Rutgers Football Head Coach Greg Schiano talks with the media following his team's 42-7 loss to Wisconsin out in SHI Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
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GREG SCHIANO: Well, thanks for sticking around. Thanks for covering the game. It's unacceptable. Falls on me. And we will get it fixed. I'll try to answer your questions.
Q. Why wasn't the team prepared to play today?
GREG SCHIANO: I wish I knew that. I know that's my job to know that but I can't ignore that we weren't ready to play. So that will be my mission in the next 48 hours is to figure that out. Change what needs to be date. Don't overreact. Some days you throw a clunker.
This was a clunker. I don't want to overreact but I do certainly have to, you know -- have to look at everything, and you can go into all the reasons but at the end of the day, that doesn't matter. You can't have that.
Q. The injuries that happened today, how much has that impacted everything that's going on?
GREG SCHIANO: Certainly it's impacted everything. It's not where we have stacked up guys yet in the program so when we lose somebody, somebody's got to step up. The old thing you learn is every once in a while somebody by injury comes out and just amazes everyone.
But the reality is, usually they would have been the starter, and they weren't, they were the second-team player for a reason. But you can't hide behind that. Every team has injuries. That team had injuries. We all have injuries. You've got to figure it out. That's my job.
Q. What do you attribute the offensive struggles to?
GREG SCHIANO: Well, I don't think it's just offensive struggles. I would attribute all our struggles. I mean, what do you attribute everything to? I don't know. That's what I told you. I'm not moving on to UCLA and all that stuff. I'm going to look at Rutgers. Figure out what, as a leader of this program, I need to do and then talk with my staff and we'll out to do it.
I know we have really good young men in our program, and they will respond. But you know, it's a tough pill to swallow.
Q. Injuries aside, what do you feel like is attributing to the slow starts on defense that's putting you in early deficit that you're constantly having to climb out of?
GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, I wish I could say it was a slow start. It was a slow start, it was a show middle and it was a slow end. Like I have to really examine what we're doing, who is doing it, how we're doing it. I thought we played better defensively a week ago and then certainly not today.
Different people. Some different people doing it. But that's the way of life in the Big Ten.
Q. Just to circle back to the injuries pregame, Powell and Longerbeam were out. What are their injuries and what's going on with those two guys?
GREG SCHIANO: Well, I'm not going to get into their injuries, per se, but I will say that Tyreem got hurt in practice this week. And Robert tried to go last week, and couldn't, and it's the same injury, and we just got to let it heal. I don't know the timeline on either one of them.
And I don't -- you know, I'm sure you're going to ask about the guys who left the game today. I just don't know yet what's going on with them. We'll figure that out, and I'm sure that will have bearing on what we do moving forward.
Q. Athan had a tough day today. Offense had a tough day today. What can you and the coaching staff do to try to get him back on track and the offense back on track?
GREG SCHIANO: Well, just as I was saying, we have to examine everything, see what we're doing, who we are doing it with, how we're teaching it. Didn't go from being a good player to a poor player.
We have to look at where we got off -- sometimes you get off the track and you don't even realize how you got there. So we've got to step back and reassess. You don't have a lot of time. Good thing it was a noon game. We have some time today, a lot of time tomorrow, and then we've got to get into UCLA.
Q. Wisconsin rushed for 309 yards, and Walker had 198 yards. What do you think went wrong with the run defense today?
GREG SCHIANO: Like I said, I don't think that there's a single thing that went wrong with the run defense. I think there's a lot of things, and we've got it pull it part and then put it back together again.
Q. You mentioned it wasn't just the offense. Defense, as well. Overall uncharacteristic game from you guys, penalties, drops, things of that nature. While Wisconsin is a great team, do you think there was an aspect that you guys beat yourselves today?
GREG SCHIANO: I don't think you can say that when you get whooped the way we did, to say we beat ourselves.
I think we certainly -- again, I can go through all the things we didn't go. At the end of the day, it's my job to make sure we're ready to do that, and we didn't do it. So that's what I have to do, and trust me, I'm not fired up about doing it but that's my job.
So get done here, see the recruits and then get to work.
Q. On the recruiting front, a lot of recruits at this game. What is your message to them after what they saw this afternoon?
GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, always the same. I'm honest with the recruits. That's one of the reasons that the guys that are committed to us are committed to us, or that's the kind of young men they are; that they want to be part of what we're building here.
I don't think one game changes what they believe and feel and trust in us. If it does, they are probably not the guys we think they are. But I don't think that's going to be the case. We have really good guys in this program, and we have really good guys that were committed to us. We'll just keep playing ahead.
Q. Two weeks ago we talked about how electric the fan environment was in the building. Today there were boos. What do you want to say to the fans?
GREG SCHIANO: Same thing I said to you. It's unacceptable on my part, and it's unacceptable the product we put out there today.
But we will be back. We need them, and we'll be back.
Q. You said a year ago after losing to Wisconsin, the team was not there yet, and to suffer a year like this, in year five for you, that it seems like in some ways the team took a step back?
GREG SCHIANO: The team, the whole day, couldn't chew gum and walk at the same time as a group. We just couldn't get it going, coaching, playing, everything.
But step back, no, I'm not ready to sit here in one game and say, oh, the sky is falling. You know what, we've got work to do, and we'll do it, and we'll get back on track. I think that's going to be the challenge to just get back on -- back on it, decide what it is that has to get adjusted and then go adjust it.
Thank you, guys.
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