On what Jack Tuttle offered to the offense

I thought he came out and gave us a spark early. Obviously, three straight drives we had a touchdown, field goal, touchdown. Think the players fed off that. He practiced well all week and got back healthy, which was great for us. We'll see. Positive. I think he gave us a spark. We'll see if he'll get the start. It looks like he's giving us the best chance and we gotta clean up the turnover at the end but he definitely had a exciting start to the game.

On why Tuttle didn't play last week

Last week, it was his first week back. Doctors clearing him. He practiced and done things but we really got him in this week and felt good. Felt confidence in getting back in the game.

On missed tackles in the secondary

We just gotta do a better job of closing the space, playing fundamentals. That's the biggest thing. We give it up short passes, and we gotta clean up the tackling in space Those guys are athletic in space, but we just gotta do a better job of rallying to the ball, and when we do that, we're a pretty good defense. So we'll continue to clean that up.

On what led to the explosive plays from Washington

Yeah, we just gotta do a better job in our coverage assignments, doing things to clean things up. They did a great job scheming it up, and we gotta do a great job with us. But I thought our guys settled down really well in the second half and limited those explosive plays, which given those different looks, so we just gotta do that in the first half.

On where he thinks the team is at the midway point of the season

We're gonna work our tails off. We got an opportunity to get better this week, and then get better next week, and get ready for Illinois.

On whether Tuttle was going to be the starter at the beginning of the year due to experience but injuries diverted course

Yeah, I think there's always a sense when you got a seventh year guy playing that he's got a chance to be good since he's played a lot of college football. But he's gotta get healthy, and it's our job to coach football, and then the doctor's job to tell us that he can play, so that's what we did.

On how difficult it is to navigate the offense with so many changes

I think our job as coaches is whoever's in there, we gotta make the best of it. And we've got really good players everywhere, so we're gonna use their strengths to get better, and that's what we're trying to do.

On whether he expected the offense to be undefined at this point

I think it's football. At football, you never know what's gonna happen. So for us, we're adjusting, we're really working our tails off to get better, and that's what we're gonna do this week.

On whether he will keep the quarterback competition open heading into the bye week

I think we'll see. We'll watch the film, feel good about the way he played, feel good about what he did. So right now, if we have to play tomorrow, I'd say Tuttle will be the star quarterback. I wanna build stuff for us to be successful with him, and us to be successful with Donovan, and Kalel, and the rest of our guys. So I feel like he gives us a great chance to win, and we'll just clean up the turnovers and go from there.

On whether there was anything to pinpoint about the momentum changing

I mean, I don't think there's one thing. This game is, that's football. Momentum swings back and forth. I think that the big plays and things that happened helped them. They tied the game up. And then, obviously, they got ten points off a short-field turnover. I think our defense did a great job of adjusting in the second half. And it was hard for them to drive the ball down the field. It took some time. And in the second half, in the fourth quarter, those two turnovers were huge. They got ten points off of them. So we gotta do a better job taking care of football in all aspects. Jack's gonna beat himself up about that, but we can't let him do that. We gotta uplift him and, as a team, take care of him.

On his thoughts on how the offensive line played

Yeah, we'll check the film and see how they did. I'm always not quick to say how the guys performed up front, kind of critical on them. But felt like we moved the ball well with them to convert on some fourth and ones, some third and ones were huge. So I felt like they played a really good game, but obviously we didn't get the win. So we all gotta look at ourselves and make sure we go fix everything together.

On how he would assess the team moving forward

Yeah, we just gotta go win each game. That's what we're gonna worry about. We're gonna worry about this week, getting better this week, and gonna attack this week. We never worry about the end goal, just worry about the process and attacking that.

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