"It was really good to get the win, as you guys all saw, really hard-fought.
We expected that. Expected this to be a tough contest. It's kind of been the standard fare anytime we get together in the last decade-plus so, and that's exactly how it played out.
I thought they had a great plan. Our opponents did, and they played extremely hard, so made everything really tough for us.
On our side of the ball, I just think, you know, it was really positive in all three areas. There are some things we've got to get better at, and we'll have to learn from, certainly. But overall, I think we can learn from that.
Defense, for the most part, played really well. Gave up a couple of plays at critical times, but really knuckeled down and did a great job, especially in that second half. So that was good, and field position worked out our way.
Offensively, they clearly wanted to take the run away from us and did a really good job of that. That was their plan set, and they made it really, really difficult. The good news there is, I think we made some plays that, you know, kept us alive, kept us going. And then the run game got a little bit better in the fourth quarter. And, you know, you hope if you stick with it, good things are going to happen. So proud of the guys on that.
And then probably the best thing in the whole equation, we fell down, you know, 10-nothing, and came back, fought our way back into it to tie it 10-10. So that was big.
And then kicking game, you know, a couple of plays that you'd like to have back, hopefully we'll learn from, not fielding the punt, and then a couple of other things. But a lot of positives: some good plus-50 punting, and then, you know, obviously Caden Buhr. Just think back, it was a week and however many hours—six hours ago—when he had one of the uglier extra points you'll ever see then follows it up with the missed field goal. So it's a real credit to him finishing out the game last week and doing a good job to get an excellent week of practice. And that certainly, I think, helped give him confidence there in that closing minute. So just a tip of the hat to him, for sure.
All in all, just a tough, hard-fought game, and we've got more of those coming. So, happy to get the win, first and foremost, and then just provides a really good growing and learning experience for our guys. We're fairly young in a lot of areas right now, so to have to fight through one like this, it's going to be a good thing for us. And certainly great to get a trophy back in the case here."