Rutgers Head Coach Chris Ash
Chris Ash: Go ahead and start by giving my hats off to Iowa and Coach Kirk Ferentz and his staff and his team. They did a tremendous job to stay in that football game and win it. That was a very good football team that we played today. Hats off to our players for the effort they gave today and the preparation they put in all week to come and compete and a chance to win a game like that.

The players played extremely hard, just didn't make the plays when we need to. There were some there that we just didn't make in all three phases of the football game. Not happy about the winners. Nothing good about a loss. We are not looking for moral victories. We felt good about our preparation and our chance to win the game and we just didn't make the plays we needed to beat a good opponent like Iowa.

I want to thank the fans for showing up, created some energy, especially there in the fourth quarter when we needed it. Can't thank them enough for showing up and giving us their support and helping us stay in the football game and giving us a chance there at the end.

Q. In the goal line series and a couple of other times in the red zone do you feel like you left a lot of points on the board?
Chris Ash: I don't know if we left a lot of the points. They made some plays. I felt like there were plays there that we had that we didn't finish. At the end of the first half we had it down in the red zone deep and fourth down we go for it and run an option play and it was there, just didn't execute it the right way.

But those things happen in big games. They have something to do with it, too, best laid plans don't always work when the opponent has something to say about it and that was one of those scenarios.

Q. Do you think Chris Laviano should have pitched the ball there?
Chris Ash: The guy was doing a cat and mouse with him. He wasn't sure if the other guy was playing a quarterback or playing a pitch. At the end of the day, the guy fell in on the quarterback and made the tackle. But the guy was in no-man's land and wasn't sure what he was trying to play it.

Q. Any information on injuries?
Chris Ash: I don't at this moment.

Q. Are you concerned with the injuries?
Chris Ash: No comment until I get a chance to speak with the trainers and doctors to find out.

Q. Chris, what happened in the time-out situation that left you without a time-out with twelve minutes left in the game?
Chris Ash: Number of things. We had a young man run on the field in defense with a substitution deal. We had too many guys of the field so we had to call a time-out. Two things on offense. Formations were set wrong, and weren't going to run the right play with the formations set wrong. So we had to use our time outs.

Q. How crucial was that particularly on fourth down play? There seemed to be a little bit of confusion?
Chris Ash: Yeah, we weren't set right. But those are critical mistakes that can't happen in big games like this, but I would have liked to have timeouts in the end, but we needed to use them in those situations because we couldn't take penalties in those opportunities or have plays run out of the wrong formation, so we need to do use them. We have to get that stuff cleaned up. That can't happen.

Q. Are you encouraged by the defense's play?
Chris Ash: I'm encouraged by the whole football team's play. Encouraged by how we played defensively. That was a good football team. Still gave up too many yards rushing, disappointed about that. We defended the pass fairly well. Got after the quarterback. Got some hits and sacks on the quarterback, but I'm encouraged by the whole football team, not any one aspect. Do we have to clean things up? Absolutely. Do we have to make the plays that are out there? Absolutely. But, again, that's a good football team. We showed up today to play and that's very encouraging. We made a lot of plays and we just have to get a few plays cleaned up and hopefully when we do that we will come out on the other end victorious.

Q. Can you share your message after the game?
Chris Ash: I'm proud of what they've done. We played a very good football team in week one in Washington and we did not play very well. It's week four. We played another very good football team that was considered to be a potential Big Ten title time, and a potential, you know, dark horse for the playoffs, a team that won 12 games last year and you can -- I feel the improvement from week 1 to week 4 is there and we just got to keep that going.

Q. From your vantage point, what did you see on the Patton fumble? He's nowhere near the first down marker and he ends up losing the ball?
Chris Ash: I wasn't sure he had complete possession of it when the guy knocked it out, but he's got to hold on to the ball. I'm not going to tell a guy you can't fight for more yards. That's not what you do. They thought he caught the ball. The guy made a nice play, knocked the ball out, and he's got to hold on to the ball. It is what it is.

Q. What are your thoughts on the quarterback play?
Chris Ash: I thought Chris did a nice job today, you look at his stats -- one play I did not like was the sack he took early in the opening drive that put us in bad field position where we ended up having to punt. We had a really nice opening drive. Got on the field with a penalty and got a sack and took us out of potential field goal range too. That's something we have constantly been working on with Chris, and just like the whole football team, you look where Chris was at in week 1 and where he is at today. He's improved a lot in my opinion.

Q. Chris, the early decision not to attempt a field goal, what was your thinking?
Chris Ash: It's fourth and short. It's going to be a tight game when you play a team like this, and we wanted to go for it and we wanted to play aggressive and we knew we had to do that. We went for it on fourth down four times in that game. That's the style of play I want. I believe in our offensive line and our running game and our ability to get those fourth and short situations and don't second guess that one bit.

Q. If you don't turn it over there, obviously, I know it's if's and it's hypothetical, but without that sequence turning it back to them, did you feel like you were going to have a chance to win the game?
Chris Ash: I felt like all week we had a chance to win the game, whether it's Monday or at that point in the game. Unfortunately, we turned the ball over and, you know, the next play or two they went down the field and scored a touchdown. It's disappointing, but I felt like we had a chance to win the game all the way from opening kickoff all the way to the end until they got the first down and we had no timeouts to stop 'em.

Q. What most do you think will stick with you as you go through the evening, lost opportunity? The good stuff?
Chris Ash: I'm proud of our football team. I'm disappointed in the loss. We're going to identify what we can do better. We're going to work on it and move on to the next one. We've got a tough opponent next week and would I have got to identify what happened in certain situations in this game and we have to coach 'em, execute better and move on.

Q. Is Tylin ready to throw a pass in the game? Seems like he comes in and --
Chris Ash: He can run and pass, but right now we're doing what we feel he is most comfortable with.

Q. Any thoughts turning to Ohio State?
Chris Ash: No thoughts.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks, guys.

Chris Ash: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports



Rutgers Defensive Coordinator Jay Niemann
On the play of the defense: "We did a better job of playing our base defense. We were in a lot of man coverage today. We needed to tighten things up on the play action and get better. We were 8-of-11 on stops on third down, which has been a really critical area for us. Three, four weeks we've had a real high grade there. Those would be the things I would point to first."

On what happened on the last few series of the game: "I didn't have a great view from where I was standing, but from what I understand, we had a guy get misplaced in the gap. They got us out of position and they got enough yards out of it to move the chains."

On the play of the defensive line reserves: "They got a lot of time. That was the plan. To keep the game close we wanted to throw as many fresh bodies as we could. Fortunately the margin was tight enough where we were able to keep that entire rotation going.

On stopping the run: "The yardage totals, I'm not excited to give up 193 yards rushing. That's an unacceptable number. That doesn't mean it was poor all the time. But there were a couple runs that broke out on us that you couldn't afford. I think generally it was fairly consistent but not consistent enough.

On Iowa's first down touchdown pass: "It was a double move. The tight end came out and they had screens set up off of it. We got our eyes in the wrong spot for a split second, and in that amount of time they moved from the initial move and made it happen."



Rutgers Offensive Coordinator Drew Mehringer
Opening Statement: "Obviously, offensively, not the production from a standpoint that we were looking for. We did some things out in the open field that I thought were good. But the lack of execution in short yardage and redzone and an untimely turnover, not that any turnover is not untimely, but where and when it happened put our defense in a very tight spot there.

"We as coaches have to do a better job in those situations of getting our guys in the right frame of mind or finding out ways of getting those guys into position to execute and convert in those situations. We have to continue to throw the ball better. It was better today but not anywhere near where it needs to be."

On the fourth-down play call at the end of the first half: "They were playing on the internal gaps, so we tried and get on the edge with Tylin, and bless his heart, he just doesn't have enough ass behind him to punch it in. So we came back and called a triple option play. The pitch was there. Laviano said it was great, so we didn't want to put the ball in jeopardy. He decided to punch it in himself and I thought the play was there from the box. But I can't see from where the quarterback sees. I thought we had a chance to put that one in, but I thought we still did the right thing in going for it at that point. It felt like it could have went in for us, but it just didn't happen."

On how losing Janarion Grant changes the game plan: "Obviously you're going to change it a little bit because of what a dynamic playmaker that kid has been for us. We slid Jawan Harris into that spot and he's a capable, young kid. You have to tailor what you do a little more. That's going to fall on the outside receivers and the quarterback to pick up the slack. There's no guy who's going to break three tackles and go 76 yards."

On the fourth down play call at the end of the game: "We got in there and the running back was aligned on the wrong side. We were trying to get him on the right side and he just got confused on the play, so we had to burn a timeout. It's us as coaches to eliminate those kinds of mistakes and get him ready to go play."

Rutgers Running Back Robert Martin
On the team's play: "I thought we played really well. Iowa is a good, solid team. We shot ourselves in the foot by not capitalizing and scoring. We just have to come to work ready for tomorrow."

On not converting on fourth down: "It's very frustrating. Just knowing that we want to build our team from the line of scrimmage on both offense and defense, that's just something we need to keep working on in practice. We know our strength and we're going to be a really physical team down the stretch."

On what he believes is the key to a good running game: "We have a really good offensive line and a real good offensive line coach. We practice really hard. We just work, listen to coach and hit the holes because our offensive line is busting their butts up front. We just have to keep on running and making plays."

Rutgers Wide Receiver Andre Patton
On what happened on his touchdown reception: "I just saw inside leverage. I had to win outside and hold my line. I have to give credit to Chris because he put the ball on my outside back shoulder and I just went and made a play. That play doesn't happen if the line is not blocking and Chris doesn't make that throw."

On if the game was a missed opportunity: "It stinks, because at that point [on the last run], you knew the game was over. But from what I saw, we went out there and played our asses off. We went out and fought and did what we were supposed to do, unfortunately we didn't come out with the win.

"I felt like we did execute and did a lot. We just didn't finish. There were definitely some points left out on the field."

Rutgers Defensive Back Kiy Hester
On how he felt the defense played: "I feel like everyone was flying around on the ball, everyone was doing their assignment and executing the game play very well."

On his personal play: "I feel like I did my job and my assignments that the coaches stressed all week. The big play [in the first half] was on me. I saw Damon Hayes flash so I thought it was going to be a screen and I bit, but they threw it over the top and I take full blame for that."

On the last few runs for Iowa: "We just have to secure the edge. I was the pull safety, so at the end of the day, I can't get bottled up. I stuck my nose into the middle of the play and got bottled up. I just need to stay back and secure the tackle."

On if the defense made a statement against Iowa: "We want to come out there and compete every day. I don't think we were looking to make a statement, we just want to go out and execute the game plan. When we do that and run to the ball and tackle well, we can play with anyone."

Rutgers Linebacker Trevor Morris
On how the defense played: "I think the defense played alright, we just need to do better and keep grinding. At the end of the day, the score didn't reflect the effort, but we need to turn around and keep kicking up."

On what happened at the end of the game: "They have a good offense, we just didn't execute on those specific plays. We just need to fix that and get ready for next week."

Iowa Head Coach Kirk Ferentz
Opening Statement: First, we're just thrilled to get the victory today. We're just happy for our football team's win on the road. It's our third win of the season, first road win and first Big Ten Conference game, that's certainly encouraging. From a positive standpoint, I thought the best thing our football team did today was the fight they showed at the end of both halves - first half, second half. That was really kind of the highlight right now. We are encouraged by that. Certainly there are things we need to improve upon right now. That's what we've been committed to since day one, going back to January. We certainly have work to do on that right now. As we head into next week, we'll go over film and the idea of being able to pull off the good things which we saw, which were plenty, and see what we can do to improve. That's our goal as move ahead.

Last thing, I'll just say, which I have been staying away from, and I wouldn't be saying if we had not won the game today, but I'd like to address the rule changes they've made with cut blocking. One thing I've done for a long time is coach the offensive line and they've altered the rules and I'm a little befuddle on why. I never saw any data that showed there was an issue there. There didn't seem to be last year. They changed the rules, and I'm talking about nationally. My concern for this is four weeks, there's been four different interpretations on a rule. It impacts a game. It potentially could. It certainly did on the first play in the second half. My concern is that we have a bunch of officials, I'm sure it's this way for every conference, I can only speak to the Big Ten. We've got a bunch of guys committed to working the game, working it hard, working it well, just like this crew today and we've created a set of rules that's hard to understand. I can tell you I don't understand them. So, that's my commentary for today. I'll move on. That's not the story of this game. Let's move back to the game and the good victory for our team. I'm really proud of them.

On what the officials said of Ike Boettger's block: "They said it was an illegal block and it sure looked good on the screen. Again, my issue is not the officials officiating the game, it's what we've created here structurally. We all have bosses and if they give you rules that are cloudy and not clear, it's hard to execute your job well. That's my concern right now.

On the goal line stand: "It wasn't pretty today, but that was an excellent effort by our guys, digging in there and getting the ball back. They went for it. We got the ball back, that was huge. And then for the offense to respond also. It was good team football. We haven't played enough of that, good team complimentary type football. To take the ball and drive it down there and score, that's great. Same thing in the second half, create the turnover in their end and capitalize on that. That was big. Those are the things we have to build off. When we do those kinds of things, we are capable of being a good football team.

On guys playing back in their home state of New Jersey: "It's always special for guys. In the old days - the "80's" - we had a lot of guys from New Jersey, New York area. It's special for the players. We don't make too much of a big deal of it other than worry about guys being too jeeped up or trying to do too much because they are in front of their hometown, family, friends.

More on the goal line stand by Josey Jewell: "All those clichés are true for a reason. It's unreasonable to think we're going to have a good football team if our best guys don't play their best and it all starts there. The younger guys that are a little inexperienced guys who have that room for growth, they need to be moving forward every week. It's not going to happen overnight, but we have to move it as fast as we can. That's the challenge for us. A lot of years that's the case.

After the goal line stance: "It depends on how the first couple of plays go. If you end up inside your five, you aren't going to do too much. We can a little movement, a little momentum, you give yourself a chance to open it up and try and score. We like to do that at the end of every half, or at least every first half. Sometimes it doesn't pan that way.

On being frustrated with the offense: "I'm not saying this to discredit opponents at all, but when you are penalized - it's kind of like sacks. Sacks aren't just the line, there might be a couple of things going on. One of those holding penalties from where I stood was the back not standing with the play, kinda bounced it out and left the lineman in a bad spot. It's a team thing. Everybody has to understand why certain things are important and why you have to stay with your keys or your roles."

On time playing a factor in the game: "That's what makes football interesting. A lot of things happen, ups and downs, twists and turns during the course of a game. Anytime that ball is inside the 10, the 20, it really gets interesting. End of the half situations have the potential for that. Coming up with the stop, I really want to complement our team. They did a great job and to take it and turn it into something too. We've done a fairly good job for the most part the last four games. We've had a lot of good responses out there. That's encouraging. There are a lot of good things we are seeing out there we need to build on right now."

Iowa Linebacker Josey Jewell
On the job that the defense is doing: "We played, what I believe, was good defense. I think our linebackers made some big improvements. They read blocks and communicated well with our defensive line."

On the stop at the goal line: "To impact the game that kind of way was awesome. That stop and the strip that (Brandon) Snyder made were big plays. Hopefully we come out next week and play even better defense."

On whether they do anything different when they're backed up so far: "Of course it's different. It's either you get them now or they're going in. You don't want them to get anything there so you want to be aggressive [in that situation] and keep them from going in."

If he expected the option at the goal line: "They went to the weak side. I wasn't expecting that. You just have to react to the plays. You're not going to see all the plays you see in practice but you have to be ready for anything."

On the last four plays on defense: "Everybody on the defense executed right. They did their job, filled the gaps like we needed. (Chris Laviano) came to my side a couple of times and I was able to get some shots on him. The d-line did a great job taking out the guys up front and let the linebackers be free."

Iowa Defensive Back Desmond King
On the offense struggles on recent weeks: "Once you feel like they can't get things done, the defensive unit has to pick things up and bring some momentum. We felt like we had to continue to play well to spark the offense and get them rolling."

If he feels like they can be better: "We know the kind of potential that we have as a team. We know we're a better team than what we are right now. For the past two weeks we haven't played like we want to play. But we're looking forward to going back and correcting the mistakes that we made in this game and move on to the next week."

On the battle for field position: "In the first half for sure was a battle for field position. As a defense we just wanted to get the offense into good field position. We gave up a couple of plays that got them down close to the endzone. We did what we could and didn't give up that many points. So that worked in our favor. The offense did what they had to do and we came out with the win."

On how proud he is of the defense: "I was very proud of how we fought out there. That was the main thing we kept fighting until the end of the game. That's what you have to do as a defense to win games, win championships. You've got to step up to the plate."

On the big plays happening at the end of each half and if it felt that way to him: "For sure it did. We came here for one reason and one reason only and that was to win the game and fight for all 60 minutes. As a team I felt like we did that today."

What was the biggest improvement from last week to this week: "We didn't give up as many yards but we gave up some big plays. I'd say our biggest improvement was finishing the game. That's what I like about our defense; we like to fight and we like battling the competition. "

On Janarion Grants' 76-yard play: "I saw him get the ball and I just tried to leverage him up and keep him inside and boxed in. He made one cut on me and went to the outside. I was trying to strip the ball. I just got back up after him and tried to make a better play and stop them from getting any points on that drive. He's one of their big playmakers, so for him to leave the game worked out in our favor."

On Akrum Wadley's game-winning play in front of family and friends: "It's always good to see someone else succeed. I know he was excited and we didn't want to mess that up for him. So I'm glad we came out here and got a win and that he was able to score the winning touchdown for his hometown."

Iowa Defensive Back Brandon Snyder:
On the performance of the defense: "We gave up some big plays and ended up with our backs against the wall. The good thing is that we didn't give up any points. We made that goal line stand and that fourth down stand. We just had our best players make some big plays. Josey (Jewell) just kept finding the ball. Desmond (King) made some big plays too. That's what we needed, to step up and make plays and that's what we did."

On the goal line stand right before the half: "We just knew that we needed to keep them out of the endzone at all costs and needed to make several plays. On fourth down it was just one play. Us versus them. We had guys that continued to find the ball and that's what it's all about."

On the turnover towards the end of the game: "We needed a spark. It just felt like all day we were just average and we just needed something to happen - whether it was a pick or a fumble. We went into that drive thinking that we need a takeaway and we ended up getting it."

Iowa Quarterback CJ Beathard
On the sacks and o-line: "I thought I could have gotten the ball off a little quicker. There were a couple of mistakes that were on me. A lot of those were just them getting good coverage down field and pressuring me."

On the defense: "They have that 'bend, don't break' mentality going for them. Rutgers did a nice job moving the ball downfield but when it mattered our guys made some big plays and kept us in the game."

On Josey Jewell: "Yeah that guy is of a different breed. He's a guy that you love playing with and don't like play against him. He makes us better."

Iowa Running Back Akrum Wadley
On the kids from his high school visiting: "I know every last one of them. They're like my little brothers. They're very talented and some of them will be better than me in the future. I grinded with a lot of them and it's a great feeling to see them."

On almost running out of bounds on game-winning play: "I knew I was scoring, I wasn't going to (run out of bounds). It was a relief to finally get a big play. I kept telling LeShun Daniels that we need to be patient. We're both capable of making a big play. LeShun made some big runs. We both made big plays and it's all about patience."

On the offense and the struggle: "We just have to work on the little things and get the ball rolling. We have to cut down on the mistakes and come back out next week."