Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano hosted a press conference with members of the media after the Scarlet Knights’ 47- 15 loss to Indiana on homecoming. Without being prompted at the beginning of the press conference, Schiano said that he and the coaching staff need to make some “tough decisions” regarding the current team’s capabilities.
Later in the press conference, when he was asked to elaborate on those changes, Schiano said this: “Anything’s on the table. Like I said, I love the coaching staff,
I love the players. It’s not going to be any of that. It’s going to be, what can we do better? We have to improve. I thought we did improve the last two weeks, and we didn’t improve this week. Again, as I said, the opponent has something to do with that. My hat’s off to them. They’re a quality football team, and Coach Cignetti definitely had them ready to play tonight. They had an edge to them. You could see it, you could feel it. Early in the game, I thought we had some opportunities and we didn’t cash in. You get behind a team like that and it’s very hard. But again, like you mentioned, the defense, that’s really difficult when you give up explosive plays like that. We didn’t turn the ball over, neither did they. But explosive plays — it’s hard when you give them up the way we did.”
Now we know Schiano was never going to give any hints about what those changes might be, and it’s not even clear whether or not he will be around to make them, but it will be interesting to see if anything actually does change in two weeks when Rutgers has its best chance to win another game this season against Maryland.
Much of Schiano’s press conference was much the same; however, Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti said something interesting when asked if his success over the last three years gives hope to a program like Rutgers.
“I think success starts at the top with a commitment and alignment. From the president to the athletic director, it takes a certain amount of financial commitment to be successful. It doesn’t mean you have to be number one or in the top 10 in certain things, but you’ve got to be competitive, and that’s what we’ve tried to do,” said Cignetti. “I think Greg Schiano- what he has done at Rutgers- he’s had two great runs; it’s a little tougher around this time in the Big Ten. Can it get done? Yeah, I mean, it can get done. Greg is a great football coach.”
