(Opposing drives at the end of the first halves): It's just assignment football. I don't think it's necessarily any special scheme that they're doing. It's performing well under pressure. It is a little coincidental, but it isn't at the same time, because it is a pressure situation. We recognize that going into it. We've got to focus on our keys, focus on our assignments, go deal with that. But that's something we've known. That's something we had to focus on last year. I remember, Iowa State came down and scored on us first drive last year. It's those critical moments we need to be better in. Coming out of the game, coming out of the locker room, that first drive was important. That last drive of the first half, first drive of the second half, two-minute drill, obviously. We haven't been good in critical moments, and that's something that as we mature as a defense, if we want to go the places we want to go, we're going to have to mature and continue to improve on.
(What about OSU's offense gave you issues) I think the tempo was something, but that's not something we didn't expect. They kind of threw their fastballs our way and we didn't hit them. We pretty much had down to a tee exactly what they were going to run, we just weren't able to stop it. That comes with assignment football. We were simplified defensively, we just didn't stop it. That comes with fundamentals. Obviously I keep going back to the bye week, and that's something beautiful about a bye week is that you get to focus on the fundamentals and go back to what makes you a good player. The first four weeks of football season is camp, and that's all about fundamentals. Now we've been in, I don't know, four weeks of mostly scheme-oriented meetings and defensive talk and things like that. We're kind of going back into that camp mindset for this bye week, so that we can get back on top of our fundamentals. We're all about executing the scheme with a great fundamental intensity and play.
(OSU converting on third and fourth down) I'm not sure. I don't know what the down and distances were on the third downs you're talking about, because obviously it's harder to stop a third-and-short than it is a third-and-long. But kind of that basic defensive football, you want to win first downs so that they're in second-and-long, and not give them manageable third downs to get into their drop-back pass game and get into their screen and draw game. But just pure observation, I didn't feel like we won first down a whole lot today. The drives we were able to win first down, we felt really good about it. But obviously we've got to look forward and look at the tape.
(Stopping Sanders' rushing in second half, was that a halftime adjustment) No. We pretty much played the same calls. They pretty much did the same stuff too. It was just kind of a matter of going out and executing. Obviously disappointed that we didn't do that, because we were ready to win that big game. But we still have a lot of other big games, it's a good conference. We're excited about the opportunity moving forward, for sure.
Connor Galvin
(Trying to find themselves) We just need to play to our standard of football all the time. We started slow in the first half. Came out at half…we started really fast. We just need to start out fast through the whole game. We just need to find ourselves, first drive, second drive, third drive, fourth drive throughout the whole game.
(Closing to within 8 points) Obviously you can feel those times when they happen. The stadium erupts. We had multiple opportunities to extend a drive to score. Do this and do that. We just didn’t execute at those times, those critical moments. That’s on us. We’ll watch the film. We’ll address the problem and we’ll move on from it and fix it.
(Reese stopped at the OSU 7) That was one of those plays like I said where we didn’t execute at a crucial time. As an offense, obviously it sucks. It’s not ideal. That’s one of those things where you sit on the bench, take a deep breath, address what happened, talk it out to see what happened on the field. The coaches talk. We talk and move on from the play.
(Did you see why that play broke down) It’s hard to see on the field with the replay because it happened so fast. That’s like when our coaches talk to us. We tell the coaches what we saw. They tell us what they saw. Try to piece together what happen and fix those issues and then move on.
(Difference from slow start to fast start) We’re play fast. We’re playing physical on the sideline. I wouldn’t even say on the sideline. We just weren’t playing to our standard. After the first half, we went into the locker room. We talked about it. We addressed the issue. Came out in the second half and played to our standard of football.
(Critical moments) We definitely had points where we were low on that (energy level) throughout the game. At those times we had to take a deep breath and like ‘alright guys, let’s pick it back up.’ Let’s go. Let’s fix the issue on the field. Keep encouraging each other, offensive line, receivers, quarterback and all that stuff.
