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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 26, 2011Greg SchianoCOACH SCHIANO: Okay, guys. We're well into our preparation for Syracuse. They have what appears to be a very poised football team. They've been in a lot of close games and have found ways to win them. As that happens, teams gain more and more confidence. Offensively I think it all starts and ends with the quarterback, No. 12. He's really, really become a very good player, really good player. You can see he understands exactly what Coach Marrone wants out of him offensively. He delivers the ball quickly. He gets them in and out of plays well. He appears just an intense competitor. The offensive line I think is very, very big and strong. I don't think, I know they are. They physically have been able to move people. 29 is quick as a cat. He made some jump cuts on video that are extremely impressive. 80, the tight end, seems to be a productive play-maker. 82 has been able to make plays. He seems fast. I think they're an offense that definitely knows what they want to do, and I can see them getting better and better each week. As head coach, I watch game tapes. I can see them getting better and better and better, and that isn't good for us. In the tight games they've been in, they've been able to win really tight games, overtime games, those kind of things. Defensively No. 11, linebacker, is an extraordinary athlete. You can see he's a first-round pick quality player. 99, who did not play last week, I think he's a really good player. His brother played there a couple years ago. I thought he was an excellent player. 99 is really the same type of level player. He was on the sideline last week, didn't play. I don't know what the situation is. 54, the kid from California, he's played a bunch of football for them. He is just tough. This guy's motor never stops. Then the one DB, 26, talk about a clutch player, right? Makes interceptions in two games to end the game. The place kicker is a kid that went to my high school, so I know him well. He's a good player. They're breaking in a new punter who seems to be doing fine. They had the kid for so many years, 47. I think that was his number. So I think it's a very well-rounded team. You can tell they take on Coach Marrone's personality. They're tough, blue-collar. They remind me of us. They play extremely hard. It's going to be a great football game. It's going to be a tough road test for us in the dome. Get loud. We need to go up there and play Rutgers football. I expect them to play Syracuse football. It should be a great college football game. Questions. Q. Is the Syracuse pass-rush as good as the last two years you played them? COACH SCHIANO: Well, they have really good players up front. But I think Scott Shafer does an incredible with their scheme. He's a calculated risk-taker in their blitzes. They're well-organized. I think it's a very well-coached football team. Doug is an excellent coach. Scott, and with Coach Hackett there, he and Doug are right on the same page. You can see it all. It's a very well-coached football team. Q. Four of your five starting offensive linemen are playing in the dome. What do you do to prepare them for it, the noise. It's different. COACH SCHIANO: It is different. We'll use the noise, like we do every week. We'll have silent count like everybody in America does. But it's about poise, it's not about noise. You have to keep your poise when it gets crazy. Young guys that haven't been there, anytime you do something for the first time, you're right, it can be a experience. It's a hard job to prepare them to keep their poise under pressure. Q. Are you ready for Big East play? COACH SCHIANO: Can't wait. Can't wait. It's time. Q. Is the team where you want it to be? COACH SCHIANO: Doesn't matter. Q. I know that, but... COACH SCHIANO: We're ready to go. Q. Did it just happen that you couldn't find time for Lowery and Stapleton? COACH SCHIANO: I don't think we got into a situation where we were gassed. I talked to Kyle once about it during the game. I look at a lot of things. One of the things I look at is both our opponent and our jerseys. If they're going like this, that's a good way to see guys are really sucking air. When I see our opponent's jerseys moving in and out really fast, let's go, let's speed up, let's run it down their throats. When I see ours, do you want to rest somebody. I didn't see that. I keep an eye on that. Jay Butler and I both, that's one of the things that's our jobs, to make sure. Q. (Question regarding starters.) COACH SCHIANO: They're going to be the starters. But as I say every day, every day is competition here. And if you don't go out and perform as expected, fifth-year senior or first-year freshman, I don't care. That's the way that team is built, it will continue to be built. You better get the best out of yourself because somebody over here is trying to get the best out of themselves. It's our job to watch the video and determine. Whatever I see on the screen, that's all I can judge. I tell the players: Intentions don't matter; you got to go do it. Q. (Question regarding redshirting freshmen.) COACH SCHIANO: Miles already played. Q. If he's hurt today, you can still redshirt him. COACH SCHIANO: He's not hurt today. That is not a decision of mine. The decisions that are up for play are the freshmen that haven't played yet. Yeah, no, we're going to really address the guys that haven't gotten into the games: Do we put them in? Is it time yet? Maybe not quite yet, but we'll get there. We get around game six is really when you start, We're halfway into this thing, if we haven't played yet, do we need to or can we use a redshirt on them? Q. Do you use a 'backfield by committee' approach? COACH SCHIANO: I think I'll see how everything progresses. I really believe all three of those guys are going to get touches again. How they get distributed, as we talked about Saturday after the game, does somebody have a hot hand. Q. Do you need to start getting more production from Harrison and Coleman? COACH SCHIANO: I'd like to, yeah. I know I speak for our whole staff. We think that's critical. I think we're leaving offense on the field. A lot of reasons. Some of them are drops, some aren't thrown exactly right, routes aren't run correctly. But we'd like to increase production, not decrease Mo's, just get more from the other guys. Q. What do you think makes Jamison a good ball carrier? COACH SCHIANO: Vision and feet. Q. Are those instincts you can't teach? COACH SCHIANO: Exactly. You can teach them paths, can you teach them courses and keys, but you teach every back that, then it's a matter of how do they see it, how quickly can their eyes tell their brain, their feet to do something. Q. What are your thoughts on using Merrell and Snyder at the strong side position? COACH SCHIANO: I like the mix we have. I want to get Snyder in there. He's a good, tough kid. Jamal played his best game that he played so far. Those are two good things. I like it. And there's a guy, you talk about injuries, we're talking about two freshmen right there because Miles has been here a long time but he's been injured. When the time comes, we're going to commit with for a sixth year with him. I look at him as a true freshman. That's pretty nice. Q. What do you think of when you look back at the defense's performance? COACH SCHIANO: Not good. Made some big plays that allowed us to win the game. We got four takeaways and scored a touchdown. I say that, special teams. 90%, 80% of your guys are defensive players on special teams. We kind of coach them all as one. So we made big plays. That's what you need to do. You need to make those plays, especially when you're not playing. I didn't think we played precise football defensively. I've been talking about speed, speed, speed. Speed is important, but we need to play speed with precision, and we didn't. We made way too many mistakes. Got away with a lot of them. Then again, we didn't get away with some of them. Scored 26 points. That's not winning football. Q. What was going on in the secondary, the passing game? COACH SCHIANO: A couple things up front we didn't do right, blitzes and pass-rush, which allowed the guy to have time to throw. A couple things we made technique errors, which we haven't made. I saw things on the video in the secondary we haven't seen. We need to correct that and we will. They made three circus catches that I said, I don't care who is defending them on those, they're going to get caught. My hat is off to them. I'm impressed with that No. 4. He's a heck of a player. Q. Do you feel like you're close to blocking a punt? COACH SCHIANO: I don't know. I felt we should have had one Saturday. That's our calling card and we haven't done it. Maybe we'll become a return team. Maybe we have to back off the gas. Maybe we're trying to make something happen that's not there. Q. How do you deal with Sanu, if you had a plan against him defensively? From your perspective now, do you have to go back and make some adjustments knowing that those adjustments are going to be made on him? COACH SCHIANO: The thing I love about our scheme is that the quarterback has a progression every play. If somebody takes away Mohamed, that means somebody else should be available in the progression. I think the key is that our quarterbacks keep working through the progression. Frank is the best quarterback teacher I've ever been around. When we talk about training our quarterbacks, I think we just need to keep them doing that. If they take Mo away, go to number two, number three. If Mo isn't number one, maybe he won't be open, so get ready for that. Q. (Question regarding third-and-longs that Sanu converted.) COACH SCHIANO: We're going to use what is our most experience. Right now our best receiver, we're going to make him choice one. If they take away choice one, you better be able to go to choice two. If they take away choice two, you go to choice three. If they take away choice three, you better duck. Q. How have you been at picking up the blitz this year? COACH SCHIANO: Not perfect, but much better. This will be the true test. Q. Are you comfortable where it is right now or do you need to see more? COACH SCHIANO: No, we need keep getting better. Not comfortable at all. You go back two years, in the dome, that was the one that sticks in your head. I thought Shaf just did a great job. He brought them in the right time at the right places. We have to be ready for that. Q. Have you found the changes you made on defense has been the key to stopping the run so far? COACH SCHIANO: Maybe. Not sure yet. Not ready to judge that. I like our defense. Even though we played poorly Saturday, and I say 'poorly,' when you make plays to win a game, we need to be precise. We're not the biggest crew in the world. So if we're not precise, we're going to get caught. When we get caught, it's different. 250 you get caught, you end up on the other side of the line. 290 you get caught, you may end up making a pile. We have to get precise. That's going to be our mission, not lose a step of speed, aggressiveness, of being ball hawks like we've been, because that's critical, too. Q. Are you happy with the review system? COACH SCHIANO: Am I happy? Q. You saw what happened at Syracuse last week. Issue with Carolina. COACH SCHIANO: I had an issue Saturday. Got to see. Am I happy with it? Everybody needs to get better, coaches, players and officials. Q. (No microphone.) COACH SCHIANO: You have to look at that. I can't comment on that. I can; I don't feel like paying for it. Q. (Question regarding recruiting with a victory.) COACH SCHIANO: I don't think it's that important, to be honest with you. I think recruiting is recruiting. If you don't win this one, you win this one. I don't know about that. It's important for our football team. It's important for how hard we've worked to go up there and play the best we can and come home with a win. That's important, sure. Go on the road in a tough environment against a good football. This is a good football team. When I look at Syracuse, I don't see anyplace where you say, We'll take advantage of that. We are going to have to compete our rear-ends off and try to be better one more play better than they are. They don't make any mistake. They play a very good game, know what they want to do. Defensively, Scott Shafer knows exactly what he wants to do. They're not going to vary. Between Hackett and Marrone, they know exactly what they want to do. It's fun to battle against coaches like that. Our kids are going to battle other. A lot of them know each other. It's good college football. Q. How are you injury-wise? COACH SCHIANO: You know what, we're bumped a little bit. I think most of the guys are going to play. I don't know that anybody is going to miss playing time that hasn't already been missing. We're in it now. This is nine straight weeks. You're going to have guys that don't feel as well some weeks as others. That's life. That's where you want to develop depth and be able to roll a guy in a little more one week than others. Fatigue begins to have its effect on the injury. I don't mean cardiovascular fatigue, I mean fatigue on the injury itself. If you can pace them through the game, you have them in the fourth quarter when you need them. We have to watch that in several situations. That will be the case for the rest of the year. Q. We can ask you this about every player, but Martinek seemed to make things happen when you got the ball. Do you make a more concerted effort to get him the ball here coming up or is it going to be in the course of the offense? COACH SCHIANO: Probably the course of the offense. But you're right, I like what he does when he has the ball in his hands. He's learning to become a fullback when it comes to blocking. Joe is a natural ball carrier, no doubt about it. He'll keep getting his touches. Also we need to get him the ball through the air, which we will. Q. (No microphone.) COACH SCHIANO: He's improved quite a bit. He seems so much more confident, so much more quick with his decision making. He looks physically stronger, thus the ball is thrown physically better. Looks like a guy in total control of their offense. He's their guy. He's been their guy. It's the same offense. I'm very impressed. I'm going to talk to our football team. I'm very impressed with 29, too. This other guy gets in there, is it 23 or 32, very good player. What number is he here? 23, he made some things happen. They're running that draw, he makes a bunch of things happen. The thing about 12 is not only is he a pocket passer. I mean, he's very good on the move. They run a lot of boots and nakeds. He's quick with his body. They faked the bubble last week. I guess they had something they saw in Toledo's offense. There's one time they run a reverse and he cuts the blitzing linebacker. That tells me not only is he good at all those things but he's a tough guy as well. Quarterbacks, when they have that, they have a way of getting in the way. 12 went after that linebacker and cut him right in the hole. That to me is impressive stuff. You can see why he's the leader of the group. He's got it. Whatever it is, he's got it. Going to be a great challenge. Looking forward to it. Going to be a great week of practice, if we're going to go up there and have any chance of bringing home a victory. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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