Opening Statement: “We are certainly pleased to come up here and get a win. It was nice to get a good start. Then we made a bad play, they made a good play and got a touchdown before the half, which scared me a bit. The defense did a nice job all night long against Rutgers. We also did a nice job in covering their kicks. That was nice. Two big factors were obviously, we paid a lot of attention to during the week, was their receiver (Leonte) Carroo and what they would do with him and (Janarion) Grant, their returner. I thought we did a good job in those two areas. We made some good plays offensively in the first half and then kind of just made enough plays in the second half to put it away.”

About the play of junior tight end Cethan Carter: “We’ve actually been practicing that play for a while. It’s been part of the two tight end package. After the call, the people in the box were saying it looked good pre-snap. That was good. The neat thing is we are having quite a few different people, maybe it’s been different times, different games, contribute. That’s good as we go forward, in the big picture going forward. I like that idea of contribution from all the different spots – wide receivers, tight ends, slot backs, running backs. The more we get of that going forward the better I think our picture will be offensively.”

On momentum heading into bye week: “It feels good and I know the players feel good about that. It certainly sets up this game with Iowa. It’s a big game for a lot of reasons, but for us they are really obviously. It’s a bowl opportunity. It’s playing another top ranked team. Just lots of stuff out there for us. Now with this win it sets the table for that.”

On the defense: “I think the coaches did a real nice job of a game play on what Rutgers does, what they’ve been successful at. It’s a good play action team. We isolated Carroo made big plays to him. With how we set it up, we were able to get good pressure. Our guys did a decent job covering Carroo. That was good. The other guys they had really didn’t hurt us. I think it was a good plan. We stayed pretty consistent with playing good defense all night right to the end.”

On the last two weeks: “The credit goes to this group because they’ve continued to stick with it. It’s that story, I’ve been talking about for a long time that was sounding like a broken record, but I really believe it’s true. I think this team just continued to work. We broke through. We played a lot of good football, no doubt about it, but we haven’t played well at certain times to win games. We lost all those games literally at the end on the last play. We knew we were doing some good stuff and as long as the players kept working we had a chance to get to this day where we won a couple of game and give ourselves a fighting chance to be another top 10 team and then get into a bowl game. I’m proud of them. I give them credit. The only reason we’ve been able to do this is because they kept working. That’s really great.”

More on the defense: “I think the pressure was really good. They had a lot of lost yardage on plays. We did a good job, most all the time, against the run, which always help. The pressure and the passing game were consistent. I don’t think we gave up, maybe, a couple of plays over 20 yards. You usually win that happens. That’s been our biggest nemesis, giving up big plays in the passing game. That’s what frankly worried me most about this team was hard play action, isolating the defenders, they make the plays. We did a nice job. ”

On the eight-play, 75-yard driving with the score 21-14: “Major, major, major statement right there. Big time. That game had the appearance of tightening down, tying it up and then seeing who would win it at the end with them having the momentum is what it looked like what was going to happen to me. That drive was a really good statement by this team.”

On Drew Brown’s (PK/KO) progression this year and getting better as season went on: “I think Drew Brown is a mentally stable kid. He’s strong and nothing really rattles him. If he does miss, he comes right back with a make again.”

On preparing for Rutgers returner Janarion Grant: “If you flip on the film, it’s right there. You see three touchdown returns on kickoffs and you see a punt return for a touchdown right there. They can say all they want, but as players we have to recognize it too.”

On what the win does for the team: “We’re pumped and this is two in a row for us. We have Iowa coming into town. We have a little momentum going on and we’re a hot team going in.”

On getting to the Rutgers QB (Chris Laviano): “It’s all about the execution and what we have been taught to do instead of doing our own stuff. He wasn’t scared and kept his composure. As you can tell, late in the game he was still scrambling around. He’s a strong kid and did what he was supposed to. Fortunately we were able to get back there and get him six times.”

On the big stop before the first half: “It was definitely a momentum changer because if they were able to score it maybe would have changed their mind set. But it was great for the defense to be able to get a stop. It shows what we can do.

On the team’s improvement: “Everyone kind of looked each other in the eye and we decided we were going to buy in and things are going to start cooking.”

On the back to back wins: “Now we’re on track and where we should have been. We got two tough wins the past two weeks and now we get a bye week to regroup and try and get another.”

On the defense playing well: “I think the defense played pretty well. It was time we got out there and made plays.”

On the pass rush mentality: “After one guy gets a sack, then we all want one. Guys all automatically want to get one.”

On giving up 14 points: “There’s no excuse, we can’t give up 14 points.”

On preparing for Iowa: “It sets the tone for the season and how we want to end it. We want to go out with a bang this year. It’s huge for this program.”

On tight end Cethan Carter’s game: “He had a great game. I saw a lot out of him. We expected a big game out of the tight ends. He did a great job blocking and making plays for other guys.”

On getting ahead 21-0 to start: “It was important getting the ball and scoring, giving the defense confidence in us to put points up. It was a confidence boost for our team.”

On throwing the interceptions: “Just a lot of pressure and bad decisions. I stepped up in the pocket a lot. It bit me in the foot a little bit. I need to put my teammates in the right situations.”

On getting the back to back wins: “Knowing that it may be coming to an end here shortly, we need to play for each other and have fun and preparing the right way. We want to win out. We had some tough ball games. We need that boost.”

On how rewarding is it to be peaking at the right time: “It’s important. Each and every week is important for us. We have a big game coming up. We just want to enjoy the season while it lasts. Whenever we find what we’re doing at the end of the season then we will find out.”

On concerns at the 21-14 score: “We just needed to fix our problems. Our whole halftime was correcting what we did wrong in the first half.”