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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 2, 2010

Greg Schiano

Tulane - 17
Rutgers - 14

COACH SCHIANO: I'll try to answer your questions. It's on me. I was unable to get our team ready to go, unable to get over a tough loss, I guess, against North Carolina, unable to get our team to realize how hard this game would be. So as the head coach, everything, that falls on me.
What we didn't do is we didn't execute well enough. We didn't coach well enough, and we didn't play with enough detail of execution to make the plays we had to make, and they did. We didn't get any takeaways, they did. For two weeks, the second week in a row, we had penalties which we don't normally have.
We've got a lot of work to do, but I wouldn't count us out, either.

Q. How is Tom?
COACH SCHIANO: Tom is -- he's hurting. He hurt his hand, and we won't know more for a while, probably for a day or two.

Q. Could he have gone back in?
COACH SCHIANO: In a limited capacity. I mean, if he went in, I don't know what he would have been able to do. But we'll see.

Q. The penalties have been a little bit of an issue this year, but are you disappointed at the timing? There were at least four, including obviously the kickoff and then at the end trying to drive, there's a hold by Kordell and Harrison's catch.
COACH SCHIANO: If they call the penalties, that's the way it goes in this game. Yeah, I was definitely disappointed in the timing, but they were called. I'm anxious to see of them, but it really doesn't matter. If you give them a shot that's close enough to call, you'd better be ready to live with it.

Q. Talk about the punt that Ginsburgh; he got the punt off that possibly could have changed the whole game.
COACH SCHIANO: Yeah, I thought he did a good job of recovering, rolling and punting the ball. That was a big play for them. They had a couple big plays, the 3rd and 2. We knew that No. 1 is a corner, he's not an offensive player. We knew he was in there for a special play; we saw that. We just weren't able to get him down.
Usually our guys are very sharp with that stuff and they make a play and you never know that there was a special thing going on. But there there was, and we were unable to make the play. The margin of error at this level is very slim, and we were on the wrong side of that margin too many times both offensively and defensively unfortunately and our special teams. That's been a real strength of ours.

Q. What about Dodd? Could you talk about his play today?
COACH SCHIANO: Well, all along I've said that I have confidence in Chas and I thought he went in there and played with poise. Certainly there's throws he wants to have back. There's also a lot of nice throws he made. I think he handled himself very well for anybody and especially well for a freshman going in there, his first real action. He'll continue to improve.

Q. As good as your defense is, it was really fooled. Do you think it was fooled badly in that throwback?
COACH SCHIANO: Well, because they made the play, you have to say yes. I thought they did an excellent job of executing. They've done a lot of that stuff. They're a team that runs a lot of special plays or trick plays. That's one that we have actually prepared for and had lengthy discussions about and just didn't execute. Again, it's my fault because we have to find a way in every phase, offense, defense and the kicking game, to get our football team to understand the urgency and the importance of every detail, and I failed to do that as a head coach.
We will get it remedied. There's a lot of football left to play. We have to get it remedied. I don't apologize for how hard we work, I don't apologize for any of those things, but I do feel bad for our fans and the people that come out and support us, and the only thing I can tell them is hang in there; this team will be back. We need them.

Q. Can you talk about the decision to not try the field goal at the end and go for it on the 4th and 6?
COACH SCHIANO: What yard line were we on there?

Q. It would have been a 53-yard kick.
COACH SCHIANO: Yeah, that's -- we converted some 4th downs this year, and 53 is a pretty good clip.

Q. Is it a tug-of-war with the wildcat because on the one hand Dodd is playing well and on the other hand the wildcat has the potential for that big play with you going back and forth?
COACH SCHIANO: I think it's whatever you decide to do, there's always that should you run it more, should you pass it more, should you play action it more. It's what runs do you decide to run, how do you decide to run them. Certainly we have to evaluate everything because we are not productive enough on offense right now, so to say that I'm not going to evaluate -- we tried to make some changes in the offensive line, shuffle some people in there. I'm anxious to see how that went. I imagine not great because we weren't able to move the ball with regularity.
But we will get to the bottom of it. Some of it is just guys growing up, not being a little nervous, not tripping, not flinching, not moving. That's experience. But that isn't what the problem is. The problem was lack of execution, and that falls on me.

Q. You talked about being unable to get the team ready to go. Did you see anything in practice this week that led you to believe that there could be trouble today from that standpoint?
COACH SCHIANO: I don't know if I saw in practice as much as there's a certain level of execution, so if plays in practice come spitting out against the defense, well, why did that happen? You're playing against the scout team; although they're good players they're not as good as the team you're going to play, they shouldn't be spitting out. So one time early in the week that's something you fix. After that, if it's execution errors, then that's a problem. Same thing on offense; if we're making execution errors you have a penalty. What makes you think it's not going to happen in the game?
There's no doubt that that loss hurt last week, and I don't know; I don't know why. I will get to the bottom of it. I'm going to find out. I thought we learned our lesson in previous experiences, but we didn't, and I didn't, because again, I didn't get it done. So we'll go on and grow from it, but we'll be back.

Q. Can Joe handle some more carries or was it just the way the offense was run today?
COACH SCHIANO: I didn't think Joe looked as good this week in practice but he could have handled more carries, yeah. I think it's just kind of the way things went. Maybe not the right way, but we'll see. We've got to evaluate on tape.

Q. Kind of an uncharacteristic performance from Teddy; he had 20 and 21 yard punts.
COACH SCHIANO: He's been punting very well. I don't know what to tell you. Again, there's no area of our football team, starting with the head coach all the way down that was immune for lack of execution today. We didn't execute. If your job is to punt it, then you need to punt it. You can go all the way across the line. We just did not get it done. I know people don't want to hear that, but that's the truth. We had a bad day, and you can't afford to have bad days because you only get 12 of them.

Q. The use of Jeremy as a wildcat option, was that designed to minimize the hits on Sanu?
COACH SCHIANO: It was a way to -- we wanted to get the ball in Jeremy's hands more, and we wanted, yes, to -- at the pace Mo was going or was going, he won't be able to -- that's a lot of hits he's taken. So we feel Jeremy is a guy that can run this package, and I still feel that way. Although we didn't have a lot of success, he can do it, and he will moving forward.

Q. Did you see him hold on Lefeged's kick return?
COACH SCHIANO: I didn't, but it doesn't mean there wasn't one.

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