If you were in the Navy Week Game Chat this past Saturday, you might have picked up that Murtaugh was able to hook me up with a sweet press pass for the game. It was a pretty cool experience. I got to see all the action of the game from a heated press box, I got free food. And I was even able to view the last 5 minutes of the game from the field — the final 4th down incompletion happened maybe 30 feet in front of me.

In addition to all this I was also allowed to attend the post-game press conference featuring BK and Brandon Wimbush, as well as listen in on player interviews afterwards (I actually grabbed this great shot of Drue’s heart-melting smile myself). I wasn’t able to hear everything from all the players — by the time I moved on from Julian Love and Josh Adams, Niles Morgan had already finished up his questions — but here a few notable quotes I was able to gather from Saturday’s victors.

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Julian Love on what the defense was feeling during their final stand:

We’re not gonna flinch. We never flinch. And that last drive you know, they were moving a little bit. But we knew that if we just keep playing with our physical nature that they would eventually fold.

Julian Love on Greer Martini:

Greer is the toughest kid you’ll ever meet … He’s a truly special person and special player. And that really showed today.

Josh Adams on whether this could be his last game in Notre Dame Stadium:

No, I mean I owe to much to this team to bring the focus on myself. We’ve worked too hard in the offseason and leading up to this point to let anybody — anybody — on this team to get selfish. We still have a lot to accomplish.

Greer Martini on his performance:

It was just kind of a good scheme, a good plan. I’ve always kind of excelled at the triple option and I was just kind of going out there with a lot of confidence.

Greer Martini on whether the defense redeemed themselves after recent sub-par performances:

Yeah, I think so. I mean, obviously with a team like that they’re gonna be on the field a ton. It was just about getting critical stops at critical points like that last defensive play of the game. That was a big deal for us to get that stop.

Mike McGlinchey on what this Senior Night meant to him:

It just means the world. I mean, anytime I got to put on that uniform and play for our school in front of our home crowd… I’m just very fortunate to be able to do that for the last time today. I was hit with a lot of different emotions and it’s heavy on the heart, but we still have a job to do for this next game or two.

Mike McGlinchey on KJ Stepherson:

He’s taken his fair share of lumps here so far at the university, and we’re just so proud of him. He’s as good a guy as you can get, he’s so light-hearted, a good teammate. He just has to continue to work and put himself in the right positions. And he’s been doing that in the last few weeks his game is just getting better and better.

Mike McGlinchey on the play of the offense in the 2nd half:

I think any time we go out to the field and take the field as an offense it’s time to get physical. You know that’s who we are, that’s who we’ve been. We take a lot of pride in being able to pound people.

Drue Tranquill on the defense clamping down in the 2nd half:

I think guys remembered last year when we weren’t able to get a stop. And everything we’ve gone through since January. Defensively we were just sitting there and we were like “Guys, the game rests on us right now. We gotta get this stop, and our offense is gonna move the ball.” And we were able to come together as guys and get that done.

Drue Tranquill on the opportunity to make a statement this weekend against Stanford:

Obviously we want to do that. That’s been our goal. I don’t think our mindset will change in terms on each game we go into. It’s “let’s face this opponent.” And we try to approach it that way to keep ourselves from getting emotionally hijacked.