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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 21, 2017

Chris Ash

Piscataway, New Jersey

Rutgers - 14, Purdue - 12

CHRIS ASH: Obviously this is a first, being in here, back-to-back victories, so it's a good feeling. Really excited about our players. Again, we didn't play a great game, but we made the plays we needed to on defense and special teams to win the game, and it's okay to win games like that. But it wasn't pretty.

Really the difference in the game, two takeaways on defense. We didn't turn the ball over at all on offense. That was huge. Holding them to 3 of 15 on 3rd down was huge, and then the 4th down stops that we were able to get in that game was huge.

Punting the way we did to flip the field position was outstanding. Not only the snaps, the punter, but the coverage, also, was great for most of the day out there, and it was just a big, big part of the victory, and couldn't be happier for Ryan Anderson and that punt team and the way they're playing right now.

Really excited about our team. We challenged them several weeks ago after the Ohio State game to bounce back and show tremendous grit and resolve and brotherhood, and they've done that, and it's on to the next one, and we'll celebrate this one for 24 hours, and we'll come back tomorrow and clean up the things that we didn't do very well and keep getting better and move on to the next challenge.

Q. When you think about where you guys were eight days ago with the Big Ten losing streak, and now to have two back-to-back Big Ten wins for the first time ever since Rutgers joining this conference, what can you say about the turning point in the last eight days?
CHRIS ASH: There is no turning point. You don't win those games in the last eight days, you just don't. You win games in the off-season, back of the off-season, spring ball, summer conditioning, training camp. That's when you win these games. You just don't want to lose your team during tough times and adversity, and that's really, I guess, a testament to our players is we have been through some tough times. We didn't start off great. We were 1 and 4, some close games, some tough losses, and we stayed together, and we kept battling and kept fighting and kept getting better.

We'll celebrate this one and we'll move on to the next one, but there's no defining moment in the last eight days that says you did this to win these two games. That just doesn't happen.

Q. Is there an identity forming with this group now with these two wins?
CHRIS ASH: We just got two wins, man. I just walked off the field. I don't know. The identity is toughness and brotherhood. If you want to talk about identity, just mentally and physically tough, we laid it on the line. They did it for each other, and that would be our identity, and I'm okay with that.

Q. On that last drive, what do you tell the defense --
CHRIS ASH: Don't let them score. That's it. Don't let them score.

Q. What's going through your mind?
CHRIS ASH: Don't let them score. Don't overcomplicate it. There was not a lot of words, other than just go fight, guys, and don't let them score. Don't let them get any points; they don't get any points, we win the game, and that's exactly what they did. There were some plays in that drive that we missed opportunities to get some sacks that might have ended it earlier. We didn't get them. Quarterback did a great job avoiding some pressure, getting out of some tough situations and scrambled. Got some huge chunks of yards on them that were a little concerning, obviously, but at the end on the two-point play, man, our guys sucked it up and made the plays we needed to.

Q. If someone looked at these numbers and they said --
CHRIS ASH: I don't look at them right now. I'm not looking at them. You can look at them, you can make all the assumptions you want. There's one that matters today, and we've got that W.

Q. What underlining this game that you knew if you did it right, you could win today's game?
CHRIS ASH: The formula doesn't change for winning games. We've got to go play really, really hard, and we've got to do our job. We've got to play four quarters of football. We've got to be good up front on both sides of the ball. We weren't today. But again, just because one part of that doesn't work doesn't mean you can't win games, and that's really what it was about today. You know, all three phases weren't clicking together for four quarters today, but we still did what we needed to in one phase or the other, made a few more plays that allowed us to win the game, and that's all that matters.

Q. On the 4th down, on the two-point conversion, there was a time-out; were you trying to pressure them there?
CHRIS ASH: No, we had a two-point play, defensively, that we work all the time. We've never been in a two-point situation yet, so we haven't had to call it. But there are certain things that teams do in those situations that we practice all the time. We called them over, we wanted a time-out to see what they were lined up in, we talked about the options that they typically would do in that situation. They did one of them exactly like we thought. We gave them three options that they would possibly do, and they did one of them and we defended it. Was able to get pressure in the quarterback's face, he threw the ball up and they didn't catch it.

Just the cumulative reps of practice that we put into those situations that they had pretty good idea of what they were going to do. Once they started the motion, we knew exactly, and our players adjusted, covered the guys down and got pressure in the quarterback's face, and it worked.

Q. After Gio misses Blackshear the first time, what led you to go back to it a second time?
CHRIS ASH: You know, we thought it was a good match-up for us, and it's like anything else, just because they stop a play one time doesn't mean you can't come back to it. There's no rule that says you can't run a play twice, and we just happened to like that match-up. Didn't work the first time. We thought if we could do it again, protect it the right way, got the right defense called where we could exploit a match-up, and we did, and it was a great throw by Gio, a great catch and cut-back by Blackshear to get it into the end zone. Again, the little freshman just happens to show up big at the end of games when we need him, and that's two weeks in a row he's done that.

Q. The flipside is you're at the 35 and you can play for a field goal. Obviously it worked out. Was it your call or Jerry's call to go to the touchdown because if it's incomplete you're stuck in no-man's land?
CHRIS ASH: No, it's just a call that they've been working on. We weren't playing for a field goal. We were trying to get a 1st down, and if we could get a touchdown, that would have been great, but we wanted to at least get a 1st down, and it worked out to go all the way, so great play call. When you call a play and it works like that, it's a great play call, right? Great coaching.

Q. How significant is it for yourself as a coach since you've been here and for the program to get these back-to-back wins in the Big Ten?
CHRIS ASH: It doesn't matter to me. It's not significant for me, it's significant for these players. They're the ones that put in a lot of time. I work for the players, and the fact that I get to watch them celebrate the way they have the last two weekends, that's all the gratification I need. That's the only thing I worry about. I don't care if it's two wins in a row, three. Every Saturday we get one win and they get to celebrate like that, man, that's so rewarding as a coach, and that's all I care about.

Q. How about Gus's touchdown run to start the game? What did you see on the play? And just in terms of momentum, how big was that?
CHRIS ASH: Any time you can start the game the way we started it, they took the ball, we kicked off, and the ball hit the ground, we got pretty good field position to start, they drove the ball, we stopped them, which was great. We got the ball, went down and scored a touchdown. That's the way you want to start football games. You talk about starting fast, that's starting fast. It was a good play call. We blocked it up well. Gus broke a couple tackles, he came through the hole, eyes up, and he saw the end zone, and he outran everybody. It's not just Gus, that was a great job by the offensive line to at least get him started, and then it was a tremendous individual effort on his part to pull through some tackles and take it all the way. I mean, I love that kid.

Q. We saw Hunter Hayek replace Janarion on punt returns. Is Janarion okay?
CHRIS ASH: Yeah, I think so. I haven't gotten a medical report or anything like that. I don't think there's anything wrong with him.

Q. Gio's performance I think 9 for 18, 87 yards, not pretty, but did he manage the game the way you wanted?
CHRIS ASH: We'll have to watch the tape. First thoughts, I would say yes, but until I watch the tape, I don't really know yet. I do know he managed it well enough to win the game, and he protected the football, and that's the first priority is to do that and he did that, so that allowed us to win -- if we would have turned the ball over today a couple times, we wouldn't have won that game, so Gio and the running backs did a great job of that. But we've got to get more out of our offense, there's no secret. Just it wasn't a total four-quarter performance that we would have wanted and thought we would have needed to win the game.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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