Game Week Press Conference: Greg Schiano – 11/18/24

GREG SCHIANO: Thanks for coming out, guys. Appreciate it. Saturday is the last home game, Senior Day, and I think that’s special. It’s also Future Student Day, which I hope we get a lot of future Rutgers students that come out to the game. I think the big thing, it’s an opportunity to win a Big Ten football game against a very good team. This senior class that will be honored, we’re going to do it a little differently this year. We’re going to honor them at the Scarlet Walk, which I think is going to be a cool thing for them and their families. This group is a special group. If you think back to when they decided to come to Rutgers, they had a huge leap of faith, arguably — let’s call it what it was; we were probably the worst Power 5 football program in America at the time. Guys like Tyreem Powell, who decommitted from Virginia Tech to come to Rutgers and now look at what he’s done for our program. You can go down the list. Just a group of guys that forever will be the COVID crew, right? Some of these kids came to Rutgers sight unseen. Just a group that we owe a ton to, and I hope that our fans are going to be able to come and honor them the way they should be because this group has done a lot for Rutgers University and for the state of New Jersey. Now, that’s the sentimental stuff, but the reality is we have a really good Illinois team that is coming to town. Two of their three losses were to top-5 teams, so here we go. I can talk a lot about them offensively. Their quarterback, Altmyer, he’s had an incredible year, incredibly accurate, runs their offense to a T, very impressed with him. Again, it seems like we’ve had receiver corps after receiver corps. With Bryant and Franklin, those two guys are about — like I said last week, we played an NFL receiver room. We’re playing another NFL receiver room. They do running back by committee. They lost their lead dog, and now they’re doing it by committee and they’re being effective the way they’re doing it. I think that all goes back to their offensive line. They have got a legitimate offensive line and it allows them to run the football. Defensively, I think they get after the quarterback very well. We’re going to have to protect well. 17, Jacas, he has like eight sacks, 10 TFLs, three forced fumbles. You’re talking about a guy that’s very productive. Their secondary takes the ball away. Linebackers don’t misfit their gaps. You can see it’s a really, really well-coached football team. Coach Bielema…