Rutgers Head Coach Greg Schiano Addresses Quarterback Miscues in USC Postgame Press Conference
· Yahoo Sports
After Rutgers ‘ hard-fought 42-35 loss to No.12 USC on Saturday, head coach Greg Schiano took the podium after the game to answer questions from the media. One such question was why they decided to go back to Dylan Lonergan at quarterback after he missed a game due to injury.
“I think, you know, we came out of training camp, which was a huge body of work, and it wasn’t just training camp. It was January all the way through the end of camp, and we decided that Dylan was the starter. Then he got injured, and AJ went and played at BC, and I thought he did a good job, but it wasn’t like those performances were much different.
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So to me, it was as long as he was healthy, we were going to go back to who we originally decided. And I have complete confidence in AJ. Dylan got bumped at one point in the game, and I wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to go back in. And I don’t have any feelings like, oh, boy, I love Dylan, but I also love AJ. I think they’re both good quarterbacks,“ said Schiano as part of his answer to the question.
The second part of his answer addresses the turnover issues.
“We’ve just got to stop turning the ball over. You know, now we’re at 10 in three games, and we turned the ball over 11 times the entire year last year. We’re just not a team that’s made; we can’t do that and win. So you may say, well, then why don’t you stop it? We’ve got to get it figured out. I hear you loud and clear,” said Schiano.
“But again, one of the interceptions came in that grouping, so we just cannot turn the ball over. You can tell it’s getting maddening to me, but we’ll fix it. We will,” said Schiano during his response to another question regarding the wide receiver play.
These are very typical Schiano media responses to a situation like this; however, the question of “when will it be figured out?” never goes away. USC scored 14 points off of Rutgers interceptions, seven of them coming on a 99-yard pick-six. Had those not happened, we could be looking at a very different result of that game. Same thing with the loss to Boston College, where the Knights only lost by seven despite throwing four interceptions.
Despite the turnovers, Rutgers as a team did play better on Saturday, which prompted questions regarding what would have happened in the first two games if they had played the same way they did vs USC. Schiano said he believes they would have won those games if they had, but they didn’t. This further brings into question why they didn’t have the team more ready to play at the start of the season, as they left two winnable games on the table because they weren’t.
The full press conference can be viewed here.