Rutgers Football HC Greg Schiano talks 2026 Offseason, Coaching Changes
Rutgers Football head coach Greg Schiano met with the media on Thursday afternoon, to discuss the latest happenings of the 2026 offseason and also break down his three new assistant coach hires in Travis Johansen, Joe Woodley, and Eric Finney.
Full Press Conference Transcript
GREG SCHIANO: It’s been a minute. First off let me thank you for coming out. I appreciate, as always, you covering our program and we’ve got a great day, a day that I’m very excited about and going forward.
You know it seems like a couple years ago, we had one of these couple years ago we had one with Coach Ciarrocca and I had similar level of excitement knowing where we’re headed, and that’s the way I feel today.
I have some thank-yous to start with. I want to thank President Tait. I want to thank our board of governors, all the people that have to approve this. And I want to thank Kelly, who helped me through the process, and discerning what was right and what was best for what we needed to do. It really was a team effort, there was a lot of people that helped.
It’s a lot of logistics, whether it’s me going somewhere or bringing people in to interview. I talked to over 20 people in the process, from every different level, from the NFL to college football to the CFL, the UFL, whatever FLs there are left.
I talked to people from everywhere. It was my intention, as I met with some even in my office that day, it was my intention to not put a cap or a cage on this process, and just let it play out, and that’s one thing I’ve learned over the years when you don’t do that, usually make a mistake.
And unfortunately, I’ve made some mistakes in my time, and I’ve also made some great hires. I’m extremely confident that this is a great hire.
I will tell you that Travis Johansen, when you look at his track record as a football coach, it’s incredibly impressive. And when you talk to the people that I did that have been around him in his career, it kept coming back, the same mental, the same mental, the same message.
Now, as I was doing this, I was also retaining our football team, right, and I was also recruiting in the portal, and we were also, as a staff, recruiting high school kids.
So there was multiple things going on, and I know a lot of people got a little uptight about the timing of it. I’m not one of those people. I just felt like we had to find the right person and however honk that took, we were going to find the right person. And I’m extremely confident that we did. We found the right person in Coach Johansen.
So I’m certain you have questions. I’ll try to answer them the best I can. And then I’ll formally introduce coach and let you — let you have some time to get to know him. So with that, questions.
Q. I guess how did Travis come on to your radar, and then when you were talking to people about him, and said they kept coming back with that same message, can you sum up what that message was that would make him a good fit for your program?
GREG SCHIANO: Sure. He’s been in the hopper the whole time, and have, as I said, over 20 people.
I was super, super deliberate on this because I know how important it is. We have a really, really gifted group of young players here that need to be developed. One of the things that I kept hearing about Coach was, he is a true developer of men, right. He’s a leader, and whether it’s developing staff members — if you look at the staff people that he brought in to South Dakota, right, that worked underneath him when he was the coordinator and he was the head coach, and see where they have moved on from South Dakota — incredible track record. It’s not just developing the players; it’s developing the staff.
And any great head coach, any great coordinator, that’s a huge part of your job is to continually develop your staff because they are the ones that exponentially then can affect the players.
So that kept coming back, a true teacher of the game, a guy who earned everything that he’s — that he’s received in this business. There’s no shortcuts. He started and just worked his way up and was successful at every level. At some, some points, freakishly successful, like things that you get very excited about.
It’s hard. Playing defense, as you know, at the very beginning, it’s a losing proposition, right. They make a yard, everybody — but when you look at a track record over time, at all different stops, that certainly was something that impresses you.
But that’s really one of the things that gets you started in the search. It’s when you sit down and you really start talking about — and people think incorrectly, by the way, but a lot of people think that it’s schematics. Remember we talked in my office — it’s not. It’s about leadership.
Leadership to me is everything. You have 11 guys, you can deploy them several different ways. I’ve never been a big worrier about that. It’s about leadership, and can they lead the staff and can they lead the players, and that’s what we have found.
So that’s really what kept coming back to me is a consistent, firm, yet caring leader that develops men.
Q. Defense obviously has been your baby over the years. How closely does Travis’s philosophies align with yours, and along those lines, do you expect to be able to hand it off to him like you do with the offense to Kirk?
GREG SCHIANO: I expect to hand it off to Coach but like with Kirk, we meet on everything. Our staff is totally aligned. One of my big principles, those of you that know me, is vertical line. We talk all the time about everything. We meet and go over everything.
But make no mistake about it: Travis is the leader of the defense. And schematically, there are a lot of similarities, but that wasn’t what drove the process because there’s a lot of things that are different, as well.
You know, as late at 15 minutes ago, we were sitting down talking about tackling, how are we going to teach, how are we going to merge things together, and I am — I’ve always been — one of the things that I take pride in is being a lifelong learner. Just continue to learn and learn, and in the interview process, with a lot of great candidates, I learned a lot of football.
So, for me, it was an ongoing clinic, as well, how other people are doing things, different procedures they are using. Everything from defensive football to how they travel as a team and how they do all the things that they do.
It’s a great opportunity to grow. It takes a lot of time. This has been a really tough — from the end of the season until we agreed to — to coming together, it’s been hard. But going to be well worth it. The investment in that time I was willing to put into it, with everything else going on, because I know it’s that critical. We could have had a guy hired in two days (snapping fingers). That wouldn’t have been the best guy.
Doing the way we did it definitely produced the best candidate and the best coordinator for Rutgers.
Q. You mentioned “alignment.” Just how does Travis’s ability to develop and bring along players, how did that fit with what you want from a developmental program?
GREG SCHIANO: Yeah, you know that’s us, right. That’s who we are. I still believe, although we made great usage of the portal, I still believe wholeheartedly in developing your program through high school age kids. You bring them in. They came to Rutgers for a reason, and now you develop them.
And you develop them not only as football players — I know they are getting paid now, I get all that. But they are still 18- to 22-year-old kids, and it’s what my calling is to help them not only reach their goals athletically, but also get an education. Like I think sometimes it’s become such a big story about all the money and all that stuff. They are still here to get an education. Yeah, they are getting paid, but they are here to get an education, and to grow as young men.
That’s one thing in our conversations I took away from Coach Johansen is that’s important to him, just like it is Kirk, just like it is everybody in our staff.
Q. In the past, you hired some younger, not as experienced coaches. This go-around, you hired two FCS sitting coaches and an FCS sitting coordinator. Was getting FCS coaches a point this off-season?
GREG SCHIANO: I don’t think that’s what I went into it with. First it was finding the leader. Like again, you’ve heard me say it over and over: I believe leadership is everything because there’s several different ways to do any task. But if you have the right leader, then he can galvanize the people. He can get them to believe in it and make it their idea and then go do it and execute it, right. It started with him, and then from that point, we started talking about staff.
And we had — you know, I want to make sure I recognize one thing: We had good coaches. It just didn’t work, right. So a lot of the guys, I told them, I said, I don’t know what’s going to happen, Guys, so if you have an opportunity, let me know, and it was good. Everybody landed on their feet. And that’s — that’s a positive. Because they are all good people, and I cared about them. I care about them now, and I’ll help them any way I can.
But we needed to have a change. We did it. And I’m super excited about where we’re headed now.
Q. You guys invest a lot in your coaching staff, and I’m assuming Travis and his defensive staff will be no exception to that. Why is it important for you, when you’re allocating resources of this program, to invest so much in your coaching staff?
GREG SCHIANO: Well, I think there’s a lot of levels to that, right. The cost of doing business, you know, being a Big Ten football program, the coaches salary’s have really — they have climbed quite a bit.
But I do think, if you really believe leadership is everything, then you’ve got to go, you know, you get what you pay for. That’s important to me.
I have so much to do as a head coach, and I told you guys at the beginning, I said, look, if I could duplicate what we have on offense, on defense, I’ll be a happy man. I feel like we’ve done that.
And great people. Both leaders of the O and the D are great men and they really are very, very focused on how to do their job, and I love that.
All right. I’ve kind of done it, but I’ll do it a little more formally here. Very, very excited Travis and his family coming to Rutgers, and the coaches that he is very, very closely aligned with coming, as well. Some of them have been announced. Some of them will be announced in the upcoming days.
But I really like — I’ve had a chance to sit down with them now for a couple days, and I really am impressed with not only the football acumen but the type of men they are, and just being around a short time, they are going to fit in well. They have already met our staff that’s already in the building, and there’s been a great connection there.
So they are meeting with the kids, and the thing that I love that Travis said to me; the first thing we need to do is we’ve got to meet these players and connect with these players. And that, to me, is everything. You know, some coaches, the first thing they want to do is get on the whiteboard; well, this is our scheme. Well, you know what? Those are circles and X’s up on the board, but they are really human beings, and if you don’t connect with the human being, you’re not going to get the circle and X to do what you want it to do.
That, I was super impressed with. And I’ve watched kids going in and out of all the coaches offices today, just getting to know each other on a one-on-one personal basis, and that’s the kind of stuff that I love because it’s about connection, right. And once you connect and they know how much you care, then you can get them to do just about anything for you as a coach.
In our process, when we went through it, Travis and I, we talked about that over and over again, and I enjoyed, when he came on his interview, he got to walk through the weight room and watch our kids train. He sees the same things I do. Look at that, look at that, and the energy — we’re not — how do I say this without giving Steve a classic headline here, right?
We’re not broken. We just need a little adjustment, right, and this guy is going to come in and get the defense adjusted the way we need to.
But our kids, they are aligned. They are working their tails off, and now we’re going to get it straight on defense. You can tell, I haven’t been this excited in a while.
So I’m fired up, and I’m really fired up to introduce our defensive coordinator, Travis Johansen.
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