But I thought he had good composure out there. He kept everybody in good shape and made some good plays in the running game. Just showed real toughness.

Happy for him. And we still believe in Jeremy, too, and we’ll assess it week by week and go from there. But nothing other than, he was doing a good job and it was just one of those games.

Q. On the defensive side, only holding them to three points in the second half, what did you see from that unit that, with some new faces and stuff, that made them so effective?

KIRK FERENTZ: It’s really encouraging. They’re playing hard, start there, and playing tough.

First half we got hurt on a reverse, they had a pass down there to our right looking that way.

And then second half, I think it was a third down conversion right in front of our bench, that was a big one, and gave them a chance to move it down there.

But all in all, I thought they just made those guys work for everything they got.

We went into the game—in some ways it was like a first game. We had game tape, but we were pretty confident we were going to see some things besides what we saw last week. And thought everybody handled that well, too. The communication was good.

ept us alive, kept us going. And then the run game got a little bit better in the fourth quarter. And, 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 fall down10-nothing and came back, fought our way back into it to tie it 10-10. So that was big.

And then kicking game, couple plays that you’d like to have back. Hopefully we’ll learn from, not fielding the punt, and then a couple other deals. But a lot of positives in there. Some good plus-50 punting.

Then obviously Caden Buhr—just think back as a week and however many hours ago, one of the uglier extra points you’ll ever see, and then follows it up with a missed field goal. It’s a real credit to him finishing out the game last week and doing a good job. He had 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, a tough, hard-fought game. We have more of those coming. So, happy to get the win first and foremost, and then it provides a real growing and learning experience for our guys. We’re fairly young in a lot of areas right now, so you 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 there.

Q. Wanted to get your kind of thoughts on Hank’s performance and your decision to stick with him the whole game?

KIRK FERENTZ: We went into it as I said pretty consistently and told the TV folks yesterday, the plan was to play both of them. We’re totally comfortable doing that. And then you get into a game and you just kind of play the situation, if you will.

They made it rough on him, too. But I thought he stayed in there and came up with some big plays. Certainly,the big pass play to Tony gave us a real spark there in the first half.

But I thought he had good composure out there. He kept everybody in good shape and made some good plays in the running game. Just showed real toughness.

Happy for him. And we still believe in Jeremy, too, and we’ll assess it week by week and go from there. But nothing other than, he was doing a good job and it was just one of those games.

Q. On the defensive side, only holding them to three points in the second half, what did you see from that unit that, with some new faces and stuff, that made them so effective?

KIRK FERENTZ: It’s really encouraging. They’re playing hard, start there, and playing tough.

First half we got hurt on a reverse, they had a pass down there to our right looking that way.

And then second half, I think it was a third down conversion right in front of our bench, that was a big one, and gave them a chance to move it down there.

But all in all, I thought they just made those guys work for everything they got.

We went into the game—in some ways it was like a first game. We had game tape, but we were pretty confident we were going to see some things besides what we saw last week. And thought everybody handled that well, too. The communication was good.

A lot of positives there, really a lot of positives. And you like to think you keep somebody to 13 points, you’re going to have a good chance to win games.

Q. Towards the end of the game, Kamari Moulton was limping a little bit. Do you know anything about his condition right now or how he’s doing at this point in time?

KIRK FERENTZ: He seemed fine. I just saw him in the locker room. He was really upbeat.

It was a physical game, both sides. I think both teams are probably going to feel this one for a couple days. It was a physical game.

I happy for Kamari. Probably didn’t have the running numbers he would have wanted tonight, but he came up big in the passing game. They were dropping on under pretty good, and getting the ball to him in underneath coverage, and, yeah, all those little things, everything was important tonight, and he did a really good job.

Q. After losing the last two games to Iowa State, does this win have any extra meaning?

KIRK FERENTZ: You kind of compartmentalize things a little bit. But to that point, I don’t mind telling you, on our last possession, as the ball was going down that way, we might have had a decision to make with the ball outside that 35, mainly because their guy can kick it from midfield. What an excellent placekicker.

So that was in the back of our mind, too. That might have affected how we played it had we not gotten the ball down a little further.

Q. With how this game started and how early this game is in the season, how important is it for this particular team?

as young as they are, to have a close, grind-it-out kind of game, knowing the Big Ten schedule is going to very likely present similar scenarios moving forward?

KIRK FERENTZ: That’s exactly what I told them in the locker room. There’s more of that coming. More of it coming for us.

And when you get in those situations, it’s always easier after the game’s over, kind of like going into games, they’re easy if you’re not playing or competing. But, now that it’s over, didn’t seem that bad. But those are tough. It plays with emotions of everybody on the sideline.

And the big thing is the guys just stayed focused and believed in each other and kept pushing. Didn’t see any negativity, none of that stuff. Everybody just was encouraging and keep pushing. And that’s why you play 60 minutes.

To your point, I think it has an opportunity to really help us and build for us if we use it properly.

Q. Cam Buffington obviously grew up an Iowa kid, grew up watching this rivalry, and comes out here and has a great performance today. What’s it mean to you to see him have that type of performance in this game?

KIRK FERENTZ: I was just talking to Pat Angerer on the radio about that. He made a play in practice this week, that was impressive.

He’s played on special teams, but he hasn’t played at the middle linebacker spot. But he sees things fast, and then he gets there fast. So, that’s kind of a good combination if you get that.

And for as little as he’s played, he’s done some things that really catch your attention and eye. And he’s got a great attitude. So, I’m not worried about him. He’s just going to keep getting better and building on that. He is a good young player.

Q. In this wild and crazy times that we live in in this sport, people would look at their roster and say they have 83 new players, you have a returning team from a pretty good team from last year, yet here you are battling all the way down to the last second. Is there a way to rationalize what just took place when you’re trying to deduct what they’re going through versus what maybe you have?

KIRK FERENTZ: I’m guessing there were some people probably saying that very same thing during the course of the week. I’ll flashback—I think it was, Wednesday or Thursday morning, I was driving in. Rich Gannon was on the radio. Maybe I was going home, doesn’t matter, but anyway.

He was talking about the Rams and what happened to them in Australia. It’s hard when you get anointed to do something—and it’s happened with some college teams already—when you’ve been anointed to do this, or you’re favored, and they got a bunch of new guys and all that. Humans are humans, and they start hearing that stuff. We’re certainly not saying it, coaches aren’t saying that, but I think there’s a human element to anything.

All I know is these guys showed up tonight and played really hard. Their team did. They made it hard on us. They played hard.

That’s college football to me. You have to expect it to be that way, regardless of what the circumstances are. If it’s not that way, then just feel really fortunate, because we’re going to be in a lot more of these regardless of how the rosters get constructed.

Q. You mentioned that Iowa State played physical. Now that you’ve seen that, how this team plays, kind of a new turn for that program. Did it almost feel like you were looking in the mirror a little bit with the style that they played?

KIRK FERENTZ: I think they’ve been playing that way, I have a really high opinion of Coach Campbell. Lot of respect for the way he coached and the way his teams played, and that’s how you evaluate coaches is how their teams play on a consistent basis or over the long term.You look at Coach Rogers’ resume. We’ve been watching Washington State film for a week-plus, and they did—same circumstances. They had a whole new roster a year ago, and those guys played. They were really playing well.

I have a lot of respect for them, and I think that’s for the most part what we can expect week in and week out.

Q. A year ago, Hank Brown came in under really bad circumstances trying to enter in the fourth quarter, same side of the end zone, kind of similar scenario. I guess how gratifying was it for you to kind of see Hank be able to make these plays down the stretch, and how much does that show the resilience of him to be able to compartmentalize what happened last year, learn from it, and ultimately now experience some success in that same spot?

KIRK FERENTZ: I think he knows what I’ve tried to encourage everybody, the public and everybody else, to embrace is like any previous evidence, just throw it out, because it doesn’t matter when you judge a young player, and young in his career, how he gets in. That was a tough circumstance last year.

It didn’t work out his way. The real story is what he’s done since that time. Jeremy’s done the same thing. Both these guys have worked extremely hard, and I’ll throw Jimmy in there, too. They’re all working hard. They’re showing up and practicing well every day.

You have to if you’re going to compete, you have to be able to move past that stuff. If you’re going to carry that around, if it motivates you, great, but I mean, I think it does more harm than good.

It’s all about pushing forward. Caden is

a great example because that was pretty ugly last week. I don’t mind telling you, I’m not a kicking expert, but even I knew that one. But he looked pretty good tonight.

That’s part of the cool thing about, you know, college athletics. It was in the NFL, too, and happens in high school, certainly. It’s all about the player’s attitude and their work ethic.

Q. Probably one of the biggest mysteries, at least to us on the outside, going into the season was going to be special teams with LeVar Woods… I mean, Boston had a pretty darn good night tonight. I think he pinned four inside the 20. I guess just with Woods taking over, you lost so much on special teams. How are you encouraged with what you’re seeing through two games now, and they basically delivered a win for you tonight?

KIRK FERENTZ: It’s a good start. We’ve tried to emphasize—I mean, we’ve always emphasized special teams for 20-plus years.

We benefited when the NCAA allowed us to expand the staff and make LeVar the special teams coach, because I think that has some inherent advantages if you do it right. LeVar did an outstanding job here, and we had total confidence Chris would do a great job, too. He’s got good support, good guys in the room there with him, other coaches that are helping him make the transition just like LeVar did in 2017.

I think a lot of it is we believe in it, and we do more than talk about it, we invest in it. But it all circles back to who those players are.

And Boston, we’re only two weeks into it, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised for a guy that young. Part of the beauty of him is he’s so naive to college football. Like he doesn’t know enough to get screwed up with all the stuff everybody else gets screwed up with. It’s been—but Tanner’s done a good job and did a great job holding tonight.

There are some things we’ll learn from. We let that one punt hit the ground, which is bad, and then it rolled, and that’s why it’s bad. We’ll do better there.

But seeing a lot of positives right now, and the core guys are working hard. So the players are invested, they’re getting good coaching, and hopefully good things continue to happen. Hopefully we build off of this, too.

Q. Caden was in here earlier, got a little emotional talking about kind of a dream come true for a kicker. You’ve been through a lot of those kicks like that. What are the emotions like for you when a kid like that works so hard to go through and you see kind of the euphoria on the field?

KIRK FERENTZ: That’s the fun part about coaching. You can go back to Nate, go back to Jason Baker, you know, all those guys. I’m not a specialist by any stretch, or know anything about it, other than I do know most of them have had ups and downs earlier in their career. You know, as I said, Caden a week ago.

It is about what he’s doing on a daily basis that gives you some confidence. Players have to learn that. Some do it a little bit better when they get here than others, but if they learn that, work at it, and they’ve got ability and mental toughness, it gives them a chance to be good.

He has to feel a lot better right now than he did at halftime a week ago.  Rightfully so. I’ll emphasize, he had a great week of practice. Both our guys did, both kickers really did a good job. So it was good to see.

Q. Caden mentioned that he worked with Keith Duncan for a while when he was picking up kicking. I mean, what similarities do you kind of see between the two, especially in the clutch moments like today?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, Keith’s another guy that had such a great career here, and he’s a tremendous young person. So I’m appreciative of his willingness and all of our guys.

We’ve had so many guys come through here that are good with the guys that are young players now and helping them out and sharing wisdom and experiences. I’m sure he’s talked to him privately probably about ups and downs, because he went through them as well.