“Yeah, that was huge. Picked up that fourth down, kept the drive alive. Think all of our — they stopped us once on fourth down, but the other two ended up in touchdowns. Felt great about it. Mike (Barrett) and (Josh) Ross — they both knew as soon as we called it — actually might have called it off with the personnel that they had out there, but they said they weren’t gonna call it off. They had the mindset to get it. Glad they got it! They weren’t gonna be denied. That was big. Pivotal.”

“Yeah, the line really did a great job. Obviously, runs for 343 yards, that’s gonna be the case. But it was even more than that. Washington kept changing their defense from four-down to three-down, bear to strong safety sam blitz, corner blitz and double corner blitz. They were doing everything they could. But they were just having a hard time tackling the backs. Hassan, Blake and then the way our offensive line was, when they started bringing the edge pressure, there were some real creases in between the tackles. Our guys hit them. Blake hit the big long one. Both backs — Hassan was 150 and some change and Blake was 170s or 180, even. Very impressive. Very impressive.

“I think guys like those veteran players — Stueber, Hayes, Vastardis and then Keegan — they all played really well. And Zak Zinter, even with the club — couldn’t tell. Did a heckuva job.

“And the tight ends — can’t leave them out. There was so much adjusting going on because we were seeing so many different defenses throughout the course of the game. They were motioning. Things were moving fast and they were adjusting. I thought the tight ends played exceptionally well. I thought Erick All had some blocks that were great and Cade did a heckuva job managing everything. Did a great job pulling the one in the second half, late in the fourth quarter. All-in-all really strong, really strong, strong win. I could say that about the offense, the defense and the special teams.”

“Yeah, he was cramping. I guess if we’re gonna run the ball 52 (or more) times, there might be a cramp!

“Really, he’s the guy up there making the adjustments, getting the calls. A lot of thinking going on and he did a tremendous job of that.”

“It was really fun to have — even to have a seven-minute drive. I mean, no huddle offense — don’t have a lot of seven-minute drives. That warms the cockles of the heart when you’re able to do that, run the ball that way, not turn the ball over. And the run defense, too — I thought that was really, really good. They kept continually getting them behind the chains. A lot of third-and-10s, third-and-8s, third-and-12s — third-and-longs, et cetera. They converted a few, but for the most part, the odds are in your favor when you can turn in those kinds of situations.”

“I think he did good. That was a real strength for Washington. Their pass defense is outstanding. Their corners are tremendous. Winning the game going throw for throw with those guys we didn’t think was the best formula to win the football game. But picked up — made a big third-down conversion on a go-route to C.J. early in the game. Had the back shoulder — you saw how covered it was. But C.J. made a great adjustment on the ball, and that was a big conversion that led to points.”

“Maybe a little too early to say what the identity is. Identity repeatedly being — we’ll see. We’ll see what that looks like every single week. I thought it was strong, as I said before. And there were some things we could improve, which makes you feel good in an early-season game where you get the win and there’s things to improve on, too. Things to go to work on on Monday and things to get better at and things to have to get better at. Because you can. That’s a good feeling right now.”

“When you’re generating that kind of production on first down — the first down running game production was good. When we were second-and-6, that was rare. Most of the time, it was second-and-5, second-and-4. Just kept seeing it. They were having a hard time tackling those running backs — Hassan and Blake. They’re tough to tackle! We just wanted to keep going back to the well when that’s the case. Gotta make your opponent stop what you’re doing. Thought Josh did a good job of staying with that and even then attacking the C-gap really became — go at the C-gap. I mean, there were adjustments made. It wasn’t just we were running the same play. But as we adjusted, they adjusted. We were right there with them. And the offensive line did a great job of blocking the movement, blocking the adjustments. But Josh and Sherrone, both were really on it from the standpoint of hit ’em and hit ’em over there, come back, make them stop what you’re doing good then — just fastball, curve within the running game. It was very good, very productive. We had no turnovers. Good stuff.

“I want to talk about Jake Moody. I thought that was a tremendous kick. 52 yards, but it looked like that would be good from 60-plus. Thought he struck it well, struck it great. He struck it great. Great snap, great hold. Another — a lot more good production in the kickoff return game — really good. Brad Robbins punted the ball extremely well and effectively covered. We know Giles, he’s a darn good returner. We were able to cover kicks, cover punts, protected on the punts. Really another solid game by the special teams.”

“As I said, we were doing a really good job of stopping the run. Our communication really — we got hit on some passes in the game. Really weren’t covered the way we should. We can make an improvement on how we communicate in the back-end and linebackers getting the call. We’ll be working on that. That will be a good area for us to focus on and concentrate on.

“We had a lot of pass breakups. It’s not like our secondary wasn’t getting the PBUs, they were throwing quick game because Aidan — they couldn’t block Aidan. We’ve been watching Aidan since fall camp — we couldn’t block him either. And to watch him go through the chip with the back, the chip with the tight end — delay the tight end from getting out and, ‘OK, go block 97!’ And 87 for them is a really, really good player. But to see them go through that and — they were (good) with their quick game and shots. Max protect and throw quick game. We really shut them off in the shot department and our guys were running with them stride for stride and knocking the ball down. They hit a couple slants and they hit a couple open dig routes in the middle. A few of those, we weren’t in the right — we weren’t playing the call. Getting that communicated and getting that improved, I think there’s still improvement to be had there.

“But really pleased with our defense. And Mike — he did a great job calling the defense. From an offensive perspective, Washington ran everything! They ran everything known to man in the first three quarters. And for the most part — three-straight three-and-outs to start the game, and that was huge. And that got us off to — you talk about getting off to a fast start, I think that precipitated that — I think four three-and-outs over the course of the game. It was really solid and strong.”

“Just a bunch of guys that really like football. Just a tremendous amount of players that really like it. They love training, they like practice — or at least they like it a lot. I like football players that like football. These are the type of guys — you don’t have to talk them into it. I think that’s — that makes me happy. I’m happy being around players like that and coaches like that. Just the whole culture’s just like that, made up of guys like that.”

“Yeah, I thought good. We can — we didn’t target them too much. It was just — all kinda realized they’re having a hard time stopping this running game. We’re gonna keep doing it until they stop it. And they didn’t. So we kept feeding the running game.”

“Going into the game, we’re not gonna win by throwing the ball outside the numbers. Those corners are really good. We were gonna fare a lot better running the ball 52 times than throwing the ball 52 times. And our guys are good, they came up with the plays when they had to. And they didn’t stop the running game. We knew they had a good defense — we watched the Montana game. Their defense played extremely well. Told you we were gonna lean on Hassan and Blake — they’re that good, too. We’ve got good players in the passing game. We know our guys can catch the ball, run routes, we can throw it. But it was just so good in the running game, it felt good to take it away.”