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Ohio State vs. Rutgers: 10 Things We Learned From Greg Schiano · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to buck Eyes tomorrow morning for Tuesday, October thirty, first time your
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  host Tom Or. The Rutgers game is in four days. The game gets
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  Michigan in twenty five days. We've been talking a lot about Michigan on this
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  show recently, as well as the Buckeyes. Of course, today we're going
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  to be talking a little bit about Rutgers, and we're going to be doing
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  that with a little help from a former Ohio State assistant by the name of
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  Greg Shechiano. He is, of course now Rutgers head coach. In his
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  second tenure with the Scarlet Knights, he built them from basically the sub basement
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  of college football and got them to the higher level of the sport. He
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  is in the midst of trying to do that very same climb again now with
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  the Scarlet Knights after that program kind of returned back to rock bottom after he
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  departed for the NFL, and he is seemingly making some pretty significant progress this
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  year. So there was a lot of interesting stuff to come out of Greg
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  Ciano's press conference on Monday, So we're gonna stay hear directly from Greg Ciano
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  about a whole bunch of stuff with the Buckeyes, some close family ties between
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  the two programs, and that he has as well with some of the Buckeye
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  of folks and much more. So we're gonna start. Let's start with where
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  a lot of coaches want to start. That is Marvin Harrison, Marvis and
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  Harrison Jr. Obviously someone who Rutgers would love to have on their team.
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  But just like everyone else, everyone else o highest it plays do they do
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  not? Where are areas that Marvin Harrison Junior has stepped up his game over
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  the last year. In Greg Ciano's eyes, Yeah, mar Marvin Harrison Junior's
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  arguably one of the best players in the country. So he's continued to improve.
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  You can see he's a real professional the way he's prepared. Again,
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  when you're when you're going against players of that skill, you know they're very
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  dangerous. Marvin Harrison, of course, played his high school football in Philadelphia,
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  which is well within Rutgers recruiting territory. And when Harrison played in Philly,
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  guess who his quarterback was. Why it was Kyle McCord. You probably
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  know that already, but he and com McCord was com did already to Ohio
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  State. When Greg Ciano got back to Rutgers, so he was asked,
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  you know, did he talk to him during recruiting? And then you're gonna
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  hear a quick follow up here and just listen for what you know, if
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  you want to interpret it, you might interpret that as a little bit of
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  a shot at Michigan. And in his answer to that second follow up question
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  here, No, we talked a little bit, and I talked to his
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  dad, but you're right, he was committed and he was he was all
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  set with Ohio State. And what do you think of how he's done so
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  far with Yeah, he's a really good quarterback. He's you can see,
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  you know, I've been able to watch them on TV, so a little
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  TV scouting. He's a fiery leader and you could see his teammates believe in
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  him and his young quarterback who's getting better every week. So it's again part
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  of the challenge of playing a team that has so many skilled people. I
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  mentioned off the top of the show with some family ties between the two programs.
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  One of them is Derek mccorr that is Kyle's father. He would he
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  was actually a player at Rutgers when Greg Ciano was a young graduate assistant so
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  Shiano was asked, what does he remember about Derek McCord way back when I
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  think he might have been a sophomore. But yes, yeah, I knew
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  his dad, and you know, I was a GA and I was the
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  box lunch coordinator, so I probably got his dad a sandwich here and there.
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  Have you guys stayed in touch for years? Had it built a relationship.
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  I wouldn't say stayed in touch, but I've run across him at times,
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  and yeah, he's he was always a good, fun guy to be
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  around, fun guy to coach. I didn't really coach him very much.
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  You know, he ran the scout team and he had already moved past that.
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  But yeah, he's he's a good man. This year's Rutgers team is
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  substantially better than a lot of the Rutgers teams you've seen in the past.
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  This game is not going to be quite the same level of punchline that it
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  has been in some previous trips for the Buckeyes two piscataway. One of the
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  reasons is Rutgers may have found themselves a quarterback. His name is Gavin Wimsett.
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  He's been pretty good this year and as a young quarterback, he's kind
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  of just sort of progressing and developing with each week. How good was that
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  weekend off workers? Coming off of an off week? How good was that
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  extra week of development for Gavin Wimson. Yeah, I mean we had a
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  good couple of practices last week and Gavin got some real good reps. So
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  it's you know, at the stage of his development, reps are critical and
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  the more you get, the better off. You'd be another example of family
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  ties between the two programs this week. You are familiar, of course with
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  Ohio State cornerback Davison Nigbuinosen. He is a New Jersey native and his brother,
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  Desmond Igunosen, plays for the Scarlet Knights, so they'll be on opposite
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  side in the secondary for both teams. Desmond is a junior defensive back who
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  is a starter. He has thirty four tackles for the Scarlet Knights. Davison
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  has thirty five tackles for the Buckeyes, one more than his brother. I'm
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  sure having brothers myself, I'm sure that's not the kind of thing that gets
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  trash talked about at all. Is this something that breaks Ciana remembers having brothers
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  on opposite sides of a game like this. I don't know if I've recruited
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  or coach brothers that have played against each other. I may have been coaching
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  a long time. Doesn't jump out at me though, you know, it's
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  two teams playing each other. It's not two brothers playing each other. Although
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  I asked Des, I said, does your mom have one of those split
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  jerseys? You know, half Rutgers half Ohio State. We did recruit Davison
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  coming out of high school and that didn't work out. He went to Ole
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  Miss the second time I talked to him, but he was looking to go
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  to a national championship contender and he didn't feel we were that. So I
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  understood that, you know, we weren't what he was looking for. So
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  yeah, that's about it. Rutgers does not blessed with the same level of
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  depth and quality. Depth in Ohio State is so when they lost starting linebacker
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  Tyren Powell, they're leading tackler to injury. That is not great for them.
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  So how has that loss of Tyrem Powell in ack did the Scarlet Knights
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  defense? Well, we had you know, we had a three way rotation
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  going there with mo and and Dion and Tyree. Now Tyreem is no longer
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  in the rotation, so there'd probably be more of a two men rotation.
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  But we have young linebackers behind that are that are preparing and getting better,
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  and you know, just he played with what you have. There have not
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  been all that many memorable moments in the Ohio State Rutgers series history, but
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  one of them definitely came last year during a fake punt right at the end
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  of the game. BU guys had a huge lead. Jesse Murco took the
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  snap and just kind of kept rolling and ended up picking up twenty something yards.
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  The play ended on the Ohio State sideline. There was a little bit
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  of a scuffle. Greg Ciano ran across the field. There was a big
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  screaming match between him and Ryan Day on the sidelines. It was quite a
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  scene. Giano was asked about that fake punt, and that's that screaming match
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  on the sidelines. This this week, he decided he's gonna kind of downplay
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  that, and so here's what his answer on that. No, I don't
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  think I think that's in the distant past, and it had nothing to do
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  with the fake punt, nothing at all. I just it was to do
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  with protecting our player that was on their sideline that was surrounded and getting pushed
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  around. I didn't I have no that fake punt wasn't called. It was
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  our fault. We didn't put an edge to the punt block and the kid
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  is taught to roll and if it's there, you take it, So there's
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  no blame there. It was truly protecting our player. That was it.
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  But that's it feels like years ago. I'm guessing if you asked Ohio State
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  fans to name ten players on the Rutgers team, they would probably be hard
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  pressed to do that. But there are some really inspiring and interesting stories on
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  that team. One of them is Reggie Sutton. He's an offensive lineman.
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  He suffered a major major knee injury in Week four of twenty twenty one,
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  missed the rest of that season, missed all of last season, and only
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  came back about two years after initially suffering that injury. He played sort of
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  sparingly in a couple of games and has now worked his way back into the
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  starting lineup the last couple of weeks. So what has Greg Ciano? What
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  does it meant to Greg Schiano to see Reggie Sutton work his way all the
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  way back from that injury to get back on the field. Is he the
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  player that he was before he got hurt. No, will he ever be.
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  No, But he's certainly a stabilizing force. Like Kirk said, he's
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  a mature guy. He's an experienced guy, literally a coach on the field.
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  And what we're trying to do is treat him, you know, like
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  the vet that he is, and make sure that we get him to Saturday
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  where he feels. He's never going to feel great, but he feels good
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  enough to go out there and compete, and so far we've been able to
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  do that. This past week was great for him. He did very little,
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  if anything. We'll get him going again this week and see if we
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  can't, you know, one game at a time, see if we can't
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  get him out there and have him be an effective player. But he's great,
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  So happy for him. He's such a great young man and a guy
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  who works his tail off. Many times I asked him, are you sure
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  you want to keep doing this? You know, I literally suggested he hang
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  it up, but he was steadfast and his desire to want to do it.
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  So when somebody does something for so long and then eventually gets the result
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  they're trying to get. It makes me happy. The Scarlet Knights do not
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  have a ton of big play guys on their offense, but one of them
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  is Jique Jackson. He had seventeen catches already this year, averaging more than
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  seventeen yards per reception. So he is a transfer from California University. And
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  I know you're thinking, ah, the Golden Bears in Berkeley. Not so
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  fast, my friends. California University in Pennsylvania. That is a Division two
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  school. Their mascot, anyone want to guess, You're not going to get
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  it? The Vulcan, the California University Vulcan in Pennsylvania. Anyone want to
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  guess their fight song? Anyone know? Chariots of Fire. So other than
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  this program being apparently just straight flames, they are also a Division two FOP
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  program. Jakwai Jackson coming from there, what does he bring to that Rutgers
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  offense. Yeah, I mean Jique is where I wish we would have had
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  him. Now, I wish we'd had him at the beginning of the year.
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  He missed training camp, wasn't with us in the spring, really didn't
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  get here until late June, So you know, I only wish we could
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  have had him earlier because he is starting to hit a stride of sorts and
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  getting better each week. Again, it comes back to the question about repetitions.
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  Football is truly a game of repetition, and you know you can't there's
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  no substitute for those. This has been quite a process for Greg Ciano to
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  build the Rutgers program from bedrock to a little bit better and sort of making
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  progress and closing the gap with teams like Ohio State that are on their schedule
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  just about every year. So in the big picture, how much has that
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  gap closed? How much closer are they to being ready to compete and potentially
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  beat teams like Ohio State or Michigan. Yeah, I do very little big
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  picture when it comes to that stuff. We're trying to be one to know
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  at the end of the Ohio State season. We have to have a great
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  week of preparation to do that, and then we have to go play our
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  best game and see where that stacks up against theirs. And I can't control
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  anything about them, but I certainly can us, and that's going to be
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  my focus that we have a great, consistent week of practice and then go
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  play our best game of the season. Schiano has a somewhat unique view on
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  the Ohio State defense, having been a former Ohio State defensive coordinator himself,
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  so he was asked this week to take a look across the field and what
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  were his thoughts when he looks at the Ohio State defense. I think got
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  a lot of good players. Yeah, you're looking at a front that is
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  probably all NFL players. They're front seven will be all NFL players. But
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  the good thing is the back four or five or all NFL players as well.
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  So you're looking at a defense that is probably I mean, I don't
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  want to be exaggerating. I think every single guy there will be an NFL
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  player, which including some depth players. So it is what it is.
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  That's why they're one of the top defenses in the country. So we'll have
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  our hands full for sure. This has probably not gotten as much notoriety as
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  it should have, but Rutgers is already Bowl eligible. The Scarlet Knights are
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  six and two. This is the first time they have been legitimately Bowl eligible
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  since twenty fourteen. It is still as we speak October. That is pretty
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  darn good. Rutgers did go to the Gator Bowl in the twenty twenty one
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  season. They lost to Wake Forest, but they only got to go there.
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  They finished that year five and eight. They were not technically Bowl eligible
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  Texas A and M had a whole COVID thing, and so the Scarlet Knights
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  were asked to step in a nine days notice to play in the Gator Bowl
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  against the number twenty Wake fourth demon Deakins did not go great this year,
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  this Scarlet Knight have earned their own Bowl win or their own Bowl appearance anyway,
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  so far? Does this now feel to Greg Ciano like you're sort of
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  seeing progress, You're sort of seeing some of the Is this sort of like
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  some of those climbing years from his first time when he was at Rutgers where
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  they went from complete laughing stock and ended up being a national program with some
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  national notorieties. Does this year and getting Bowl eligible sort of feel like some
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  of those intermediate years where hey, there's some real progress going on here.
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  Yeah. I mean the similarities is we're building a program. I keep talking
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  about the pipeline, and just like then, you know, the pipeline wasn't
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  full yet We're getting closer. I think this two thousand and four class once
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  we get them here, will fill the pipeline. So then when you ask
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  me questions about depth, we'll have more experienced depth. And when you ask
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  me about our frontline players, they'll have cumuative repetitions. We have that in
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  some areas, not all yet, but that's part of building a prob line
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  is building a program. The way we do it, we don't get ready
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  mades. Like the team we're playing this week. They get some guys that
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  come in that are, you know, five star guys, and you know,
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  we don't get a lot of those, but that's okay. You know,
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  we know who we are. That's the key to being us at Rutgers
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  is we develop guys. They believe in what we're doing. They believe in
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  the development. And we're getting close to having the pipeline full. And that's
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  that's where things get fun when that pipeline gets full. So we're getting close.
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  Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that. Shanna was always he's an
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  interesting personality. He was always an interesting personality. Sometimes you get some really
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  interesting stuff out of him when he was the defensive coordinator or Ohio State.
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  Sometimes he doesn't want to talk about stuff and he will just tell you,
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  yeah, I don't want to talk about that, and so got to kind
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  of appreciate that as well. But I hope you guys enjoyed that. Some
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  interesting storylines on this year's Rutgers teams, interesting family ties between the two programs,
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  and don't worry, we will have a whole bunch more coming up later
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  this week. We're going to be talking to Ryan Day and Jim Knowles Tuesday
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  Day at noon. You can find that at YouTube dot com slash bucke Huddle
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  will be streaming that live Tomorrow's morning show. We'll probably be talking a whole
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  bunch about what we learned when talking to Ryan Day, what we learned talking
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  to Jim Knowles, probably answering some questions as well. And then we'll be
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  back with Ross Fulton a little later on in the week, taking a look
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  back at that Wisconsin game, what we learned about the Ohio State offense and
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  defense, and then off to Rutgers for this weekend's game noon kickoff this Saturday.
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  We will be there. We'll have our usual quick pregame postgame stuff all
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  at YouTube dot com slash Bucket Huddle, and of course lots of stuff this
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  week happening at bucke huddle dot com as well. I hope you guys can
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  join us there, very fun active community. Boy, it has been a
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  very active couple weeks on our message board. There lots lots of interesting information
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  flying around there. So if you have not signed up already, consider become
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  a member at buckeyehuddle dot com. That will do it for today. Thank
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  you guys all for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to
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  you tomorrow.