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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 7, 2011

Greg Schiano

COACH SCHIANO: Okay. Guys. Thanks for coming out. Probably saw when Jason put this up here, this is -- I just show it to you now so you know what's going on.
We're going to wear this helmet on Saturday. So I'll put this over here. And that's for a lot of reasons. The big one, the biggest is respect for Army, Army football, and really for all our Armed Forces, both overseas and back here, back home.
The class that Rich Ellerson and the Army football program showed towards Rutgers in this last year has been incredible. When Eric got injured in that game, Rich Ellerson and his entire football team stayed in constant contact, whether it be through notes, the whole team wrote him notes at one point, gifts, Army memorabilia, things that were special to them that they gave, have in Eric's room, to even as late as this summer Coach Ellerson and members of his team coming down to our stadium club and having lunch with Eric.
So I just feel like certainly it's going to be an incredibly competitive environment, and we're both playing to win the game, but in college sports, the level of class that Coach Ellerson and his program have shown and the level of caring towards our program, I think is what makes college sports special. So we just felt it was a good time to do that. And that's why we're going to be wearing that helmet on Saturday.
It's going to be a great atmosphere. When we decided that we were going to play this game at Yankee Stadium, as a kid growing up, I'm very excited. I was a Yankee fan in Yankee Stadium and all the things that go with it, and now to be playing a traditional team like Army and playing them at Yankee Stadium is something that is exciting for me and for our football team.
It's also a very, very important football game for our season. And as it is for Army's season. So it's going to be just a very, very tough game and one that -- whenever you play triple option football, you better be right on point or you're going to really struggle.
You may struggle even when you are on point. But if you're not right on point, you could have a really tough day.
So we struggled last year trying to stop them. I don't know what the situation is with their quarterback. He did not play last week with the ankle.
But he seems to be improving. So I would venture to say if he can play, their back's against the wall as far as becoming bowl eligible, I'm sure if he can play he'll be out there.
Their fullback is a tremendous player. We had a lot of trouble stopping him last year. So that's something that we have to pay a lot of attention to.
Defensively, you know, they've played really well at times, and then they've played not as well at times. So like most of us, you get into a groove; you play a little bit and one thing that's been consistent, though, is their rushing game. They're unbelievable the way they run the football, and that's continued.
It's a very well coached football team. I have a lot of respect for Coach Ellerson and the job he does, and we need to be 100 percent ready to go for us to have a chance to win the game.
So that's where we are. And I'll try to answer any questions I can.

Q. Any decision as far as quarterback?
COACH SCHIANO: Chase is going to start the game. As I've told you guys before, I really believe we have two good quarterbacks in our program. And we have some young guys that I think are going to be good, in addition.
We just feel as a staff that that gives us the best chance to win on Saturday. Gary will be ready to go. Gary, I fully believe will prepare as if he's the starter and be ready to go. And if at any point we feel he gives us the best chance to win, he'll play. And that's how we do it here.

Q. How about Savon, has he had tests yet?
COACH SCHIANO: Savon has had tests. We got some good news. It doesn't look like he's going to need surgery. He's going to be out for a little while. He won't play in the regular season, probably.
Hopefully he'll be able to get back for the bowl game, which is a big sigh, because you could tell Saturday night I was very, very concerned.
It's not good to lose them for anytime, but I'm thankful that it's a blessing that he didn't need surgery.

Q. Can you say what it is, strained knee?
COACH SCHIANO: It's a knee. The technical tough doesn't really matter. But it's his knee.

Q. Was it the old Yankee Stadium you threw out the first pitch?
COACH SCHIANO: It was.

Q. What year was that?
COACH SCHIANO: I think it was '07, the baseball season.

Q. Have you been to the new Yankee Stadium?
COACH SCHIANO: I have. It's neat. Sound like a little kid. It's neat. Great.

Q. Throw a strike?
COACH SCHIANO: My pitch? It was a high one. A heater. He got up and caught it. I was pleased with his performance.

Q. Without Savon the last three games, how does that change what you're going to do in the running game?
COACH SCHIANO: I don't know. We have Jeremy Deering. And Jeremy is a multi-talented guy. Jawan Jamison. Joe can -- we've given the ball to Joe as a single back. We'll continue to do those things. Frank and the offensive staff are going to come up with some great ideas, some great plans for how we're going to do this thing. So I'm not concerned.
I mean, we're going to miss Savon, for sure. But that's why you have a program. You have some depth and you keep playing. We've just got to make sure we've got plans if another guy goes down, how we'll attack it and all those things.

Q. Are you concerned using maybe a new guy, Paul James or Ben Martin, this late in the game?
COACH SCHIANO: At this point in the year you hate to do that. That's why I truly -- I'm just so frustrated with some of the things that are happening in college football. I really truly don't understand why they don't give kids five years of eligibility, still keep the scholarship limit as it is, give them five years. Now you get into a situation like this, you can play a guy and not worry about burning, quote/unquote, his redshirt year. I just disagree wholeheartedly with that. But no one's asking for my opinion, that's why I just gave it to you.

Q. What do you think has been the biggest issue in the running game? It's still near the bottom of the country, statistically, at least. This is Game 10. So do you just have to accept it the way it is, you say it's a work in progress, you're trying to improve it, but is this a reality, this is what it is?
COACH SCHIANO: You are what you've produced. So after nine games we haven't produced in the running game. We're going to continue to work at it and get better. We will get it back.
We were not very physical up front. I thought we missed some reads. We did miss some reads with the running backs, but we weren't physical. We did not play at the level of physicality we need to to be effective in the Big East Conference. And it's disappointing.
We've got to get after them. We have to play more physical football, period.

Q. Any comment on the Penn State situation since you coached with Jerry Sandusky, I'm assuming?
COACH SCHIANO: I think in situations like this, the fewer comments, the better. It's just a terrible situation.

Q. Obviously they run the triple option like Navy. Do they do anything different schematically than Navy or is it all the same kind of thing?
COACH SCHIANO: No, they do it differently. Same premise, but different -- they're core formations are a little bit different, which is going to force us to be a little different.
I didn't think we did a great job. We were able to win the game last year. I didn't think we did a great job defensively last year.
At no point did I feel like we really had a handle on it. So that we need to do better, no doubt about it.

Q. You said last year you didn't think you did a great job. Jerrod Hassan had a huge game, if I remember, can you comment on him and the challenge especially after facing Navy with their fullback?
COACH SCHIANO: As I said, I think he's a tremendous player. I said it last year. And they're working the other fullback in, too. So it all starts there. It's a triple option offense the first option is the fullback, if you don't take it away they'll keep giving it to them, giving it to them.
So they've, like I said I have a lot of respect, the way they scheme up what we do. So we're going to have to change a little bit what we do. I think we've been able to sit -- we're going to have to do some different things, a little bit differently to be effective, but that's okay. We've got to grow, too.

Q. Another timely interception Saturday, how opportunistic has he been this season?
COACH SCHIANO: He's made plays. He does his job the way we ask him to do it most of the time. When you do that, you end up making plays. I always talk to the players: Talent plus scheme equals plays. Guys get in trouble when they try to make plays. Yet the public -- the playmaker, playmaker. What a playmaker is a talented guy does what he's supposed to do if you have a good scheme and a good player they add up to a play. And Daron does that. He does what he's coached to do. He's a very good player and he makes plays. Five interceptions now. That's pretty darn good.

Q. Could you tell the middle of the fourth quarter with that one drive, with 12 plays, 80 yards, sustain anything. 128 yards of offense to that point, three and a half quarters, what was -- just things out of sync the whole game? How much was that south Florida?
COACH SCHIANO: What we need to do against Army is we need to play more physically up front. We need to eliminate errors. Holding penalty. Off sides, you jump, when we're in a great situation to get a first down.
We need to do that. We need to eliminate those errors against Army to have an opportunity to move the ball, consistently. And that's what our mission is this week.

Q. You didn't have an excessive number of penalties, excessive number of turnovers, was it just the timeliness of them?
COACH SCHIANO: Probably that. When you're third and one and you jump and now it's third and six midfield, we had scoring opportunities and we messed up. So I'm sure on both sides of the book both coaches look at last week's game and say there was missed opportunities. I certainly do. We have to be able to effectively operate within our system in the clutch. That's doing your job. We have to do a better job of doing our job.

Q. Do you expect Harrison to do that?
COACH SCHIANO: I don't know. I hope so. I'm not sure about that. We had a couple of guys get dinged Saturday. I don't know about them. We'll see. I'll be able to tell you better on Tuesday where we are. It was a very physical football game.

Q. Great to see more tackles, defensive player of the week. Did you envision him being this productive when you made those changes?
COACH SCHIANO: I did. I did. I'm glad it worked out that way. But, yeah, if you didn't have that vision, then you probably shouldn't have made the move. Because he is a very good football player. As I said, he could be playing running back and be pretty darned good too; he's a very good player.

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