GREG SCHIANO: Appreciate you sticking around. Try to answer what I can here tonight.
Q. How would you evaluate Gavin?
GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, thought he did some really good things early on. I think he made some young quarterback mistakes in the second half. Literally, in like a minute-and-thirty-second time period. Things that are definitely correctible but I guess inopportune time. But he’ll get it. Just a matter of time. It was good learning experience for him. Unfortunately it was part of — it wasn’t all of it. It was part of — a big part, but it was only part of. We played clean football field in the first half. The penalties kind of disappeared. Really, there was no turnovers. It was clean football. To beat a team that’s a National Championship contender, you have to play clean football for 60 minutes. You have to do some things that are a little aggressive and be able to cash in on those things and that’s where we were in the first half. But the second half, the roof caved in there a little bit in that time period and it’s hard to go back and catch up.
Q. To follow on that, he’s had an interception in six of his last seven games and it’s starting to become a trend. Is that part of the growing pains of a young quarterback, or does that raise concerns about the long-term viability of as a starting quarterback?
GREG SCHIANO: I think it’s learning as a young quarterback, yeah, especially when you are doing it against one of the top defenses in America. Yeah, I think, you know, we couldn’t have done what we did in the first half back in September. So we have definitely gotten better, but not good enough to beat that team. But we are getting better. I have no doubt about that. Just not better enough.
Q. Is that first half kind of what you want this thing to look like, your team, overall, the way you played, the way the defense played, complementary football?
GREG SCHIANO: To some degree. I think we’ve got to run the football, though. We were unable to run the football tonight. We just didn’t run a lot of plays, period but we didn’t run the football enough, well, right. So when you’re throwing and running and hamming-and-egging it, that’s the way I would like to see it, and we didn’t do that. But playing clean and playing with an edge, yes.
Q. I guess when you’re playing a team like that and they start to get the lead and start to get momentum, how tough is it because they are so good and try to get it back, and then try to the train back on the tracks?
GREG SCHIANO: It’s hard, when you turn it over three times in a consecutive manner like that, you know, because then all of a sudden you’re looking up, and the mountain’s pretty steep. I thought our guys really, really committed this week in practice. They knew what this challenge was. I think we painted a really clear path for them how we could do it, but what we had to do to have an opportunity to win the game at the end and that was the whole plan: If we could get it to the fourth in the last six minutes, we thought we had a good opportunity to win the game. But we didn’t do that.
Q. Bit of a footnote in the whole thing but Timmy Ward scoring the first touchdown, all he’s been through getting to that point, what is it like for you as a coach to see him have that moment?
GREG SCHIANO: That’s really heartwarming, because you’re right, he has been through a lot to even be playing college football, no less at a Big Ten program. And Timmy has become a guy on our special teams that he’s very calm and he makes some of our checks for us, which sounds like a little thing, but special teams, you don’t spend as much time as you do on offense and defense on special teams. So you need a guy or two who can keep things calm and make the decisions out there, and he’s growing into that, which is important for us.
Q. You’ve talked a lot about seeing this team better at the end of the season than the beginning. Are you starting to see that in certain ways, or is it overshadowed by the fact that when you turn over the ball like that?
GREG SCHIANO: Well, it can be overshadowed, right. That’s my job as a coach to recognize and show these guys where they are making growth. Because it would really be — it could really be demoralizing if you look at the final score and you come in tomorrow and they come in tomorrow and sitting in these seats where you’re sitting, and you know, get up there and start telling them why they didn’t win the game. There’s things they did very, very well but as I said earlier, we are much better than we were in September, but we are not better enough to beat that team. They are a really good football team. They are top in just about every statistical category, and you know, they play with an edge.
Michigan Head Coach Jim Harbaugh
On the team’s second half success:
“Our defense was really good in the first half. We got hit with some deep balls. It’s a matter of just getting better at seeing the ball in the air. If they throw a deep ball, let’s get our eyes on it, have some fun, and pick it off. Will Johnson did a great job, and Mike Barrett, what a game he had. That’s tremendous, the right place at the right time. He got his eyes back and saw the ball come out of the quarterback’s hand, and it was a really good thing for our team to set the offense up with good field position. We haven’t had that a lot this year, and then the best kind of interception, the pick-six by Mike, and outstanding job by Will. It took tremendous team defense, they defended nine drives in the second half and only gave up one first down, that’s pretty special, and scored three touchdowns in a minute and 20 seconds. Good team effort all the way around, they got us on the punt block, it was a very, good well-executed scheme by them. It was a better start than we had the last time we were here. I remember that, when we were here two years ago, we were down 17-0. Our team didn’t flinch, heck of a game, J.J. McCarthy, he just does not get rattled at all. He was getting hit, and he missed a deep ball by a couple inches. We’re hitting those in practice, and we are really close on them in the games. I looked up after the game and he threw for 151 yards, but it felt like 300 to me because of the plays he was making standing in there. He was just making some incredible throws, he had the touchdowns throws, but he was getting hit too. He was standing in there with a lot of courage. Another great game by Black Corum, another 100-yard game. Really good, really proud of our guys. Rutgers had the momentum coming off the field in the first half, our guys were really quiet at halftime. We got our minds right and got out there for the second half, and our guys didn’t flinch. It was really fun to be a part of.”
On Rutgers:
“They are a really good tackling team. I’m so impressed. I’ve been a great admirer of Coach Schiano. You can tell that they are a team that practices tackling. I bet that they tackle in the spring, they tackle in the fall, they tackle in game weeks. They are really well coached. They are one of the best third down teams that we’ve played against. They are the best punting outfit in the history of college football. I don’t think they’ve given up any yards really in the punt game.”
On the offensive line:
“I though Jeff Persi settled in, making the start. He had to take more on. Same with Giovanni El-Hadi. I love those two guys. They are great team players, they got an opportunity and played really well. I thought that was outstanding.”
On other standouts:
“Donovan Edwards, he’s such a home run hitter. To see him have a heck of a game was outstanding. The defense, the run wall was there, the pressure was there. Mike Morris, wow, he continues to be a guy that we can count on. The DB’s are starting to see the ball coming out of the quarterback’s hand and get a taste for that. Hopefully our guys continue to get the feel for that. Great win, we’re really excited about this one. Best win we’ll have, all week.”
On the wide receiver depth:
“Roman Wilson was out this week. He should be back next week. We had a few guys working through some things. Some other guys stepped up. Tyler Morris, I thought he made a great catch on a contested ball at the first down marker, getting hit. Great to see him make that play. We had the next guys stepping up.”
On the red zone efficiency:
“It felt great. Felt good to make that improvement.”
