BIG 12 CONFERENCE FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: OKLAHOMA VS IOWA STATE

December 19, 2020

Xavier Hutchinson

Iowa State Cyclones

Q. Xavier, what can you say about the fight that your team showed this game?

XAVIER HUTCHINSON: The fight that our team has inside of them is something great to look at, and I know it's great to watch. To be honest with you, just to be a part of it is great. Our team never gives up. One of our motto is never die easy. And I think you guys kind of saw that today, and I'm glad that kind of the world got to see that today too; that no matter what predicament we're in, we're never going to die easy in a football game because we can always make a comeback. Today we just fell a little bit short.

Q. Where does that mindset come from? Does it come from the coaches? Does it come from the seniors on this team? Where does it come from?

XAVIER HUTCHINSON: I think it's a mix. I really think it comes from Coach Campbell, from really all the coaching staff, and it trickles down to the senior class instilling it in us every single day. So I think it's a perfect mix between both coaching and players.

Q. Xavier, how frustrating was it not being able to cash in as much as maybe you guys would have liked to today?

XAVIER HUTCHINSON: I don't think it was upsetting or anything. Just obviously, after you play such a big game and you come a little bit short, it definitely hurts. I think we all feel that around, but I think we all know that, at the end of the day, this is a game, and obviously we want to win, but at the end of the day, life still moves on. So we have to pick ourselves back up for the next day.

Q. Just out of curiosity, the eye black, who is Q?

XAVIER HUTCHINSON: Yes, sir, that's for my brother.

Q. Is there a story behind that, or is that just --

XAVIER HUTCHINSON: He's not able to watch right now, so I put it on me so he at least knows that I'm playing for him every single time I go out on the football field.

Q. Xavier, what's just the feeling for how much you guys have accomplished this season and how far you've come? Then just to come up one score short today.

XAVIER HUTCHINSON: The feeling around our whole season is incredible. What happened today, we are going to go down in history as one of the best Iowa State [teams] to ever come through here. So just to hold that, that's a great feeling.

Then just about today, coming short, it's very disappointing. We put in so much effort like you said. So it really hurts, but as I said before, at the end of the day, we've got to sulk right now, but when it comes time tomorrow, we've got to put our head down and grind again.

Q. Xavier, first of all, congratulations on that comeback and your great game. What -- it looked like there was a little bit of confusion the last two plays. Is that -- am I accurate on that? If so, what was the somewhat confusion, it looked like?

XAVIER HUTCHINSON: I don't really know if there was confusion, to be honest with you. The game kind of flew by me a little bit towards the end. I think we were all revved up, so I can't really recall what happened on those two plays.

Obviously, we must have had a little bit of a slip-up mentally when that came. So I can't really speak on it too much because I don't really -- I truly don't remember what happened.

Q. What kind of message did you send to the people who were in charge of your fate for the next month or whenever the bowl game is? What did you guys say to them today? Or at least in the second half.

XAVIER HUTCHINSON: I think we told them that we're a very good team. Like I said, I do think we deserve whatever Bowl game we get. We deserve to be in a Bowl game. But I hope we just put respect on our name, on this university, to everybody who's an outsider from this program, that we're here to stay and we're always going to play our butt off.