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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 26, 2015

Norries Wilson

Piscataway, New Jersey

Kansas - 14
Rutgers - 27

COACH WILSON: Good afternoon. We met our goal for the week. Our goal was to win the game. It wasn't pretty. Kansas did some things that got us off-schedule. But we shot ourselves in the foot with a couple penalties, turn overs but a quality opponent, they made big plays on us. The defense stood up a few times and got them stopped.

We've got to stop turning the ball over and stop lining up off-sides and stop throwing the ball away and running backs putting the ball on the way. But as a football coach, you tend to dwell on the negative things. There are some positive things happened, so we have to go out and take the good with the bad.

It's great to go into a bye week as a program, having won a football game. Now we've got an opportunity to fine tune some things, change some things, throw some things out, maybe get a jump start on the next opponent and just take it from there.

With that, I'll open it up to questions.

Q. Was this a must-win game?
COACH WILSON: To a point, yes. Must-win because I didn't want to go into a bye week on a three-game losing streak and everybody getting in their head. We wanted to win the football game to make us feel good going into a bye week and know that we can go out and beat a quality opponent and get ourselves ready for the next opponent.

Q. As a running back coach, the 312 yards and rushing, what does that mean for you?
COACH WILSON: See the fumble when -- put the ball on the ground. It's tough to play in my room (Laughter). We call it bringing change to the room. That's what we call it. So I talked to them about, 312 yards, it makes you feel good, but there's things we have to clean up. We can't put the ball on the ground. Because the game can change with any turnovers.

I'm always proud of them. I think they do a good job. And Josh, he feels bad about putting the ball on the ground. They are selfless with one another. So I'm happy with the production and hopefully we can continue to do that for the program.

Q. That rotation, giving each guy like a series, why do you think that seemed to work so well today? Obviously that could break up momentum but obviously didn't. Why does that work so well?
COACH WILSON: What I tried to do today was try to keep fresh legs. I'd give a guy two or three carries for the most part and put a fresh set of legs out there, hit them hard a couple times and then put another guy back out. There was a series where I let Josh get five or six in a row or let T.J. get four or five in a row. I think it worked today because we had some good blocking up front.

And Coach McDaniels and Coach Browning did a good job teaming up the run, and we knew how we wanted to hit them and once we got them rotated one way, we were able to come back the other way. They did a good job, the running backs did, and with me being away from them and me just calling a name and they take off running, it actually worked out.

Q. Having been around Darius for four years, how difficult was it to make the decision not to play?
COACH WILSON: You know, Darius came in early. He's always been out spoken and he's always had the ability to lead. I'm sure -- I haven't spoken with him on it personally, but I'm sure that it just tears at him. He's always wanted to be out front. He's always a guy at the top -- going into practice, each player and have a great day. I'm sure it rips his heart. But having him on the sideline today cheering the guys on defense and offense was also fantastic. I'm happy that he's still around.

Q. To follow up -- step up in a leadership role?
COACH WILSON: They have to. They have to lead on the field with their play and they are going to have to lead in the locker room along with him with their voices, and has to be positive leadership from him, as it was with him. It has to be positive leadership, to drive forward and to drive to get better. It's not about team. It's not about me. Those are things they instill in us. Whoever steps up, also needs to lead the same way.

Q. Just wanted to make sure, do you -- I don't know what conversations you may have had, do you expect him to apply for a red-shirt next year?
COACH WILSON: I don't know any of that. That would be between the medical staff and Coach. I don't have any idea.

Q. Obviously today you had hicks and Martin rush for over a hundred yards but for Paul James to get in there and get some positive momentum, especially after his ten carries, seven-yard performance last week against Penn State, run for 57 yards today, how important is that to your room and that running back group?
COACH WILSON: It's important, it's very important for them all to be on their game and feel good about themselves. He averaged 6.3 a carry today, Paul did, and Robert averaged 6.0 and Josh had 5.4. That's a good across the board average for the three of them.

To know that we can get that from any of the three of them when they go out there, that's fantastic and makes us confident and makes us more confident in who is out there at a given time.

Q. Your over impression of Chris Laviano's performance?
COACH WILSON: It was up-and-down at times. He made a bad decision and I told him he made a bad decision when he threw the pick in the end zone. He threw two in the end zone, one was the Hail Mary -- that happens a bunch on the Hail Mary. But when he threw in the back of the end zone on the left -- and I just talked briefly about it, can't have a lot of people talking to the quarterback.

I asked him if it was a good decision or a bad decision and he said it was a bad decision. I asked him, can he give us better decisions and he said yes. And from then on, he strung together a bunch of good decisions and we are happy about that.

Q. Blocking a couple times, a couple throws he tried to get out of bounds, is that part of being a young quarterback or is it something to worry about?
COACH WILSON: I don't think it's something to worry about. We just have to instill in him and harping on him what he has to do, when you're out of the pocket, it's something we have to make sure we instill in him and keep harping on what he has to do to get the ball. When you're out of the pocket, just throw the ball, pass it, if it's out of bounds, don't try to throw it to the back.

Got to keep teaching. He's a first-time starter and sometimes guys need a couple mistakes before they get it right and hopefully he got enough looks of making that mistake that we get it right.

Q. On the other side, doing a very good job of stopping him --
COACH WILSON: This morning, when we met before we came over, we talked about what he had to do to win the football game and we talked about on defense we have to stop the run, limit the big play and we have to stop the run. We gave up some big plays but we had to stop the run.

I think they averaged, 64 yards on 29 carries and that's a good day's work against anyone, especially when they had a backup quarterback that was doing the things they were doing. I hope the young man they had to put out of the game, the quarterback, I hope he's going to be okay. You never want to see a young man hurt. That might have changed a few things, how they planned to attack us, but the defensive line and the linebackers, they did a good job stopping the run.

Q. On offense, we talked a little last week about Agudosi's effort and his career night at Penn State. Comes back today, he makes that first catch to put you up 7-0. How important is he to be a target in the red zone and a security blanket?
COACH WILSON: Well, I wouldn't say security blanket. I think it's important for him to be a target in that his play is so good that we know we can go to that his play is good, Pat's play is good, Grant's play is good; that Chris has more than just one option to throw to.

So he's got to keep working on his game and I'm very happy for him. The first thing I told him was congratulations on the touchdown. Second thing I told him was make sure you hand the ball to the official. So he's getting better and he's getting a lot more reps. Coach Campanile is on him. Coach Campanile is the best coach on the staff. I wish I could coach as good as he does, and he's on his guys and he demands from them. He was demanding from them at breakfast this morning, still teaching.

Pat and Agudosi, you asked about Agudosi, he's got to work and get better. Never be satisfied with where he is. Sometimes kids fall into, hey I've arrived, and I know Coach Campanile is not going to allow that. He's going to make sure that he's coaching them through the bye week and just continue to get better.

Q. The difference in the pass rush, seems like you brought a little more pressure today?
COACH WILSON: Well, I know we caught a few more blitzes and I think Joe had a good plan. Joe was hunkered down for a long time. He wanted to stop the run after last week's performance and he wanted to sack the quarterback a few times after last week's non-sack evening. So he put a good plan together and they got after him a little bit.

Q. What would you say about the secondary's performance today?
COACH WILSON: This is what I told Pat, I said, guys, this is what you're going to do. You're going to decide what you think the right thing to do is and just go do it. You can't be apprehensive. Anything you do apprehensively, you're going to screw it up. Just take an assignment, just go and that's what he did and he had fun. Dropped two interceptions he could have had and I talked to him about that on the sideline. I asked him, was he having fun and he said he was having fun.

If they are out there having fun and you are going as fast as you can go -- the only fun in this whole deal is winning on Saturday. The rest of it, we're just grinding. So the need to have some fun.

We're going to see the Monroe Wolverines tomorrow, so going to go see my son play his first game tomorrow.

Appreciate it, everybody.

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