What Greg Schiano had to say after Rutgers Fotball's first scrimmage
With Rutgers' first scrimmage in the books, head coach Greg Schiano spoke with the media regarding his squad.
On how the offense has performed:
"I think overall I could give you the same answer for everything," he said. "At times we did some really good things and at other times, thank goodness it's practice 12 because we gotta get a lot cleaned up. I'm encouraged but not unrealistic, we got so much to work on and I'm grateful we got an entire next week to practice."
Assessment of the tight-end group:
"They're getting better, there's not a lot of experience there," he said. "Kenny is every day making leaps and bounds of growth and the whole group of them are definitely improving, but they have to because none of them have really played very much."
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On how Athan Kaliakmanis did and his accuracy:
"I thought he was good, I thought he handled the operation well," he said. "He missed a couple of deep comebacks that I'm sure he'd like to throw again and hit them, but he hit a lot of balls too. I thought he did just what we needed him to do today. There's a lot of different things we needed to go through today with the actual game operation so we got a lot to learn from."
On the national attention they have been getting:
"You hear all of that stuff and it's like poison, if it's sitting on the counter it doesn't harm you but if you start drinking it you're in trouble," he said. "We have to work, that's all we have to do, we have to chop every day to have a chance to be good and to go win our opening game, that's all our focus is on right now. We haven't turned to [Howard] yet, we're focusing on us, but as far as the game that we're concerned with, it's one game and it's Howard."
Regarding competition on the offensive line:
"I think the starting offensive line is pretty well set, I think it's the depth behind them that's up for debate," he said. "That's the hardest thing to tell when you're on the field, so I'm anxious to watch the tape, but I think they're getting better. Offensive linemen take so much time because they have to work in unison, the defensive linemen are generally a little bit more athletic so they're battling uphill, but our young guys are getting better and we just got to continue that. As long as we can continue to get better every day we'll get some depth in the o-line and you need it because it's a very physical league."
Comparing entering training camp this year versus last year:
"We have more experience and guys that have done it in a game, so I think anytime that is the case people have more confidence and there's not as much anxiety," he said. "As long as they keep the beginner's mentality that we talk about all the time: taking great notes, studying your notes, asking questions, and acting perfection behind when you're not in, all those things that we do to try and continually get better. As long as they continue to do that they'll start stacking experiences and that's when you get to be really good."
On if he has seen any separation in the wide receiver competition:
"That's going to be interesting, they really are competing," he said. "Let me refrain until I get in and watch the tape. What you and I see is somebody catches a ball, what I don't see is if they did not release correctly or took a poor angle on their block. What I don't see when I'm not looking for it live is if they are hustling on the backside to cut someone off. Those are the things that every down receiver has to do for you to win football games and it's harder to see that live unless you are just looking at one position. I'm sure Dave Brock could tell you, but that's not all I'm looking at."
On how the linebackers are faring and the role he could see them play:
"Moses Walker and Dariel Djabome are working with the first defense right now because Mohamed Toure and Tyreem Powell are still recovering," he said. "I think that experience is invaluable, we're going to play a lot of guys so it's great work for them and they're getting better. There's a bunch of guys that are getting better because they're getting these valuable reps."
On the sideline preparation with the new tablets and being able to break down film in the moment:
"It's incredible, I was laughing with the officials," he said. "First off, the coach-player communication, we've been using it all camp but there's a 15-second cut-off. Now what we'll do after this week is start doing the 15-second cut-off in practice because you think you're talking to somebody and you're not if you're not aware of the clock.
The tablets are insane, I remember I said to the officials when I started coaching at the end of the season in January when the full-time coaches were out recruiting the GAs did something called cut-ups and it was actual 16-millimeter film and you snipped it with a scissor, took a piece of tape, hung it on a board, and made a reel of them. Then we got all this digital stuff and you can do it on your computer and make a cut-up.
Now you can do it in real-time, so the coaches can actually mark a play on the iPad and flag it so when we get to the sideline, give me all the flagged plays and you get the six plays you flagged live and you're watching them live. So we went from what used to take offseason studies to put together, to doing it when the series is over until the guys get a Gatorade and you at least got the plays you got to see. It's been some shift over the years."
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