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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 21, 2011Greg SchianoCOACH SCHIANO: We had a chance to really study Connecticut and are game planning them today. Defensively one of the best fronts in our league. I didn't realize as I watched the tape, they've got a lot of guys that have played a lot of football. Offensively it's a real challenge, and they've got a tremendously huge offensive line, and they basically run two different offenses. When No.11 is in the game, they have a gun run offense, and when No.18 is in the game, it's more of a traditional offense. Schematically there's going to be a challenge there. Big offensive line, you know, that's probably not a great match‑up for us, and sound in the kicking game. They gave up a kickoff return last week, which is unlike them, but challenge is in front of us, so we've got a lot of work to do between now and Saturday. Questions? Q. It's strange that you haven't had a lot of crossover with them, so this is kind of new, even though same league, close school? COACH SCHIANO: Yeah, what you do is in the off‑season you look at things. Once I put it to bed, I put it to bed, and every ounce of my thought is on the team we're playing that week. So when people ask you how is everybody else in the league doing, I have no idea until we play them. And the only way you really see people is if they're on crossover tape that you watch. Now, we get every tape so I've seen them, but I just haven't studied them at all. That defensive front, and then Donny Brown‑‑ you're talking about three veteran coaches in George DeLeone, Donny Brown and Paul Pasqualoni. Obviously these guys have won a lot of football games, there's no secret. I mean, when you watch the tape you just see some brilliant things that they do. George DeLeone ‑ I watch more of their offense obviously because working with the defense ‑ George is one of the best there is. It's going to be a challenge. Our guys are going to have to be on point because they have weapons. Their running back is over 1,000 yards. Their receivers, they dropped some balls last week, but they haven't done that traditionally, and they've got some speed. That No.6 is quick as a hiccup now. He's a concern. They do a lot of reverses with him and speed sweeps, those kind of things. It really is a lot of offense to get ready for. I know over the years we've coached against George, and that's one of his goals is to make you have so much to prepare for that you make mistakes. We're multiple, they're multiple. There's a lot of variables there. We've got to make sure we keep it where we can control our part of it. Q. Is one of the keys stopping McCombs, 1,000 yards rushing? COACH SCHIANO: Seems like Connecticut always has one, and I think that's a tribute to their offensive line, the consistency there. Mike Foley is their offensive line coach, is an excellent football coach. Our guys kind of know him through the years. I don't know him personally, but every time we play them I'm impressed with ‑‑ the bodies change, the numbers change, but the schemes and the technique are the same, and they seem to be effective every year. Again, it's going to be a big challenge. Q. How is D.C.? COACH SCHIANO: I don't know yet. I'm going to have to wait and see. Q. Was that the only fairly significant injury you had coming out of that game? COACH SCHIANO: Pretty much. Again, ten straight weeks, so to say it's the only significant‑‑ we have guys that are gutting it out right now, whether it's knees, ankles, thighs, backs, shoulders. Not many teams in America have played ten straight weeks. I'm not complaining, but that's where we are. So we've got to take care of ourselves. We've got to make sure that we do everything we can in every way physically as well as mentally and emotionally. So it's a big challenge this week. Now, the one nice thing is starting Wednesday the kids are out of class, so it gives them time to take care of their bodies and do‑‑ hopefully get to feeling pretty good by Saturday. Q. Having played ten straight weeks, are you more healthy than you thought you would be or more banged up? COACH SCHIANO: You know, I don't ever sit back and say, I think we should be this healthy after ten straight weeks. It's not that I don't ‑‑ you can't waste time, I can't, at least, on things that I don't have any control over. You know, now what we try to do is scale back practice, and as the year goes on, if you have a bye week then you really pull it back and you keep the starters and you get them feeling fresh again. But we haven't had that, so we've had to do it within our own preparation. We're at the minimum number of plays you can run right now and still be effective and maybe even below that level. But to me the tradeoff is to make sure they feel healthy and at least as well as they can. Again, I mentioned, offensively they do so much, and then defensively, I mean, Donny Brown brings every blitz known to mankind. So when you have those two variables on a team that you can't practice many plays with right now, they just don't have that much left, it's a challenge. That's why, as I say, schematically getting our guys to be able to do the things they need to do, we have to really‑‑ we really have to focus and concentrate. Q. Obviously we all know what's at stake on Saturday. When you think about the season, the going back and forth between the quarterbacks, how do you feel now about Chase being the guy who's sort of ready or experienced and prepared to be the guy to be on the cusp of this opportunity and to be ready for handling what's at stake in this game? Maturity wise or experience wise I guess is what I am asking. COACH SCHIANO: I feel good about both guys, I really do. I think they're both ready to handle whatever comes down the pipe. Chase has played in big football games. Chase is a cool customer. I think that our key is going to be our preparation. Does he see it? He's got to see it. Before you can do it, you've got to see it. And as many different looks as they're going to bring, they're not only a blitz team, but they do some things in coverage where they manipulate their coverage in a way to fit your routes. It's impressive. I've known Donny for a lot of years. He's an excellent coach. And then you know Coach P is a defensive‑‑ Coach P is in everything. He's one of those guys that coaches it all. But it's going to be‑‑ for Chase, he's going to have to spend a lot of time, he and Gary, spend a lot of time studying, and I know Frank will get them ready, but it's going to be a challenge to see it all. Q. You talked about Chase being a cool customer. That's kind of his personality, isn't it, very laid‑back kind of kid? Does that kind of help him on the field maybe in a game like this? COACH SCHIANO: I don't know. You know, just because your exterior is laid‑back doesn't mean that it's not churning inside. I think that he prepares well. He and Gary are gym rats. They're in this building all the time. They prepare, prepare, prepare, and I think, as I've told the team over and over, you shouldn't get nervous if you're prepared. You can get excited, butterflies are good, but it's not nervous. Nervous is for those who are unprepared. You know, I'll believe that as long as I coach. Q. With what's at stake for you, any concern now about distractions, and are there maybe fewer of them because you're on the road, it's not senior day, you're not home? Is it better to get away? COACH SCHIANO: Oh, I'd rather be home, always rather be home. Q. How about distractions? COACH SCHIANO: Yeah, I thought our guys handled it so well. I was so pleased with the way they handled it. Now, I don't know if they had any choice because I built it from Sunday on, this is how we're going to do it, but they were awesome. There wasn't a tear shed. It was all about playing ball, and as I told them, we're going to have a big senior get‑together when it's time to tell stories and all that. But right now it's all about playing football, and I thought our guys handled it great. There are distractions, there's no doubt about it. When you're in an area that you haven't been very often, you need to make sure that the process is the key. Connecticut, focus on‑‑ because you have an opponent that is a good football team who's very well coached, so we need to be totally focused on what we're doing, coaches, players, administrators, trainers, equipment managers. Believe me, the whole organization needs to lock in on what we're doing, and I like the fact that we have kind of this two‑day school week. These kids have an incredible challenge academically here at Rutgers, and to have a couple days here where they don't have to go to class and don't have to do work and can focus on football primarily, that's good stuff. Now, we'll get them out of here on Thanksgiving and make sure everybody has a home to go to, whether it's their own or one of their teammates' or mine or one of the coaches', so we're not going to go overboard. Someone asked me on the call yesterday, are there special things you do. I really believe whatever you do should be the best there is because that's what you choose to do each and every week. So anything special would then kind of lend to the fact that you weren't doing your best before. We have a plan. We're going to execute that. Maybe the guys can spend a little more time in the ice tubs or with the massage people or on the video because they don't have the academic challenges. But other than that, just got to go out and do it. Q. Next week you talked about the importance of the home crowd getting out there. Are you hopeful maybe you get a better showing than usual considering the circumstances on the road? COACH SCHIANO: Well, because it's close, you know, I think that's one of the things that‑‑ it's a three‑hour car ride, three and a half, whatever it is. We always have a good showing by our fans up there, and we need it. I mean, that's a loud stadium. Even though it's not the biggest in the league, it's loud, and they use synthetic noise pretty well, too. They crank it up pretty good. We're going to have to make sure all our nonverbal communication offensively is ready to go. Q. How does Kendall Reyes stack up to some of the other defensive linemen you've seen this season? COACH SCHIANO: One of the best, a dominating player. The other guy coming off the edge is a dominating player, that 48. He's a sack machine. He can amp it up. Then we know Twyon Martin has been there forever. We recruited Twyon, and he's a good player, too. We kind of are familiar with their guys. They're good, really good up front. That No.3, the linebacker, makes a lot of plays; 33 in the middle. They've got guys that know what they're doing. Q. When you recruited Twyon, did you have Ray Rice in mine, his brain and his running style and everything? COACH SCHIANO: It's easy to draw similarities when you have a shorter built guy. But I mean, I'm not ready to put many people in Ray Rice's category. That guy is special, special player. Q. Did Cincinnati do as good a job on Sanu as any team you've had this season? COACH SCHIANO: I thought they did a good job, yeah, a very good job. Q. How will you react to that if Connecticut kind of mimics it a little bit or finds a way to get him‑‑ COACH SCHIANO: We need to make sure Mo touches the ball. We talked about it at halftime; we have got to get the ball in Mo's hands. We did a little bit better, but still, I thought they did a good job. I thought the other guys picked up the slack, though. That's what was good. Q. With Jamison's patience, how has that developed as the year has gone on? COACH SCHIANO: I think as he becomes more comfortable‑‑ he had a great game, but the game before was decent, but until he broke that big one‑‑ I mean, he's a work in progress. He's a young back that's got great vision, balance. He's got to learn to do it every down. He's got to learn to take care of his body do all those things. We're not ready to ordain him as the savior at running back. He needs to just keep doing his job, and if he does, he's going to be very, very good. I have no reason to believe he won't. But again, it's one game. We haven't run the ball effectively all year where we wanted to. This was the first time. Now we've got to go out and do it again, and that's my thing. Let's go do it again before we start‑‑ Q. With all the crazy things that have happened to you at Connecticut, does any one stand out? COACH SCHIANO: Yeah, Terez's fumble. Q. Really, ahead of Tim Brown's catch? COACH SCHIANO: Uh‑huh. Q. No kidding. COACH SCHIANO: Do you understand what that did to that kid? Q. I was in the locker room. Yes, I did. COACH SCHIANO: That was one of the hardest things, and what it did to our whole organization. You want to just jump up and down and scream, yet you've got a kid who's dying right now. The best part of that whole thing, was it first or second play the next week against BC, Terez hits it on a touchdown. That's sports to me. That's sports. Q. How about Ryan's rally when he took over for Mike? COACH SCHIANO: That was great. 4th and 1 play where they scored before that one, we made a mistake, and we should kill it. We make a mistake and they score. There's a lot of things that have happened on both fields. Q. Ray Rice had an 189‑yard game, I think, up there. COACH SCHIANO: People say how do rivalries grow, when you have close games that always come down to crazy things, that's how rivalries grow. Q. Ever since Ray left, there's been guys that have been tagged to be the next Ray Rice. Given what he did while he was here and what he's still doing now, is that even fair to put on guys? COACH SCHIANO: No, it's not, but it's never been put on by me; it's been put on by you guys and our fans. I don't ever talk about the next Ray Rice because I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's fair at all. I think it's hard, big shoes to fill. The generic "you guys" usually gets you, doesn't it?            FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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