Football Rutgers Football HC Greg Schiano - Boston College Press Conference

[Richie O]

Everything Rutgers Football HC Greg Schiano ahead of Boston College game week

Here's a look at everything Rutgers Football head coach Greg Schiano said ahead of the team's next game versus Boston College.

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[RU Jeep]

I know it was a horrible loss and we probably will lose again this week, but I think GS is a great leader and deserves credit for doing what no one else showed they could do for Rutgers football

 

[Caliknight]

Great leaders don't lose to Umass. That's an oxymoron.

 

[Knight Shift]

I know it was a horrible loss and we probably will lose again this week, but I think GS is a great leader and deserves credit for doing what no one else showed they could do for Rutgers football

Did you watch BC against Cincinnati?

For context, on the podcast after this presser, it was said of 68 players that were on the BC roster last year, only 5 remained? Maybe I did not hear that correctly? Not making excuses, but if true, the 2026 UMass team is not the 2025 UMass team.

 

[RUDivision]

I know it was a horrible loss and we probably will lose again this week, but I think GS is a great leader and deserves credit for doing what no one else showed they could do for Rutgers football

I appreciate your support of am RU employee. He is an awful football coach, terrible scapegoating leader, and a bad person. He can’t be gone soon enough.

 

[RU Jeep]

Did you watch BC against Cincinnati?

For context, on the podcast after this presser, it was said of 68 players that were on the BC roster last year, only 5 remained? Maybe I did not hear that correctly? Not making excuses, but if true, the 2026 UMass team is not the 2025 UMass team.

I did watch the BC game actually. They stink. However, I did watch the RU game. I think we are worse. But I am hoping for a miracle.

Schiano's teams have shown resiliency in the past, but I didn't see much talent on the field Thursday.

 

[RU Jeep]

I appreciate your support of am RU employee. He is an awful football coach, terrible scapegoating leader, and a bad person. He can’t be gone soon enough.

I am not looking to join yet another is GS great or does he suck debate. But what do you mean by a "terrible scapegoating leader." He essentially has taken all the blame for this loss when it would be very very easy to blame lots of players and a couple of coordinators.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

I did watch the BC game actually. They stink. However, I did watch the RU game. I think we are worse. But I am hoping for a miracle.

Schiano's teams have shown resiliency in the past, but I didn't see much talent on the field Thursday.

Our problems didn’t look fixable to me unless the name UMass on the jersey of our opponent was a misprint and we actually played OSU. We looked like we stink in the trenches. And tackling fundamentals are Ash level bad.

 

[RUDivision]

I am not looking to join yet another is GS great or does he suck debate. But what do you mean by a "terrible scapegoating leader." He essentially has taken all the blame for this loss when it would be very very easy to blame lots of players and a couple of coordinators.

He went through multiple DC’s in the last 3 years. He fired his OL coach and that looks to be a bad decision.

Just a few examples!

He definitely took this loss on the chin as a good coach should do but he had no other option. They were historically bad, so that’s the only option he had.

Let’s see how he handles the rest of the year.

 

[Caliknight]

I am not looking to join yet another is GS great or does he suck debate. But what do you mean by a "terrible scapegoating leader." He essentially has taken all the blame for this loss when it would be very very easy to blame lots of players and a couple of coordinators.

Hard to put blame on the DC when Schiano is still calling the shots. That D looked nothing like the DC's D did at ND. What it does exactly resemble is the D from last year, which is the D Schiano was running yet fired his coaches because it sucked. That's not leadership. That's scapegoating.

 

[Caliknight]

Our problems didn’t look fixable to me unless the name UMass on the jersey of our opponent was a misprint and we actually played OSU. We looked like we stink in the trenches. And tackling fundamentals are Ash level bad.

Good to see you finally waking up to that which is the Schiano stench.

 

[Knight Shift]

He went through multiple DC’s in the last 3 years. He fired his OL coach and that looks to be a bad decision.

Just a few examples!

He definitely took this loss on the chin as a good coach should do but he had no other option. They were historically bad, so that’s the only option he had.

Let’s see how he handles the rest of the year.

1. He went through multiple DCs. Joe Harasymiak took a promotion to HC and left. That's called extending your coaching tree-a good thing for Greg and Joe.

2. Yes, last year was a disaster at DC. IDK why he hired Robb Smith, but likely because he was the last warm body willing to take the job. This could be because of a couple of things- a stink on the program because of lack of NIL or a stink on the program because Greg is hard to work for.

Neither of those make his a terrible scapegoating leader. There are other issues that have been discussed, but please point to scapegoating behavior?

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Good to see you finally waking up to that which is the Schiano stench.

No - what we saw last game was actually a first time under 2.0 so stop acting like it’s been this all along. It has not. Even in the Covid year, we did not look like what we saw Thursday in the trenches against mid majors and not even bad BIG teams. We’ve only been mediocre before this season, so he couldn’t afford a beat down like that from UMass, but please don’t act like we’ve looked like we did Thursday all along under Greg and nobody would listen to you. It’s simply not true.

 

[RUDivision]

1. He went through multiple DCs. Joe Harasymiak took a promotion to HC and left. That's called extending your coaching tree-a good thing for Greg and Joe.

2. Yes, last year was a disaster at DC. IDK why he hired Robb Smith, but likely because he was the last warm body willing to take the job. This could be because of a couple of things- a stink on the program because of lack of NIL or a stink on the program because Greg is hard to work for.

Neither of those make his a terrible scapegoating leader. There are other issues that have been discussed, but please point to scapegoating behavior?

Hiring Rob late with zero talent and not letting him go a full season, to bring his own guys in? He blamed him took over play calling and eventually fired him. Umm not finding a DC he wanted because he is N ineffective leader. No one wanted the job because they did not want to be scapegoated either. The late hire of Rob and the way he handled it is the definition of scapegoat!

We can look at Gleason before Kirk as well.

 

[RUDivision]

No - what we saw last game was actually a first time under 2.0 so stop acting like it’s been this all along. It has not. Even in the Covid year, we did not look like what we saw Thursday in the trenches against mid majors and not even bad BIG teams. We’ve only been mediocre before this season, so he couldn’t afford a beat down like that from UMass, but please don’t act like we’ve looked like we did Thursday all along under Greg and nobody would listen to you. It’s simply not true.

Last years Defense was the worst in football all year???

 

[RUDivision]

1. He went through multiple DCs. Joe Harasymiak took a promotion to HC and left. That's called extending your coaching tree-a good thing for Greg and Joe.

2. Yes, last year was a disaster at DC. IDK why he hired Robb Smith, but likely because he was the last warm body willing to take the job. This could be because of a couple of things- a stink on the program because of lack of NIL or a stink on the program because Greg is hard to work for.

Neither of those make his a terrible scapegoating leader. There are other issues that have been discussed, but please point to scapegoating behavior?

You can also ask Josh Freeman and Dylan Lonergan ( not injured) if they felt scapegoated!

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Last years Defense was the worst in football all year???

The 2025 football team as a whole was 5-7 and a few plays away from being 8-4. I’m not saying that’s close to “good enough”. But it’s also not on the same galaxy of bad as a 16 point home loss to UMass that wasn’t even as close as the final score suggests.

 

[Caliknight]

No - what we saw last game was actually a first time under 2.0 so stop acting like it’s been this all along. It has not. Even in the Covid year, we did not look like what we saw Thursday in the trenches against mid majors and not even bad BIG teams. We’ve only been mediocre before this season, so he couldn’t afford a beat down like that from UMass, but please don’t act like we’ve looked like we did Thursday all along under Greg and nobody would listen to you. It’s simply not true.

Some of us saw the writing on the wall. At least you do now too. Nothing could be as bad as UMass or he wouldn’t have been coaching at this point.

 

[Anon1751457139]

Schiano's comment during today's presser that he had a really bad game only twice in 22 years was absurd. It was self serving nonsense and avoidance of responsibility. He has had many very bad games, and he is delusional if he believes otherwise .

 

[RU#1fan]

I know it was a horrible loss and we probably will lose again this week, but I think GS is a great leader and deserves credit for doing what no one else showed they could do for Rutgers football

Applicable to Schiano 1.0
2.0 is an adjunct failure. Time to move on.

 

[RU#1fan]

No - what we saw last game was actually a first time under 2.0 so stop acting like it’s been this all along. It has not. Even in the Covid year, we did not look like what we saw Thursday in the trenches against mid majors and not even bad BIG teams. We’ve only been mediocre before this season, so he couldn’t afford a beat down like that from UMass, but please don’t act like we’ve looked like we did Thursday all along under Greg and nobody would listen to you. It’s simply not true.

UCLA and Wisconsin say hello.

 

[Colbert17!]

Our problems didn’t look fixable to me unless the name UMass on the jersey of our opponent was a misprint and we actually played OSU. We looked like we stink in the trenches. And tackling fundamentals are Ash level bad.

Bring back rugby style tackling

 

[Colbert17!]

Hard to put blame on the DC when Schiano is still calling the shots. That D looked nothing like the DC's D did at ND. What it does exactly resemble is the D from last year, which is the D Schiano was running yet fired his coaches because it sucked. That's not leadership. That's scapegoating.

How many North Dakota games did you watch last year? Must have been interesting that you saw so much about the D since our DC was at South Dakota

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

UCLA and Wisconsin say hello.

Yes - everyone lays an egg occasionally against a mediocre peer. UMass isn’t that! This was the Ash era. Gutting out wins against New Mexico types. Losing to Eastern Michigan. Getting the snot kicked out of us by Buffalo.

Im not sure exactly what I’d have expected Greg to say in a presser but boy did it piss me off to hear him say he’s still confident in this group. How could he be? The gap is suppose to be so big that laying an egg isn’t possible. Clearly that’s not the case this year. No matter what adjustments are made that isn’t likely to change and he has to know that at this point. I guess he can no longer call us a development program but I do wish he would’ve openly admitted that we’re a major work in progress in the trenches rather than “promising” we’ll be better.

He seemed to be aiming to come across like a parent whose kid (normally a good student) bombed a test because they didn’t study. In that case, you’d be confident that if the kid put in the effort, they’d do much better on the make up. But this situation looked to be more aligned with the kid who simply struggles terribly with the subject matter and did poorly despite working his/her tail off. UMass dominated us in the trenches. Maybe some of the tackling issues can be cleaned up, but the line issues didn’t look easily fixable at all.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Bring back rugby style tackling

I do think we’ll be able to clean up some of the tackling issue. While the defense royally sucked, that was pretty much to be expected. The OL was the eye saw in my opinion. Against a team like UMass, Rutgers should be able to win outright by primarily keeping the ball on the ground. Greg isn’t blaming that unit outright but when he took ownership for “not preparing”, I’m guessing that’s what he meant. Clearly, he assumed this would be the case and it is absolutely the stand out reason we lost the game and Lonergan panicked. If we were able to run the ball, we wouldn’t have had anything close to 4 turnovers. There’d have been no reason to force the issue. The D still would’ve sucked but we would’ve had enough stabilizing possessions to “not lose”.

Jim Turner is not taking nearly enough heat in my opinion. 30 NET RUSH yards against a MAC team coming off a zero win season (I don’t care if they turned over their whole roster - they did it with very limited funds). Perspective - we rushed for 270 net yards against Liberty with a high school coach running the show after Ash was fired.

 

[newell138]

Greg should have led off the presser by announcing he will be donating 1/12th of his salary to Tunnel to Towers Foundation

 

[Knight Shift]

Yes - everyone lays an egg occasionally against a mediocre peer. UMass isn’t that! This was the Ash era. Gutting out wins against New Mexico types. Losing to Eastern Michigan. Getting the snot kicked out of us by Buffalo.

Im not sure exactly what I’d have expected Greg to say in a presser but boy did it piss me off to hear him say he’s still confident in this group. How could he be? The gap is suppose to be so big that laying an egg isn’t possible. Clearly that’s not the case this year. No matter what adjustments are made that isn’t likely to change and he has to know that at this point. I guess he can no longer call us a development program but I do wish he would’ve openly admitted that we’re a major work in progress in the trenches rather than “promising” we’ll be better.

He seemed to be aiming to come across like a parent whose kid (normally a good student) bombed a test because they didn’t study. In that case, you’d be confident that if the kid put in the effort, they’d do much better on the make up. But this situation looked to be more aligned with the kid who simply struggles terribly with the subject matter and did poorly despite working his/her tail off. UMass dominated us in the trenches. Maybe some of the tackling issues can be cleaned up, but the line issues didn’t look easily fixable at all.

Agree on first paragraph.

Disagree on second paragraph. Do you expect him to say the season's over and they can't perform better?

He took ownership for the loss, which is what he should have done. But like you and others, he seemed to think coaching 39 years gave him a sense of entitlement to lose against UMass. He would have been much better off that the loss is unacceptable, and he will not let it happen again. He could have apologized to the fans too.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Some of us saw the writing on the wall. At least you do now too. Nothing could be as bad as UMass or he wouldn’t have been coaching at this point.

What we saw Thursday was a disaster that has no direct correlation or connection to any past issue with Greg. In fact, firing a standing position coach who actually turned around a unit and made it servicable for the first time in 10 years was an out of character move by Schiano. But at this moment, hiring Jim Turner to replace Flaherty stands out by a wide mile as the single worst decision Greg has made in his entire tenure at Rutgers.

Here’s the thing. Greg might put on a front that the loss is on everyone - nobody played or coached well. But while that’s true - everything about the game turned when Raymond ran into a brick wall twice in a row on the second drive of the game right after Lonergan marched us down the field for a TD. Yes - our D sucks and we all knew it would - but the OL getting stuffed the way it did (and that was the moment it came to light) - this is what gave UMass the confidence to do what they did. The bottom line is this wasn’t a bare bones OL that Turner inherited. We replaced 2 starters but also got several guys back from injury who were slated to start for us last year. Turner didn’t choose to start them - but the point is, it’s really hard to imagine that Flaherty’s line wouldn’t have allowed us to rush for at least 4 ypc against UMass. There’s obviously no way to know for certain that UMass doesn’t still win, but a lot of the things that went wrong when we were in panic mode, don’t happen with even a modestly servicable rush attack.

I wonder how far back one would have to go to find another game against a mid-major where RU rushed for under 35 net yards. This might’ve been a first ever.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

I should add - what I say about hiring Jim Turner being a mistake isn’t necessarily a broad slight on Turner as a coach. The players starting for our OL are mostly Flaherty’s guys who were recruited for Flaherty’s system. The mistake was booting him out in a year where you have 2 returning all star level position players to protect. And we’re in full blown rebuild mode on defense too. That’s why the decision looks so bad right now.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

He went through multiple DC’s in the last 3 years. He fired his OL coach and that looks to be a bad decision.

Just a few examples!

He definitely took this loss on the chin as a good coach should do but he had no other option. They were historically bad, so that’s the only option he had.

Let’s see how he handles the rest of the year.

The only potential scapegoat could be Jim Turner but the decision to bring him in sits entirely with Greg, so…

At the end of the day, not being able to run the football is how historic losses like this happen.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Hard to put blame on the DC when Schiano is still calling the shots. That D looked nothing like the DC's D did at ND. What it does exactly resemble is the D from last year, which is the D Schiano was running yet fired his coaches because it sucked. That's not leadership. That's scapegoating.

Stop. Tackling sucked - that had nothing to do with the scheme - the countless missed tackles - point blank ones. We might be able to clean some of that up over the course of the season. If you expected the D to look good early against anyone, I don’t know what you were thinking. Greg inserting himself in it too much wasn’t even on the radar of defensive issues. The D was always going to suck early and the hope was it could show steady progress throughout the year.

The OL is why we lost the game. The whole damn game changed when it became obvious we couldn’t get any push running the football. The two back to back runs for lost yardage - second drive.

Now - don’t misunderstand - the defense was horrendous. But I do believe we would’ve calmed down somewhat eventually like with Ohio last year if the offense hadn’t collapsed. DL deserves some blame for not keeping his cool but most of what happened doesn’t happen if we establish the run that second drive.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Agree on first paragraph.

Disagree on second paragraph. Do you expect him to say the season's over and they can't perform better?

He took ownership for the loss, which is what he should have done. But like you and others, he seemed to think coaching 39 years gave him a sense of entitlement to lose against UMass. He would have been much better off that the loss is unacceptable, and he will not let it happen again. He could have apologized to the fans too.

I think he should’ve said - based on our practices, I thought we were further along than what we showed in the game - we clearly have a lot of work to do. Last year he warned the fans the defense was a work in progress. Either he totally misjudged this group in preseason or he’s continually flat out lying in his pressers. I get that fan patience is wearing thin, but blatant lies are worse in my view than just saying - “we clearly have a lot of work to do. Can we get it done in time to be effective for BC? I will do everything in my power to help us improve. But yes, we have a lot of work to do. And not a lot of time.” Or something like that more in line with the things he said early on about progress not being linear or whatever.

Oh - don’t misunderstand. I don’t think he was “entitled” to lose to UMass. It’s a horrible loss and he’ll be gone unless he offsets it with a huge win over a ranked team.

 

[Caliknight]

How many North Dakota games did you watch last year? Must have been interesting that you saw so much about the D since our DC was at South Dakota

There is this amazing technology called YouTube. It’s sits in the information super highway. Right now, today, you can go there and see highlights and even truncated games of SD. It’s amazing. With your high speed modem dial up you can download a game in less than 3 minutes. It’s incredible!

 

[Caliknight]

What we saw Thursday was a disaster that has no direct correlation or connection to any past issue with Greg. In fact, firing a standing position coach who actually turned around a unit and made it servicable for the first time in 10 years was an out of character move by Schiano. But at this moment, hiring Jim Turner to replace Flaherty stands out by a wide mile as the single worst decision Greg has made in his entire tenure at Rutgers.

Here’s the thing. Greg might put on a front that the loss is on everyone - nobody played or coached well. But while that’s true - everything about the game turned when Raymond ran into a brick wall twice in a row on the second drive of the game right after Lonergan marched us down the field for a TD. Yes - our D sucks and we all knew it would - but the OL getting stuffed the way it did (and that was the moment it came to light) - this is what gave UMass the confidence to do what they did. The bottom line is this wasn’t a bare bones OL that Turner inherited. We replaced 2 starters but also got several guys back from injury who were slated to start for us last year. Turner didn’t choose to start them - but the point is, it’s really hard to imagine that Flaherty’s line wouldn’t have allowed us to rush for at least 4 ypc against UMass. There’s obviously no way to know for certain that UMass doesn’t still win, but a lot of the things that went wrong when we were in panic mode, don’t happen with even a modestly servicable rush attack.

I wonder how far back one would have to go to find another game against a mid-major where RU rushed for under 35 net yards. This might’ve been a first ever.

The D was as big or bigger of a problem. That’s Schiano.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

The D was as big or bigger of a problem. That’s Schiano.

We knew the D was going to suck. It was going to take a miracle to make it even close to average. Every projection on the season took that into account.

It’s one game, but the OL performance Thursday had to have set historically poor records. Combine that with coming off a decent year and returning so many players and the OL is the biggest relative reason why we lost the game. Of course if we had a good defense we would’ve won too but we knew going in that we didn’t.

 

[Caliknight]

We knew the D was going to suck. It was going to take a miracle to make it even close to average. Every projection on the season took that into account.

It’s one game, but the OL performance Thursday had to have set historically poor records. Combine that with coming off a decent year and returning so many players and the OL is the biggest relative reason why we lost the game. Of course if we had a good defense we would’ve won too but we knew going in that we didn’t.

Believing the D was going to suck doesn't absolve Schiano of anything. He's inability to hire a DC thus missing essentially the entire portal season is yet another black mark on his record.

Same goes for the OL. He ran out the guy who had it performing serviceably. He hired the guy that has it not performing serviceably.

And his press conference was weak. Saying he's been there before and he knows what to do to get out of it isn't changing hearts and minds. In year 7 he shouldn't be there in the first place.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Believing the D was going to suck doesn't absolve Schiano of anything. He's inability to hire a DC thus missing essentially the entire portal season is yet another black mark on his record.

Same goes for the OL. He ran out the guy who had it performing serviceably. He hired the guy that has it not performing serviceably.

And his press conference was weak. Saying he's been there before and he knows what to do to get out of it isn't changing hearts and minds. In year 7 he shouldn't be there in the first place.

Who said it absolves anything? The reason this team now projects to be worse than simply projecting to “suck normal” is the performance by the OL. That is what changed from preseason projection of 5ish win season.

 

[RUDivision]

Schiano's comment during today's presser that he had a really bad game only twice in 22 years was absurd. It was self serving nonsense and avoidance of responsibility. He has had many very bad games, and he is delusional if he believes otherwise

The only potential scapegoat could be Jim Turner but the decision to bring him in sits entirely with Greg, so…

At the end of the day, not being able to run the football is how historic losses like this happen.

Rob was completely scapegoated!
Brought in late with ZERO talent on D!
When it obviously went bad quick, Greg removed him as DC. The D was still awful and then Greg fired Rob like it was his fault.

Rob should have never been hired BUT once you do at least let him recruit his guys to run his system.

It was definition of scapegoat

 

[Caliknight]

Who said it absolves anything? The reason this team now projects to be worse than simply projecting to “suck normal” is the performance by the OL. That is what changed from preseason projection of 5ish win season.

Watching that D play, I'd personally consider them a bigger problem. I don't give af if it was projected or not, which Schiano certainly wasn't projecting.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Rob was completely scapegoated!
Brought in late with ZERO talent on D!
When it obviously went bad quick, Greg removed him as DC. The D was still awful and then Greg fired Rob like it was his fault.

Rob should have never been hired BUT once you do at least let him recruit his guys to run his system.

It was definition of scapegoat

Talking about scapegoat for the UMass loss. I don’t think we lose the game if Flats still was here. No way of knowing.