(on mindset coming into the game)
I haven't seen this team with such a big chip on their shoulder before in years past of my three seasons of being here so far. With that said, that kind of explained our preparation and attitude and mentality coming into this week. We've been counted out so many times and we just wanted to come out and set the tone early, and we wanted to make sure we finished as well. That was one of the big things coming into halftime was making sure we finished, and I was really happy with how we came in and how we fought all the way to the end, and we were able to secure a statement win.
(on if the team's chip on their shoulder came from the three-and-out series)
No, I just think that we hear the outside noise. We all hear it. And I think for us, you try to tend to tell yourself, 'Oh, don't listen to it,' but for us, we want to be great. We want to be recognized as one of the better teams. Like I said, this is a great win. It feels good, but it's only one game and we still have a lot of work to go.
(on the offensive performance)
We handled adversity really well. I think at times when we did get behind the chains, and we had some early penalties and mistakes, and I think that was some of it. Kind of settling into the game and whatnot. Guys responded well. We didn't hang our heads. We didn't start pointing fingers. We just started chipping away and making big plays and we stayed in the game. So, I was just really happy with how we responded to that.
(on the performance of outside linebacker Chandler Jones)
Unbelievable. I was just talking about how I saw all the work he put in this offseason, and with him it's just you kind of have to shake your head in disbelief in how good he really is. So, we definitely missed him, and glad he's back.
(on which of his two touchdown catches he liked the best)
Probably the second one, just because it was a tough one. It was a contested one and it was good to kind of put a cap on the win and for us as an offense.
(on the importance of cashing in turnovers and scoring touchdown)
It's huge. You have to take advantage of those, especially with a team like Tennessee with the weapons that they have. We kind of saw early in the first half, they came out and started firing on all cylinders. We knew we couldn't let our foot off the gas, because we have tons of respect for what they're able to do as an offense as well. It's really encouraging that we were able to take turnovers and get points out of it.
(on bouncing back from the early interception in the second half)
Exactly. That's all from learning experience because that's happened in the past. We just have the mindset – we've talked about it since day one of training camp. That's one of the things that Coach (Kliff) Kingsbury talked about was finishing games, because you look at some of the margins of losses that we had last year, it was simply us not executing in the second half and towards the end. Glad we could correct that, but we've got to keep it up during the season.
(on what went through his mind on the over-the-shoulder catch)
Yeah, it's funny. We had a similar play. Same thing in practice, it was blitz zero and it was the same throw, same catch in practice this week, and so right when Kyler (Murray) got blitz zero, he made a check and I kind of knew it was going to be the same thing. So, once I saw it coming behind my head, I just knew that I had to adjust and look up into the air and know with him, and his talent and his ability to place the ball, I just knew I had to run right underneath it.
