANO: We have got a great group of players here. They are steadfastly committed to what we are doing. Yesterday was a humbling yet sobering experience to go. We talked through it all as a team, as a staff and we went out and had a good practice and our guys will be ready to go and we'll have a great week of practice, and home coming. It will be a great opportunity to go out and play in front of a great crowd, one that deserves better than what we gave them, and that's our goal to go and be 1-0 the at end of this UCLA season and get back on track.
I'm very confident that we can do that but there's a very good team on the other side. You can be fooled by the record; don't be. When you look they have played a very, very competitive schedule and really, really tough schedule and have played and been competitive in each of the games. Again games kind of take on a life of their own but they have seemed to find themselves, as well. It's a enough staff and they have made some adjustments from the early season now and are playing well.
So we'll have our hands full. We have -- certainly we are banged up. We lost a couple more and get into that stuff on Saturday with the availability report. But it will be a challenge.
Q. You said UCLA has found itself. Defensively, Rutgers played it's best game in the second half against Nebraska and to see that unwind last week, what was the biggest takeaway? I know you said execution and details. Was there anything schematically that just didn't go your way, anything big picture there?
GREG SCHIANO: No, there was very little that was done that we weren't prepared for and knew was coming. We didn't coach them well enough, obviously, because they didn't execute the details the way we needed them executed. It wasn't like, oh, haven't seen that or that's a worry. There's things that we have defended before and even within the game defended it one time and didn't defend it the next which is probably the most frustrating thing. Sometimes it's different people doing it or not doing it. But no, I think we'll get back on track.
Q. Did any of the guys, that didn't play, or the guys that left, are any of those guys out for the season?
GREG SCHIANO: We are evaluating everything right now with medical, and yeah, we are not in a great spot with our health right now. But that doesn't matter. We need to make sure that whoever takes the field, the 11 guys who take the field at a time are prepared and ready to play their very best. If they do that, that's all you can do. We didn't do that Saturday, and I'll squarely take that on my shoulder. It's my job to get them to be in a position to do the very best they can. If that's not good enough for the team we are playing, that's life. But when you don't do that, when you don't give yourself a chance, that's not acceptable.
Q. You don't know in those guys out for the year?
GREG SCHIANO: I'm going to get into that on the availability report on Saturday.
Q. Obviously some drops the other day and at times in the season, how concerning has that been and frustrating has that been for the offense?
GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, definitely stalls up the offense. There's a saying in football on defense, when you have a stop on third down, you don't have to live to see everything that happens. In an offense when you get stopped on third down, you don't get to live out everything that happens. You know, we did some of those that would have been easy clear first downs and didn't execute and make the play.
Again, why? Some of it, if a ball is slightly off or a receiver -- is it of it coaching? Some of it is we have to get them more comfortable protection-wise. Everything, profession fits with quarterbacks, with coverage, with receivers. We need to do a better job coaching it.
Q. Do you like where the balance is at right now?
GREG SCHIANO: Again the game takes on a life of its own so sometimes that balance gets thrown out of whack. When you go down 28-0 there's not enough series left in the game to keep running the ball play after play. It drains the clock. I think those numbers are a little misleading but certainly the game dictates that a little bit. We need to be able to convert on third down and that's how you keep giving opportunities to run the ball to, ham-and-egg it, playaction, all those things.
But again, when things go the way they did Saturday, you can take all the balance and all those equations and throw them out the window because at the end of the day you have to do what you can could win the game. Certainly what we did until we knew the game was out of reach and then we tried to get out of there as healthy as we could.
Q. Just on your run defense, last few weeks, had a hard time stopping. What have you seen on the tape that you can improve, not just the big plays but also short yardage situations to get off the field quick?
GREG SCHIANO: I think it's mostly technique oriented. I wouldn't even say it's assignment. A couple assignment errors but I would say technique. Again, every time you say there's a technique issue, there is a guy on the other side that's trying to do an opponent technique. So I don't want to take anything away from our opponent because they did a good job.
But we didn't go well technically as we have in the past, and as we are capable of doing. That's why I bring it back to us as coaches to me, to get them doing what they are technically capable of doing.
Q. Why do you think you're giving up yards regularly?
GREG SCHIANO: I don't want to beat a dead horse but if it's busts that's a different thing. If you're busting you're not doing the job, you don't know what job to do that's a different story. It's not that but it is details. It is execution of fundamentals that we have to coach better and we have to make sure that we get them on game day, do the players have to do it? Sure, they have to do. We can't do it for them. But we have to do a better job of being detailed in our teaching, better teaching, hold them more accountable, all those things that is coaching and when it doesn't happen, you can point to everybody else but you'd better look in the mirror and say, this is what we've got to do.
Q. A core tenet of this program is staying in the moment and staying present. Is it harder to manage that when things are not going well?
GREG SCHIANO: The beauty of our culture here, chop, is whether it's good, whether it's bad, whether it's down the middle, which most of life is down the middle, you have to stay focused on that spot and keep chopping away.
It might be corny, whatever you think it is but to us it's not. To us it's a way of life and that's what we need to do more than ever right now. I'm very confident our players will do that. We have great connection on this team. They are very, very disappointed in what happened. You know, I asked many, many players what do you think and it is different answers. But at the end of the day, we know what we have to do, and we're going to make the corrections and we're going to work hard this week to get all the corrections in place and then we have a team that we're playing.
Like you look at them, they are very talented. Offensively, quarterback, gun slinger, he can throw well on the run and throw from the pocket. They have depth at running back, three returning starters on the O-line, a big long athletic tight end, big receiving core, defensively, they are huge. Up front they are very stout. Linebackers 4 and 20 are really active play-makers playing behind a big strong D-Line which going to be a huge challenge for us, and I think the secondary is gifted as well.
Like I said, I think they are finding their identity as a team, and they are playing really well. So it's going to be a huge challenge for us. So we have to get back to work and we need to get it fixed and we have to be really detailed and play with great effort. Details and effort, 99 percent of the game, and we didn't do it well enough.
Q. Coming off a loss like that, do you consider changes in playing time, snap counts, specifically with the wide receiver?
GREG SCHIANO: Everything, when you come off a game like that, it you don't look at everything, you're being foolish. You look at everything. But you don't change just to change. That would be the biggest mistake that you could make, right. Sometimes you look at a play and you start saying, well, maybe we should do this or that. Time out, guys. You're going to change what we do based on a mistake or a poor play of technique that someone did and now there's a reason we do it that way. Don't change what we do. Get the young man to do it the way that we originally thought because that is the right way and we just have to do it better. Worked for a lot of years around here and worked in several different venues. Different schools, different programs, you have to demand that and teach it well enough and you have to demand it. That's where you have to be careful. When you start moving owl the pieces it's out of control. If there's a reason to make a change we'll make 2 and if not we'll just have to play better, coach better, do everything better.
Q. What was the response from Athan in the locker room?
GREG SCHIANO: He's a competitor. He'll be back. I don't think he was very far off. Maybe a little accuracy issues but all that stuff comes together, protection, receiving, quarterback play, we're a little bit off there. We'll get that back in line and go out and have a good performance, that's the best performance we can have. That's what our goal is. Let's go out and play the best we can and see where the chips fall and that's our goal and then we'll get back to work this week and get that done. Appreciate you guys coming out thank you.
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