On emotions going into Friday
“You try to treat it like any other game. You try to prepare the same way we’ve been preparing the whole season. I think at this point if you try to do more then you probably weren’t doing enough to begin with, just try to keep doing our process and hopefully that shows on Friday.

On being a leader
“It means a lot. My relationship with Coach Rhule has grown quite a bit since he first got here. I don’t know if he mentioned it, but he asked me to speak to the team yesterday. That was a big moment. There were times early in my career here where I was literally sitting on the floor in the back of the team meeting room because I didn’t have a seat, and now I’m getting asked to speak at the front. It’s pretty cool to be recognized in that way.”

On his message to the team
“I just broke down how the game is going to go. You know what kind of game you’re getting into when you’re playing Iowa. I steered kind of away from talking about the rivalry and more just what we have to do, and what type of game it’s going to be.”