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Greg Schiano said that he saw something on Saturday that tells him he has a good football team. In the aftermath of a 20-13 loss at No. 19 Michigan, Schiano said that everyone in his locker room, from players down to coaches, was taking responsibility for the narrow defeat.
Rutgers very nearly toppled a ranked Big Ten opponent on the road on Saturday, but for a handful of mistakes that extended from untimely penalties to a couple of decisions that Schiano would likely want to re-do.
In his team’s second-half response, after going down early, Schiano saw a real positive as Rutgers nearly pulled off the upset.
“That’s a good football team and they played well and they had great concepts, their coaches did a great job,” Schiano told reporters.
“I didn’t help our team enough today. I could have helped our team more. I’m disappointed in myself and that’s something that I have to examine. Was I all bad? No, I’m not, I’m not the martyr here. I really feel like I could have been, I think every guy in that locker room feels that way – every coach and every player.
“And that’s, that’s what good football teams do; they stand up and they’re willing to look at what didn’t go right and how can we get it right because the second half, I don’t know if you play much better defense than that. Seven plays I think they had in the third quarter.”
And still, despite the errors, Rutgers very nearly came out with the win. After a rough first half where Michigan raced out to a 20-3 lead at halftime and had 15 first downs, Rutgers responded on defense. Michigan’s offense, prolific in the first three games of the season, was shut out and held to just two second-half first downs.
The Rutgers offense, in turn, produced two scoring drives and could well have tied the game if a hold on wide receiver Aron Cruickshank in the back of the end zone wasn’t missed by the officiating crew.