Lovie Smith’s Opening statement
"Whenever you get a win you have to be pretty excited, not have to be, you should be pretty excited; especially a road win. We fought hard for that win. We talk about a lot of different areas that tell whether you win or you lose, the turnover ratio, of course. Through the time that I've been coach it has been one that sticks out each week. To get that many takeaways should say win, which it did. Penalty wise, some things we need to clean up from last week; we didn't start off really well penalty wise but finishing up I think we had six. One was intentional, so five penalties in a game. That's more along the lines of what you would like even though that's too many also. We found the way to win; we had some guys that really played well individually. Darius Mosely on the defensive side was outstanding. As a punt returner, on the defensive side, of course the touchdown and the recovery fumble but he had a couple of other big stops too. Jamal Milan also played well on the defensive side of the football. Offensively Chayce Crouch, played good football again like he did the previous week. He would like to have that interception back but we like the energy he's brought to our football team."
On how the team has evolved
"You come in new, you have an idea of who should play based on what you've done at the time. Once you get to games teams tell you, players tell you a lot more, they tell you who should start, who should play. That's how we've ended up in that final starting lineup that we had last week. It's based on what we would like to see from those positions. Some of the players are younger but that's not what we're looking at. We're looking at best fit, and the players that are making the most plays. Patrick Nelson has come in as a safety position, made a lot of tackles given his good physical play. We started Stanley Green last week at the safety position but that's based on them doing something."
On the running back position and previewing Michigan
"Kendrick Foster, the last three weeks has played the same way, really could go all the way back to the first game of the season. The running back position as a whole has been productive. Reggie Corbin, Ke'Shawn Vaughn, all of them. The same way we found a way to win a football game, which is good, we need to build on that and realize who we have this week. We're playing one of the best teams in the country at their place. We've been a homecoming team quite a bit this year but we're looking forward to that challenge ahead of us."
On the progression of the offensive line
"We haven't progressed as much as we need to. We have our five we wanted to start the season with; the running backs are really creating plays. We need to get better play from our offensive line; it's as simple as that."