RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 4, 2023

Greg Schiano

Postgame Press Conference

Ohio State 35, Rutgers 16

GREG SCHIANO: Thanks for covering the game, guys. Feel bad for those guys down there in that locker room. But as I told them, the way they worked and the way they prepared and all that, and the way they played, doesn't guarantee anything. It just gives you a chance.

But we are now giving ourselves a chance and we are just not quite ready yet, I guess, to finish it, but that's -- sun is going to come up tomorrow and we are going to keep working and we are going to get better, and we'll eventually get there and I won't have to say yet. And that's me and that's the staff and it's the players, everybody. But I'm proud of our guys. Proud of our staff. We're going to keep getting better.

Q. You talked about the margin of error being slim. You still were able to over some errors and be there for the better part of the game. Can you talk about that aspect moving forward and being able to do that today?

GREG SCHIANO: Well, I appreciate that but I don't know if I agree with you, right. The margin of error is real slim and when we made errors, they cashed in. We had opportunities. We had the ball ten times inside the ten-yard line. They are good. They are the No. 1 team in the country for a reason. They don't hand that, you know, that ranking out to just anybody. So we knew exactly what -- you know, no one ever played a perfect game but we knew we were going to have to play one play at a time really, really about as well as we could.

And at times we did that. I thought the defense at times was spectacular, right. Just not ready yet. Going to keep saying that word "yet" because this is going to get done.

Q. You said facing the No. 1 team in the nation, one good look at this game, could you take it as a moral victory. Do you take it as that? What's the feeling in the locker room after a loss like that?

GREG SCHIANO: I don't believe in moral victories, no. I believe that you learn lessons, and we learned some lessons today. I did. The players did. But no, moral victory, I don't really -- we've got a really tough game against Iowa here in seven days and we have to go out to Iowa City which is a tough place to play. We've got a lot of work ahead of us. We started down stairs when we broke it down.

Q. You seemed to have them on their heels, and early in the second half, you go down to the 20 and there's the one play, the little looping pass that seems to turn everything. Can you talk about that play?

GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, if it works, it's the greatest call and we are up, it would have been 16-7 at that point, right. Same thing with the sneak play that got handed to Kyle. That did work. Par you've got to be willing to try stuff in a game where you know that it is -- they are a good team. Yet we didn't go crazy with a whole bunch of stuff because I felt we could do just what we did. We could run the ball if we stuck to it. Kyle and the offensive line, I thought they ran the ball hard, Gavin ran the ball hard. Sam got in there and ran the ball hard. Yeah.

Q. You mentioned the ten times inside the ten, and obviously the red zone struggles were evident today. What led to those struggles inside the ten?

GREG SCHIANO: Well, I mean, some of it was execution. Some of it was they are really good. Par they are No. 1 in the country. They have one of the top defenses in the country. We went out there and did things that other people haven't done to them. But it wasn't good enough. That's why I said it's yet. There's a lot of great things and we watch the tape, oh, my goodness, look at that. Those are good players you're doing it against. But we are just not ready, yet.

Q. The Pick-Six, there was some thought that Kyle got hit when he tried to make the catch, potential targeting, obviously they didn't call targeting but from injure vantage point did you think --

GREG SCHIANO: Hard for me to see. What did you think?

Q. I thought it was close.

GREG SCHIANO: So, I'll go through the procedure that I do every week, and I'll turn the play in and I'll hear what and what. That's life.

Q. Defense, you said you thought they played really well. The fact they are able to do that against a good offense, what does that say about their growth?

GREG SCHIANO: We are getting better on defense, we are getting better on offense, we are getting better in the kicking game. Those two receivers are both first round draft picks, okay, and I think they were held to something like 50-some-yard together, both of them. Those are two first round draft picks. But again, for us to win that game, we needed to be darn near perfect. I wasn't; the players weren't; the coaches weren't.

We'll keep battling away but there's nobody that's saying, oh, that was a good, close, no, no. There's two things. There's winning and there's losing. Those are the only two things that happen in a game.

Q. Recognizing what you just said about winning and losing Rutgers has played Ohio nine times and it has not been close. The idea that you were able to run the ball, and it wasn't a mismatch in the trenches, is that to you a sign that this thing is going in the right direction?

GREG SCHIANO: I think it's one of the signs. I think there are a lot of signs. The way that we played defense today, we've played all season, the way that we ran the ball but we also gave up a Pick-Six. So there's a lot of signs, good and not so good.

But we are getting better. I don't know how to put it other than we are not there yet. We are a work-in-progress. We're just not there. We're getting better. I don't know how to put it other than we are not there yet. We are a work-in-progress. We are getting better. We are just not there against the No. 1 team in the country, not quite yet. We have to.

You can't say, well, we are going to get there. You have to go make yourself get there, so that's what we'll do, we'll come back in this room, we'll be honest with each other tomorrow and those kids love each other, those coaches love those kids and we are just going to keep going and eventually we're going to get there.

Q. What did you make of the role that the offensive line made in terms of the run blocking?

GREG SCHIANO: That's always the hardest thing for me to comment on because not unlike what you see it looks like a admonish pit of people, and sometimes Kyle comes spitting out of there and sometimes doesn't, right.

But you don't rush for the yards that he did and that Gavin did without some good offensive line play, it just doesn't happen. Coaches are never satisfied. Obviously the execution is such a finite thing, so we'll just keep working to get it fixed.

Q. Gavin started the game 0-for-5 but bounced back in the second and third quarter. What did you see from him, body language on the sidelines, but also how it translated on the field with his development?

GREG SCHIANO: There's never any moment that's too big for Gavin, I can promise you that. Gavin is a cool customer. They made a lot of quarterbacks look like that all year, right. We are talking about what might be one of the top-five -- not might be, is one of the top-five defenses in America, and as I said everyone and thought I was joking, you know, they will all be in camps. I don't know if they will all make teams. There are only 1,696 guys in America that are active players in the National Football League.

But they will all be in camps. They are all players of the National Football League that are going to get a chance. They do that to a lot of football coaches. We're just not quite there yet.

Q. As a whole, how do you feel the defense played today against Ohio straight from the first half to the second half.

GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, they played -- I thought they played some really good football. There was a couple plays that we all want to have back but you know, some critical plays, but I think the defense kept us in the game and then the offense got rolling.

If you get behind, it's awfully hard to do what we did, because if you get behind, you have to throw the ball and we were able to play our way into where we made it a really competitive game but again, I'm not going to end on any answer with that.

That's not good enough. That's not what we are here to do. We are not here to get close. And I know I'm speaking for them. It's not just me.

Q. Can you take us through the decisions on the three field goals in the first half, and did you think about going on any of those?

GREG SCHIANO: Well, yeah, always think about it, right. You have Nix that you're reading and you have the game itself, but as you go into that game and it's 7-0 at the end of the quart -- is it 7-0, end of the quarter and then you have a chance, we know we are getting the ball back to start the second half.

Had we not taken -- that's what the killer play is, we were first and goal on the two and all of a sudden it's second and goal on the three and just a bad -- they are good. They penetrate and made a play. That changes things immensely but you know, knowing you're getting the ball back to start the half, and knowing the way you're playing defense, I thought that was the prudent thing to do but trust me, you have to do everything in your power not to be the fan and go for it.

You've got to look at it and measure it as the coach and say, okay, this is all the things that's happening today. Analytics are great, but they are dangerous because they are dead numbers. They already happened. You're living it right then and there. You have to know, how is this game going. I thought we made the right decision in retrospect, who knows. If you score, it's the question about the little dump pass. If he catches it and scores, we're like, man what a call, right, and that's inches, life, not just in football, but it's everything.

But I am, I am proud of our guys, no moral victories, we are not there yet. Proud of our student section. That was cranking. They gave us a home-field advantage but now we have a real big tough task from us. Iowa, if you've never played there, it's one heck of an environment, and we have to get our guys ready. And they are a good football team, and much like us, they are going to play nose-to-nose.

So we have a huge challenge ahead of us next week, we have to lick our wounds here a little bit and get back to work.

Again, I appreciate you guys covering us.