Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano met with members of the media after Rutgers 56-10 loss to Oregon on Saturday to recap the game and answer some questions about what went wrong for the Scarlet Knights.
He
started the press conference with his usual coaches rhetoric before diving into questions about the game.
The first two questions of the press conference resulted in largely the same answer. In his first question, Schiano was asked if he was embarrassed by how the defense played. The second question asked if he had a message for the fans after the loss. Schiano said that he wasn’t ambarrassed by what happened because he knows that his people are working hard to improve. As for the message to the fans, he spoke about how they were doing the best they could, but the best they could wasn’t what was needed. He said that sometimes this happens despite everybody working hard. However at the end, he added “750 (yards against), that doesn’t happen, so we got to figure that out.”
The next question concerned what changes the team will make on defense to improve in six days. Brian Fonseca of NJ.com, who asked the question, named a few examples, such as a change in staff or who plays. In response, Schiano said that 40 minutes after the game is not the time to make critical decisions like those, but he will look into them and make a decision on them. For context, in previous press conferences, Schiano would dismiss this question and say that it was too early in the season to make a change like this.
One quote by Schiano stuck out in his press conference.
“I am not looking for any positives tonight. This was not, not acceptable. When you asked that question about the fans the thing that bothers me is that, you know, they did come out and they did spend their money to come here. And I wish we could’ve done a better job for them.
Schiano also touched on why wide reciever Ian Strong didn’t play in the second half. While not providing specifics, they believed that what he had was serious enough where he should be held back. He wasn’t playing 100% and they wanted to hold him back from getting hurt worse, according to Schiano.
To view the entire press conference click here.
