Recap | Box Score | AP Gallery | ND Gallery | Pep Rally Gallery

Zack Martin

Q. Did you think that Purdue’s defensive line was as good as they were today? Was the expectation for them to be as big of a challenge as they were today?
Yeah, absolutely. We watched tape on them. They had a lot of the same guys, pretty much every guy they had last year back. We knew they were going to be better than last year.

They gave us a tough game. Hats off to them. They gave us some challenges all day with different looks. They played very hard.

We definitely expected them to come out and play like that.

Q. Was there any reaction from the offense when Tommy came out for that last drive?
Yeah, I mean, we knew Tommy was ready when his number was called. Two minute drill, Tommy coming in doing exactly what we knew he was capable of, took command of the offensive line, ultimately led us down the field for that winning field goal.

Q. Did you hear the crowd booing Tommy?
I don’t agree with that at all. A guy like Tommy, it just fuels his fire. He’s been through a lot. I’m so proud of him and so happy for him that he was able to answer the bell today and lead us down the field.

Q. Was it obvious right from the outset that they were going to stack the line of scrimmage and make you play a different game from what you did last week?
Right. You know, we game planned against that. We knew they were going to load the box. If they were going to do that, we were going to put the ball in No. 5’s hand.

First snap they come out seven man front. Immediately we’re into that that kind of mindset. We prepared for that all week.

Q. Can you emphasize the importance of the third down conversions, keeping the offense out on the field.
As far as protection, our offensive line groups always talks about people are going to kind of judge you on situations, obvious pass, obvious front. Today we were able to, although we didn’t protect great all day, on third down we were able to bite down on our mouth guards and hold ’em.

Q. Last week the attention to detail, no penalties. What would you attribute the penalties to today?
I had a bad one early. I take responsibility for that. A couple of our guys had some bad ones. It’s lack of focus, getting too emotional at the beginning of the game, stuff like that.

Q. Anything you can point to?
It’s just the atmosphere here at Notre Dame, first home game. You’re looking to go out there and kind of make a statement. Emotions are flying. You just got to do your best to take control of those.

Q. How would you evaluate Everett’s poise, just how he held is together today?
I thought he played great. Like I said before, we game planned. If they were going to load the box, we were going to put the ball in his hand. I think he did a great job. He led our team all day.

When his number was called, he did a great job.

Q. Did Tommy say anything about the boos or anything like that? Was that talked about?
No, no. That doesn’t really get under Tommy’s skin. He’s been through some hard times. People have certain opinions of him. The great thing about him is he doesn’t let it bother him. He went out there and did his thing.

Q. Obviously a lot of injuries today. What do you do or say on the sideline as guys are dropping to make sure people are rallied up?
Try to get the guys who are going in ready. You know Coach Kelly’s motto is ‘next man in’. I don’t think there’s a better example of that than today’s game. A few years before this, the game wouldn’t have gone down like this, we wouldn’t have won. The resilience of those guys when their number was called, it was a full team effort.

Q. Everett moved around in the pocket, does that make things easier or more difficult for you?
We practice so much. He’s great on the run. We know that’s one of his strengths, he can do very well moving in the pocket. We adjusted to that. Like you saw today, he did a great job.

Q. Would you mind sharing what Tommy’s reaction was after the game?
I mean, he was excited obviously. He’s always ready when his number’s called. Like I said, everyone’s very happy. He’s been through a whole lot. Everyone is proud of him.

Q. Coach Kelly reiterated definitively that Everett is the starter. Is that an important statement for him to make so there’s no distractions going into next week?
Yeah, I mean, Everett didn’t get booted from the game. He played a great game. I think it was just situation, two minute drill. Tommy is more of a pocket passer. Kind of one of those things. Everyone has a hundred percent confidence in Everett, what he does on the field. We’re ready to go with him next week.

Q. Starting 2 0, just talk about how exciting that is after not doing it last year.
Great feeling. Giving us momentum going on. Tough win today, but we’ll take it. We’re on to Michigan State now.

Manti Te’o

Q. Manti, can you just talk a little bit about the defense, your resolve after you have all these guys getting injured. Lot of new faces. Talk about holding it together.
I mean, we understand that people go down. We work hard. We train hard to prepare ourselves for any situation that may appear in the game.

Losing Kap and Slaughter early in the game was a big loss for our team. But the guys who backed them up really came in and did a great job for us and helped us come out with a victory today.

Q. (No microphone.)
I mean, Tommy always has great confidence in himself. Something about our team is that we have confidence in each other. When he went in, I think he knew the rest of his brothers had confidence in what he could do.

It was no surprise to us that he could drive down the field, put us in a situation to win the game. Just goes to show, you know, the work that he put in, just his poise, just preparing himself in any way he could help us to continue.

Q. (No microphone.)
It just goes to show his confidence is getting there, his confidence grew. It shows a lot of maturity on his part to miss the field goal, then come back in and kick possibly the most important field goal of his career so far.

It shows his maturity. It shows his confidence. He’s going to continue to get better, especially with his performance today in kicking that game winning field goal. He’s going to get that much better and build upon his performance today.

Q. Manti, did you hear the crowd boo when Tommy came into the game? Were you surprised by that?
Yeah, I was a bit surprised. Yeah, I was a bit surprised. But I think Tommy knew it didn’t really matter because he knew what was most important is that the guys out there on the field and the guys on the sideline trusted him and had confidence in his ability to make plays.

I think he got a lot of respect today in the way that he was the general out there. He stayed focused at the task at hand. He did a really good job.

COACH Brian Kelly

Exciting ballgame. Obviously anytime you come back and show the resolve that our team did, you can imagine, it was a pretty excited locker room.

Our players, first of all, recognized the opponent that we had today was outstanding. My hat goes off to Purdue, the way they competed today. They got a darn good football team.

As it relates to our team, really thought our defense played well today. I think they limited Purdue to just over a hundred yards in the second half. Obviously the turnover in a short field changed the complexion a bit.

But we’re playing the kind of defense necessary to win each and every week.

Offensively, you know, we’re evolving. We knew we were going to be challenged to throw the football today, and we were. Again, I think Purdue did a great job of changing things up and giving us multiple looks.

The story for me as the head coach is our mantra: next man in. We had seven guys go down today. Our key players. We had two captains go down. A leader in the secondary in Jamoris Slaughter. Our guys kept fighting. The next guy came in and battled.

As you know, the story finishes with Tommy Rees coming in for Golson and leading us on a two minute drive to win the game.

I’m good to go. A good day for Notre Dame football.

Q. Was it a conscious decision to bring in Tommy? Was Golson hurt on his last play?
He had trouble gripping the ball. I think he could have probably still have gone. I just felt like two minute drive, the experience that he has, you know, Everett was having a hard time gripping the football. This is not going to be an excuse for Everett that he’s pulled out because of an injury. We also made the decision with the flow of the game that Tommy could come in there and manage our two minute and he did a great job. I will further say, there is no quarterback controversy. Everett Golson our starter. He will start against Michigan State. We know we have assets at that position with Andrew Hendrix and Tommy Rees.

Q. The decision to have Kyle kick, big field goal at the end.
Another injury. We had another injury at the kicking position. Kyle was not our starter this week. 48 hours ago we had an injury to Tausch. Kyle had to step in. That’s why I’m so proud of my guys. Next man in. Went in and got the job done.

Q. Almost seemed like more than seven people. Any of those injuries long term that you know of?
No. We don’t have anything that would require surgery. We don’t have anything that we think we have a guy with an ACL or MCL. Probably be things that we’ll have to manage. The expectation would be that most of these guys are going to clear in a very short period of time.

Q. You were hoping the crowd would get a little more into it today, make it tougher on opposing teams. We heard them boo your next man in at quarterback. Is that irritating for a head coach to hear that?
I’m so focused on what we’re doing that I don’t have time to deal with who’s yelling my name. They yell my name a lot, too. I don’t know if you knew that. It usually doesn’t end with a good adjective (smiling).

We’re so focused on the game, calling the game, our fans can do what they want to do. We have great fans. Our students were great the other night at the pep rally. I think we had 15,000. I love our guys, how they represent us.

Q. Can’t be easy for any quarterback to kind of just come in two minutes, game’s on your shoulders. What does it say about Tommy, his ability to jump in at the end?
That’s what I knew about him and his makeup, his moxy, his mental toughness. Does he have all of the elite skills? No. But he’s a gamer. He’ll do anything. Those guys in that locker room will go to the wall for him. They’ll do anything, because he’s a great teammate.

He’s working the whole game, talking to Everett about different looks, different coverages. He’s the consummate teammate. That’s why those guys in the locker room are pretty happy.

Q. Hoping you would talk a little bit about the defense. They seemed to come up with the big stops.
Yeah, again, I would say they ran a nice route late on fourth down. They double moved our Will. It was a well designed play. Other than that we had a couple missed tackles really that were the big plays. We had them corralled a couple times. We’ll clean that up.

Again, a lot of guys played. Got a lot of experience. They’ll continue to get better.

Q. Can you give us the specific injuries or areas of injuries for Kapron, Jamoris, Tyler.
Let’s see. Calf strain to Lewis Moore. We had shoulder to Slaughter. We had a slight concussion to Eifert. We had ankle sprain to Daniels. Ishaq had an elbow. We had a groin strain on Tausch. That’s all I can really remember. Sheldon, dehydration.

Q. Brian, after the performance last week of George Atkinson, he didn’t get a whole lot of touches today. Was that by design?
Let’s see. At halftime we had 16 rushes for 18 yards. We were 13 16 for 197. Purdue made up their mind that they were going to have a loaded box today. That was it. You’re not going to run the football. We’re going to make it so difficult.

So we had to manage it by throwing the football. Again, George, very gifted, but Theo is a little bit better at that receiver position, that slot position. He got a little bit more work than George today because of the way they decided to play the game.

Q. You also moved Dan Fox to outside linebacker. When was that decision made?
I won’t get into when it was made, other than that we wanted Ben to see the game first from the sideline. He had not seen the game in a manner against Navy because it was a different game plan. We wanted him to see the game from the sideline, get kind of focused on his responsibility, then move him into the game.

Q. You were just talking about Everett needing to throw it a lot. How do you feel he handled being in that situation, where the game was on his arm?
He’s got work to do. He did some good things, you know. He did some good things. He’s a young guy. Competitive kid. Love talking to him after the game. He’s competitive, wants to get better.

We’ve got great film. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do a great job with him this week because they had a new defensive coordinator. We had no real film last week on their performance. We were looking at Kansas State film from 2008. It wasn’t really the same.

He’ll get a better look. He’ll have a lot more familiarity with the kind of looks that he saw today as we move into Michigan State.

Q. You talked earlier in the week not really a separation between the number two. When did you decide that Tommy was your number two?
I didn’t decide. If we had to make a decision for three or four quarters, it might have been different. Tommy’s a guy, if you look at it in baseball terms, he’s a closer. He can close for you. Maybe your middle relief guy is Hendrix. But maybe next week it changes.

Q. You didn’t necessarily know until fourth quarter of this game?
No. We had a conversation about it, Chuck and I. We agreed that was the right move to make with Tommy coming in.

Q. They kind of pride themselves on their defensive backs. You had a lot of big plays on third downs throwing the football. What did you see that you thought you could take advantage of Johnson and Ricardo?
We had no choice. The ball had to be thrown because of the coverages. They played cover one, man free, cover one, man free. Once in a while they’d throw in a little bit of cover one and man free.

It became that kind of game. Those guys are an on island. If we put the ball in a good position, we were going to come up with some plays.

Q. Looked like Golson had some success moving around. Talk about how that helps your offense.
Again, he has this capability, he can throw the ball, keeps his eyes downfield. We have to work on some things. Probably shouldn’t have taken a sack, should have gotten rid of the football.

Again, get ready for it. We’re going to have some growing pains. But we won today. He was our starter. He’s 2 0. He’s 1 0 in terms of playing a Big Ten opponent that was pretty darn good. So that’s a good start for him.

Q. On a side note, a lot more penalties today.
Yeah, I was a little disappointed we had a couple sloppy errors. Our communication’s got to get better with our quarterback and the offensive line. We’ll make that a point of emphasis this week in making sure we’re communicating on the field with some of those cadences. We’ve got to do a better job there.

Q. (No microphone.)
You can ask them about it when they come in. They’re disciplined guys. They let their emotion get in the way of genuine enthusiasm today. Again, we were overcoming them, so that was good.

Q. How does Purdue having to play two, maybe three quarterbacks affect the way you prepare defensively for a game like this?
It doesn’t. I mean, our calls are pretty standard. We’re going to activate maybe some zone read calls and some things to keep an eye on the quarterback if they’re going to run the quarterback quite a bit.

Marve was as elusive as TerBush today keeping plays alive. It really didn’t change much of our game plan. We knew what we were going to get with all three.

Q. Brian, it looked like you in the second half were making more changes from the sidelines after the offense was at the line. Is that something you anticipated needing to do coming in?
It’s always in our system, but we did. We wanted to make sure that our quarterback got the right look in terms of protections and plays. You know, quite frankly, we didn’t feel like the substitution patterns for us, we weren’t able today in the way the game was officiated to gain any advantage. I guess the best way I would put it is they were holding the ball to let the defense get out there. I thought they held the ball for a long time. That’s something that I’ll have a discussion with the officials relative to how long they can hold it.

My point is, we couldn’t use all of our personnel groupings, so we kept the same groups out there and it was easier for us to make some calls from the sideline.

Q. I was wondering if Everett pleaded his case at all to get in in the fourth quarter? Do you worry about a guy’s confidence state?
I’m not. He wouldn’t have a chance to plead his case. We made the decision.

Here is what I want. I want a guy that’s upset he wasn’t in the game, but he’s not selfish. He understands that we support whoever goes in the game. Just like Tommy and Andrew supported Everett, it’s his turn now to support his teammates. That’s the way we roll. If you don’t support each other, then you won’t be part of what we do. That’s what we expect from him and that’s what we got.

Q. Looked like you had a conversation with Bennett at the end of the game. What did you tell him?
What would you tell him? What, are you nuts? Get down, the game’s over.

Here is a young guy who hasn’t been in that situation. He’s been coached to do it. He got away from himself a little bit. He’s got to get down. That’s silly. He knows that.

COACH DANNY HOPE

Q. Just assess your team’s play today.
I was really proud of our effort. We were only a few plays away from knocking off a really good football team at their home place. Certainly we’re disappointed with the loss. Disappointment is an emotion and we’ll get over that. We have nothing to be discouraged about. Discouragement is a state of mind.

Really encouraged about our effort, encouraged about the way we came to play. I thought that our defense rallied several times. Our offense was three and out more times than we’d like in the second half. I think our defense continued to show up and give us a chance to win.

Throughout the course of the game, when we had to, our offense got it done and got us in position to win the game. Disappointed with the loss. We didn’t do a very good job defending their roll out protection. I thought that serviced them well.

They have a young quarterback. He did a heck of a job. He’ll be a star in the future. Their roll out protected their ability to move the football some today.

We manufactured a stupid interception. That was careless. That impacted the ballgame some. They hit a big pass down the field on us. That impacted the ballgame some.

Even with all that, I thought our team rose to the occasion and fought really hard. I thought we showed great promise as a football team and I think we’re going to do very well this season.

Q. Were you expecting Notre Dame to come out and throw as much as they had, especially early in the game?
I talked to the defensive staff. We weren’t sure because they ran it an inordinate amount of times last week. I assumed they wouldn’t come out and just run the ball at us. I think we’re too big and strong to run the football at us.

They threw it more times consecutively in a row than I anticipated. But I thought they would come out and try to manufacture the passing game early to try to loosen us up some.

They had some good running plays, but I thought our defensive front shut down their run game for the most part today. I think out of necessity they had to try to throw it today.

Q. Danny, you didn’t have Ricardo on the field for the last drive. Was he injured or just on the sideline?
He was just on the sideline.

Q. Performance deal?
Coaching decision.

Q. Danny, the rotating quarterbacks worked reasonably well today. Do you want to get to a point in the season where you can commit to one guy or the other or are you satisfied with doing it this way?
We’re always going to play more than one quarterback. We’ve had this conversation many times. We don’t want the number one quarterback to go down and have to wave a white flag right in the middle of the game or right in the middle of the season.

I thought the classic example today was when Robert Marve went down and TerBush came back in the game and put us in position to potentially go into overtime.

We’re going to play the guys to help us win. If it’s one, that’s fine, if it’s two, that’s fine, if it’s three, that’s fine, if it’s four… We’ll do whatever it takes for us to win.

Q. Danny, you score right at the end of the first half. The third quarter seemed a little sluggish. You spent a lot of time trying to prepare for that in camp. What did you see out of your team that led to some of that in that third quarter?
I don’t know what led to it. I think Notre Dame played better in the third quarter than we did. Maybe we’re a fourth quarter team and we’ll hang our hat on that. I’m not going to assume that we’re jinxed or inadequate because we didn’t play good in the fourth quarter.

They’re a good football team with a lot of good players. We’re in their place. That’s a challenge regardless what quarter it is.

Q. Any update on Robert Marve?
Not yet.

Q. Danny, your field position was huge today to help you quite a bit. Webster’s punting was excellent. McCartney stepped up and made the field goal. Talk about the play of your special teams today, including Mostert’s return.
We’re geared and our commitment is to have special teams be our edge. We have a full time special teams coordinator, one of the top instructors of specialists in the nation. We invest a few more scholarships in specialists. So we should have an edge in regards to special teams. Raheem Mostert is a very special player. He led the nation in kickoff returns last year. He’s probably leading the conference right now. He was after the first week. He’s a fantastic player.

Cody Webster has a very, very strong leg. He led the nation in punting for seven or eight games last season. I’m not surprised to see him punt really well today. Sam has done very well throughout the course of camp. We didn’t ask him to kick any record field goals, but the ones we asked him to kick, he was exact on.

I didn’t see anything happen today in special teams that we haven’t been geared for or made a commitment to. We go into every ballgame with the commitment and belief that special teams is going to be our edge.

Q. I know you’re familiar with Tommy Rees. Can you talk about your impression of him today when he came in on the last drive?
Well, I thought that was a really good decision by their head coach. That was a pressure situation and certainly would have been a tough assignment for a rookie quarterback.

I was kind of excited about the idea of maybe having a rookie quarterback in there on the last drive. I thought that may have given us an opportunity to get after him some and get ourselves in position to win. I thought it was a good coaching decision.

Tommy Rees is a good player, heck of a quarterback, too. We didn’t play as well as we needed to there on the final drive. Hats off to Notre Dame. They played better than we did right there at the end of the ballgame.

Q. Danny, since Robert led you that touchdown drive right before half, did you consider with him to start the second half? Why the decision to go baseball to Caleb?
Caleb started the first half. We were going to play both of the quarterbacks a significant amount in the second half.

Again, coming out of camp, Caleb was number one and had really managed the offense very well. It was tied up, so we wanted to start off, you know, successful in the second half. It was a decision that we made. I don’t think that should be a surprise to anyone. I thought they both did some good things today. We have two really good senior veteran quarterbacks, and they both play well when called upon.

Q. Danny, Notre Dame’s last drive, there was a play that looked like the play clock might have been at zero. Did you notice that at all?
There was some talk on our sideline. I was watching the game. I saw the quarterback try to call a timeout. He didn’t know whether or not they were out of them or whether he was calling a fake timeout to try to get our defense off guard.

Our coaches were talking about that time had expired, but the officials said they disagreed.

Q. Coach, you called a timeout right before the extra point. Did you consider going for 2? What went into that timeout?
We wanted to make sure that we didn’t get the extra point blocked. We knew on that drive that we were in overtime mode, if you will. We were going to take four downs, go for a touchdown. We weren’t going to kick a field goal, try an on side kick, we weren’t going to do any of that. We were in overtime mode.

Last year we were in a similar situation against Ohio State. We lined up and blocked their extra point and it went into overtime. I wanted to make sure that everyone had a chance to catch their breath, remind them about having proper splits. I didn’t want Notre Dame to come off the edge of a short corner if the linemen didn’t get the proper splits. I wanted to remind them how important this extra point was and have the chance to make sure we had the best protection we could across the front because we were fixing to go into overtime.

Q. Danny, you touched briefly about the play of your front. I think they rushed 36 times for 52 yards, five sacks, Short had a couple. Those guys played a significant amount of downs. Really did a nice job. Talk about how well they played.
We have a very good defensive front. Fortunately we have enough guys that we can rotate and keep them fresh. It’s just part of the master plan. As you all well know, Giants have a very good defensive front. They rotate their defensive front. It was the difference in them winning a Super Bowl, being a great football team.

We have a chance to do the same with our defensive front. Keep guys fresh, rotate them throughout the course of the game. If we didn’t have as many, then we wouldn’t be as good. But we have half a dozen really good defensive linemen. That’s the strength of our football team. We knew that going into the season.

Q. Danny, the drops, especially the ones by the tight ends in the first half, then Ross had one as well. Is that something you’ve seen in practice? Reason why it happened today?
I haven’t seen a whole lot of drops in practice. Sometimes they catch them all in the games, sometimes they don’t. It’s not the first time a guy’s dropped a pass in a football game. We dropped a few more today than we would have liked to. We’re usually more sure handed than that. I think we have good receivers, they’re usually pretty sure handed. But we dropped a couple today, absolutely.

Q. Josh Johnson, nine tackles, got the fumble at the end. Tough assignment. Seemed like Eifert was down the middle of the field. Was Josh assigned to him? Did he have an up and down day?
I don’t know if he had an up or down day until we look at the film. Eifert is a fantastic player, one of the best players at his position on a national level. He’s a great player, their go to guy. I don’t know how many passes he caught today, but we knew he would catch some. Had a plan to try to take him out.

Josh defended some passes against him, as well. We certainly knew he was a great player and we knew he was going to make some plays today.

PURDUE PLAYER QUOTES

Robert Marve – 6th Yr Sr. – Quarterback

On the game in general… “We needed a couple more plays today. It was encouraging the way we played and hopefully we can pull that game out later on in the season.”

On his left knee injury… “I get an MRI tomorrow to find out. I just pray and hope for the best. I had fun playing today so hopefully it’ll be strong. “

On the third quarter… “I was just staying ready for the coaches. Our rotations are really different. I know you guys like to have clear-cut, but its kind of free styled a little bit. It went the way it went. I knew I was going to have another chance at it.”

On what today’s game taught him about his team… “Nothing I didn’t know already. I knew we were hard fighters. I knew it was going to be a close game coming in to it. You’ve got Notre Dame backed up with a minute 30 or two minutes, it’s a game you’ve got to come out with.”

Ryan Russell – So. – Defensive End

On the game in general… “It’s a heartbreaker, but there are definitely a lot of encouragements here as well. We’re going to watch the film tomorrow, get the good out of it, get the bad out of it, correct it, and be a better team next week.”

On what the game says about the team… “We’ve definitely improved as a road team all the way from last season. The defense in general, we’ve got to keep moving forward and keep making improvements. We have a bigger front. We’re well coached. I definitely owe all our props to our coaches in the back half covering and doing what they do. It’s a completely different defense as far as discipline goes. “

On how Tommy Rees being quarterback changed the game in the second half… “Coming into the game we thought we were going to see both quarterbacks anyways. We kind of knew that was going to come – especially in the two-minute drill like that.”

Ricardo Allen – Jr. – Cornerback

On his injury… “I tweaked my ankle a little bit. It’s nothing too much. I could’ve went back and played, but it was the coaches decision to take me out.”

On how he felt not being able to play during the remainder of the game… “It was heartbreaking because I felt like if I was out there I could’ve made some plays. We have more games. We have Big Ten games and even though this game is important, it’s not that important.”

On the message this game sends to The Big Ten… “We sent a big message – don’t come to sleep on us because at any moment in time we will come and make a play.”

Antavian Edison – Jr. – Wide Receiver

On the emotions felt when coming to play at ND… “It’s very tough but we knew we had a tough task ahead of us coming up here to Notre Dame. The crowd is into it and they’re a very good ball club. It’s very tough.”

On his 4th quarter touchdown… “My teammates held me up and those are my brothers. We got it done though, but we just didn’t get the victory.”

On ND scoring in the final drive… “Even after they got to the field goal we never gave up hope. I feel like me as well as my team, we felt like we still could get it done. We never give up until the last second ticks.”

On the first touchdown and whether it was an easy play… “It’s football. It’s never really easy, but I guess that one was a given.”

Kawann Short – Sr. – Defensive Tackle

On the ND offense… “We were prepared for both, the run and the pass. We knew the guys were pretty good at passing and the running game we knew we had to stop it. We felt as the defensive line, we needed to stop the run and make sure they pass the ball.”

On ND’s final drive… “We knew they were a pretty good team and we knew they weren’t going to lay up. As far as the defense goes, we knew we had to stay true. Communication was probably the mishap of it.”

On how ND’s late possible timeout in the 4th quarter affected the team… “We really just had to execute what we needed to and we shouldn’t let that affect us.”

On Tommy Reese playing in the final quarter… “We weren’t surprised, we thought they were going to use him earlier in the game to complete passes. He’s a better passer than Golson and we thought if the defensive line could stop the run he’d come in early.”

Caleb TerBush – Sr. – Quarterback

On Purdue’s late drive… “The offense threw the ball down the field pretty well the whole drive. We had a penalty that set us back a little bit but we got half of it on the 3rd down and the rest of it on the 4th down so Coach Nord called the right play and it worked for us.”

On Marve’s injury… “I was just letting him know that we’re in this together. That’s something we reiterated ever since camp started. We’re going to be there for one another. We’re doing this together. We’re all in it as one and to win games. Unfortunately we came in at the other end of the stick today, but I told him whatever he needs we’re there for him and we’re praying for him.”

On ND taking control in the 3rd quarter… “We just didn’t take advantage of some things that we could have. Plays didn’t work. They adjusted after half time and there were some things that we weren’t too sure about, but we got it fixed later in the game. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to pull it out.”

On the 2nd interception after halftime… “I want to say I really got rushed to try and throw it away. Honestly, it just kind of went low on me and they picked it off. The guy made a play and we had to move on from there.”