DAN QUINN’S OPENING STATEMENT
“We said all week it was going to be a lien of scrimmage game and it certainly was. We expected a really tough game from Jacksonville and it also was. The message this week was ‘it was all about us’ and playing the style of football we wanted to. First, starting off with the ball then our effort and toughness and those finish examples. The finish examples were finishing runs, finishing blocks and not just necessarily a situation. That part was huge for us and I thought third down was a huge factor for us in today’s game. We had a chance to complete something offensively, especially down the stretch, and then stepped up on defense. That and I thought Kemal Ishmael had a huge play at the end of the half which swung some points going our way. We expected a tough game from these guys and it certainly was.”
On how proud he was of the defensive stand at the end: "I love those scenarios where we have an opportunity to make some plays so that is where competition is at its strongest. We knew it was going all four downs in there and we had some other guys step up and go in. JD (Justin Durant) had to come out for a while and I though (Nate) Stupar did a terrific job filling in for (Paul) Worrilow today."
On getting a good start: "It was something we talked about this week in terms of coming out with the right mindset of attack. That part is also from the players because they want that. You could feel it. You could feel it the first time we went back on the field on Wednesday all the way through the week in terms of the preparation."
On how good it felt to get the third down completion: "I think those are the ones you know you can build on to count on there. By doing right longer, those opportunities where we had some of those where we haven't been converting, so for us to know we are not wavering in how we do things it's a real systematice push to there tempo we want to play with. For us to execute in that scenario, I thought it was critical."
On the run-pass ratio:"It does help I think we ended up with the competitions and the run game over 50. Any time that happens, we control the clock. It was an important factor. We knew it was going to be eight-man fronts so we had to run the ball and it was going to be challenging."
On the relief of getting a win despte the mistakes: "It was awesome to get a win. Anytime you go through that struggle, you want to make sure, OK, are the lessons being learned or the things that we are doing right get rewarded in terms of the effort and the mindset."
On blowing the 14-point lead: "Not exactly how we wanted to set it off defensively to start the second half, but I just knew it was going to take the whole time in terms of the finish. Usually there is a time in a game when the finish is at hand. It wasn't going to be at the start of the third quarter. It was going to be sometime in the fourth quarter when the finish came at hand. Today it ended up being all the way to the end."
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