Opening Statement
“First off I just want to say, what a great effort by <?xml:namespace prefix="u1"?><?xml:namespace prefix="st1" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"?>IowaState and their kids and their coaching staff. They played extremely hard and I tell you, both teams battled to the bitter end. They certainly deserve the credit for the type play that they exhibited today. I'm really proud of our football team. That was a total team effort on everyone's part on every play. I couldn't be more proud of our staff, our players and what they accomplished in a lot of adverse situations. When you talk about execution under pressure, we typified that today. There was a lot of adversity, but I really felt in the long run that our team perservered. There was excellent perserverance, excellent belief in what we're doing from an offensive,a defensive and special teams aspect. Everyone contributed to this one. It was a great team victory for us." <?xml:namespace prefix="o" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"?>
On Quarterback Zac Taylor
“I thought he played courageous. He took some hits in the pocket, scrambled when he had to make runs and got lit up. He physically got hit. He's a smart quarterback. It's amazing that you can make that many plays and do what we did with the attempts that we had in that game and not turn the ball over and that says a lot about his decision-making ability. His ability to have an awareness and an understanding of progression ... He took some vicious hits today. That's part of quarterbacking."
On Cory Ross Receiving
“We really practice a lot of those routes. We don't just pull them out of thin air. We practice those and we had the opportunity to call a lot of those plays today. The coverage allowed us to call it and take advantage of what they were playing. Cory is an outstanding receiver. He possesses that type of skill, not only as a running back and a ball carrier but a route runner. As you watch him run those routes that he ran, and when he get isolated against a linebacker, the moves that he can make against a linebacker are just as effective as what he can do with the ball in his hands in the running game. It's a real luxury and we're real lucky to have a back of his caliber that can exhibit those types of skills in the passing game."
On the IowaState defense
“They mixed a lot of coverages. They played three deep, they played quarters, they played man, they played fire zone, they played two deep. We saw the whole repertoire. Just like I stated to (the media) earlier in the week, I said that we're going to see the whole mix of coverages and that's what we saw today."
On the Nebraska offense
“I thought our players did an excellent job of executing the plan. I felt that after the first half we left some points on the field. We lost some opportunities there early in the first half. We had the opportunity to put more than three points on the board and that's frustrating. But we came in at the half and talked to the players and our players had tremendous energy at the half and tremendous conviction of what we needed to get accomplished coming out in the second half."
On the defense
"Our defense rallied when they had to. They made some great red-zone stops when we had to. They had some big plays. Corey McKeon's play, Jay Moore's play, the entire defense. I can't say enough for their efforts today and their ability to what they needed to do against a very good quarterback. You've got to credit Bret Meyer. You all watched him today, he's an outstanding player that can make plays. He makes plays when you've got him out of the pocket, flushed, wrapped up, going down. He made some huge plays. That's his ability and you've got to respect that and we certainly did."