2025 Big Ten Media Days: Head Coach Greg Schiano Press Conference

GREG SCHIANO: I first want to thank Commissioner Petitti for everything he does for our league. This has been the most transformational time in college athletics maybe in the history of college athletics. I feel very confident in our leader in how he handles our business as a conference.

I would also like to welcome our president. We have a new president, William Tate, who has come to join us from LSU. Very excited about that. I had a chance to meet with him. He had a chance to address our football team, and it was great, and can’t wait to work together with him.

I want to thank our board chair, Amy Towers, for her tireless work in making sure that we have a president who is going to do a great job for our university.

Today we bring three great representatives of our football program. Athan Kaliakmanis, our quarterback, who has transferred in and has become literally the leader of our program. This is definitely his football team.

Wide receiver Ian Strong, who I think has just grown consistently since he arrived. This will be his third season with us, and he is I think an excellent football player and a great young man.

Then linebacker DJ Djabome, who is from Canada, came down. Great story. DJ came down to go to one of our football camps and drove down from upstate New York and didn’t have a hotel room. He, his coach, and two teammates slept in a car in late July. He went through our camp and did a great job.

We offered him. We brought his family down on a visit immediately, and he started with us in training camp a couple of weeks later. Now to be standing here at Big Ten Media Days and DJ will be representing us, it’s a great story. Excellent football player and even better young man.

Those guys, thrilled to bring them out here to represent our team and our program.

I would also like to thank our coaching staff. Really I’m indebted to them. They do an unbelievable job. Kirk Ciarrocca, our offensive coordinator, who is going into his third season, has done an unbelievable job leading our offensive staff. I would like to welcome Robb Smith back to Rutgers. He and Zach Sparber will be co-coordinators on defense and have done a great job getting everybody up to speed this spring and summer. Then Eddie Allen, who handles our special teams, does a great job. Leading our staffs and them leading our players.

Also, in this new day of college football, I would like to recognize, we have two assistant GMs….