RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 31, 2020

Greg Schiano

Postgame Press Conference

Indiana 37, Rutgers 21

THE MODERATOR: Welcome, Coach Schiano.

GREG SCHIANO: Thank you.

Well, what a difference a week makes. I'm not going to say it's not disappointing because we had our opportunities, for sure. We were unable to do some things that we had to do to win this game.

They're a good football team. They're not a fluke, 17th in the country team. They're a really good football team. They tackled extremely well tonight.

Seven takeaways last week, none this week. They had three that led to 17 points. Two of them inside our 25 yard line. That's very hard to overcome. But it's where we find ourselves. We're running out of firsts. We had our first win together. Today we had our first loss together. I do love the way they compete.

I love the way they keep straining, as we say, keep chopping. Certainly not one ounce of giving in. It's about winning and losing, and that's what we're trying to do.

We'll build this thing the right way. I believe in our guys. They stuck to the plan throughout. But certainly it's disappointing.

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions.

Q. Was there a common theme or common issue with Noah's three interceptions? Was there a common issue?

GREG SCHIANO: Well, two of them for sure. His arm got hit, right? That's why the ball went in almost an end-over-end trajectory. Those are hard when you get hit throwing the ball.

It's usually a combination of things. Protection wasn't good enough. We got to have a clock in our head that we got to get rid of it. I didn't have the get-off time, but I didn't ask for them.

Really we'll fix that in the course of this week. That was really the common theme, was the arm got hit. That's encouraging if you can protect. They weren't just throwing to the other team. We got to protect better. We got to make sure we understand that clock in your head.

Q. Some of the penalties, is that just early season stuff that can be cleaned up or something more to it?

GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, it's probably early season. We actually won the penalty battle. Not that you like winning with about eight. Yeah, I guess it's early season. We have to stop it. We can't do it. I don't think there's ever an excuse for penalties, right? Do what you do legally or don't do it. That's easy to say.

Guys care so much that they want to make the block, right? As the guy is getting away from them, they reach out and grab. You have to trust that your skill guy will make him miss. If you lose him, he'll make him miss. Don't worry about it. If he doesn't, we'll line up and play it down. But it's not going to be worse than that penalty that marches us 10 yards from the spot of the foul.

Those are things we got to get better at. There's a long list of that. But, yes, that's something regardless of what our opponent did we need to do better.

Q. Two games in, what do you think about the offense so far? It seems like a couple drives aside, you've been pretty stagnant the last two weeks.

GREG SCHIANO: I'm not ready to go there. I think we have to become consistent. We do some things to move the football at times that are exciting. At other times...

That's a good defense, as you saw by the result today. Michigan State is a good team, too. We played two good teams.

I think you all know this, but every week you play in the Big Ten, you're playing a good team. So get ready. If you're not ready to play at optimal level, it's going to be hard to move the ball, hard to stop them, hard to be effective in the kicking game. This is the top of the food chain. We have to learn how to live and perform at the top of the food chain.

Q. I know last week you talked about what you learned about the team in the win. What have you learned about this team in today's game?

GREG SCHIANO: I think the same thing I learned in the win: when things didn't go well, they kept chopping. Tonight things didn't go well for a long period of time, and they just kept playing hard.

We made some errors. We made some mistakes. I often say this. I've said this before. I don't like when people say, Oh, we made mistakes or we beat ourselves. That team is a really good football team. They force you to make errors. Unforced errors, that's something else. But forced errors are real, right? A guy can make you lose your gap because he digs you out of it, right?

We need to improve. I didn't think it was going to be wham, here we go. Keep working at it.

Q. What is going through your mind during that final desperation play? How much of your coaching in the second half going for it on fourth down, going for two a couple of times, the on-side kick, is setting a tone for this program that you're not going to quit in games?

GREG SCHIANO: The first part of it, we practice that play. That's one of our end-of-game plays. It never plays out the same. The beginning starts the same, but who knows where it goes from the pitch fest, right? I couldn't tell you if that was a forward pass. How do I know?

I do know this: they really executed it about as well as you can. They refused to go down with the ball, which is not easy to do. How many times do you watch a game and see a guy go down with the ball? You see it all the time. They refused to go down with the ball. I thought it was a tremendous effort.

I didn't come back here to lose. I'm not saying we're going to win every game or we're going to win 'em all right away. We're going out there and we're playing to win. If it means going on fourth down, if it means going for two, whatever it means, that's what we're going to do. I promised these kids that. As hard as they work, they deserve that.

Q. What did you think of the way Kay'Ron Adams ran the ball? Will we see a runningback by committee going forward?

GREG SCHIANO: I thought Kay'Ron gave us a little spark, that's for sure. Sometimes it's like that. I thought Isaiah ran hard. I thought Aaron ran hard. Sometimes guys get a little groove going.

But it hasn't not been that. I mean, to be frank, just because certain guys get carries or don't get carries, we have real confidence in all of our runningbacks. We just kind of Coach Hoffmann and Coach Gleeson, we talk about it throughout the game. Somebody has a hot hand, we let 'em roll. If we're looking for a spark, we know we have other good players and we're going to let them play.

Q. On the first on-side kick, you called timeout. What happened there? Looks like you got the bounce you needed.

GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, well, that was a little different. That was more of a catch 'em off guard on-sides. It was a technical error. I'm not sure. We got to get it sorted out.

But they had the opportunity to adjust, then to adjust again. I'm not sure of that. I got to look into why that was the case. Once they adjusted, I didn't want to run an on-side kick at that point in the game. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Guys, I appreciate it. God willing, we'll have many more. Appreciate you covering us.