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Head coach Skip Holtz

Opening comments:

"I am going to say it again, never take winning for granted. It is always great to win, especially in a conference game. I really want to compliment Middle Tennessee, Coach [Rick] Stockstill and Brent Stockstill for the game that they put together. I thought Brent competed his tail off, throwing for 381 yards in a second half mutter. It was hard to throw and catch a ball. They have a good football team. They competed extremely hard. I am really proud of what our football team was able to get done."

"In the first half, Jeff was about 15-of-18 throwing the ball. I remember seeing the stat at halftime and saying, 'Wow.' I was really proud of what this team was able to do. It is nice to have all of your weapons back offensively. It is nice to have Paul [Turner], Kenneth [Dixon], Trent [Taylor] and Carlos [Henderson] all on the field at the same time. Hopefully we can continue to heal as we have two more games before we have an open date. I thought the offensive line did some good things opening holes. Some of the skill players made some big plays for us. I cannot say enough about Jeff Driskel and the way he is competing. He was 18-of-28 and we had six drops as an offense. That tells you the way he went out there and played."

"Defensively, I continue to be proud of the front seven and the job that they are doing. We have to shore some things up in the passing game. They threw for 381 yards and only rushed for 30 or 40 yards. The front is really doing a nice job but we have to continue to get better with our coverage. When you get a lead, people are going to start throwing the ball on you. Our defense did what they had to do to keep them out of the end zone. They were able to minimize the big plays. I think that was the difference in the game. We had a couple of big plays for points. They had a lot of yards passing, but we were able to keep them out of the end zone for the most part and held them to 16 points."

"I was proud of what the team was able to do today to get a win at home on a really sloppy day, but I will enjoy today and get mad tomorrow when I watch the film. There are certainly a lot of things we can improve on. I would much rather have an ugly win than a pretty loss. We talked about how well we played at Kansas State and all of the things that we did. You still lost the game. That is what we were able to do today. There were some sloppy things that we need to get cleaned up in penalties, dropped passes, sacks and giving up some big passing plays. When you find a way to win a game, as a coach, you can really put your thumb down. The players know they will have to get better with four very difficult conference games remaining."

On Kenneth Dixon:

"I thought he did a really nice job. He had a couple of really nice runs. On his first couple of runs the linebacker and center went the wrong way on an inside zone play. The inside linebacker was waiting in the hole and Kenneth made him miss. On the touchdown run he broke three or four tackles. He made some things happen. It is great to have him back there. When you have Jeff and all of your weapons available at the receiver, it helps Kenneth as well. People have to spread the field. They had been a real big blitz team coming into this game, but they played a lot more quarter coverage to keep the ball in front of them to prevent the big play. Even with that we were able to hit a couple of big plays and Kenneth made some things happen."

On Jeff Driskel injuries:

"I obviously do not want anybody to get hurt. It looked like a train wreck from a mile away. He was looking with his eyes inside and you could see the corner coming and he did not see him until the last minute. He just had the wind knocked out of him. At the end, one of the young linemen was blocking a guy and he turned his shoulders and kind of threw him. He happened to throw him into the legs of Jeff who was standing in the pocket. He rolled his ankle a little bit. He came in at halftime but he was fine thank goodness."

RB Kenneth Dixon

Opening comments:

"I want to thank God for letting me be able to go out on the field today. The training staff worked really hard on my ankle and helped me keep my weight maintained while I was out."

On if he has been lifting more recently:

"I have been going down with Coach [Kurt] Hester to lift weights. We call it hitting the yellow brick road. I have just been trying to get better and stay in shape while I was out."

On how it felt to be back on the field:

"It felt great. We have an awesome team. Even when I was not out there it felt like I was because I was cheering the team on trying to have the energy, or juice as we call it. It felt great to be back out with the team."

On his expectations after missing two weeks:

"No, I don't really expect those kinds of things like that. I just try to go out every play and compete."

On having all of Tech's offensive weapons healthy for this game:

"I love our offense with Jeff leading the charge. We have an awesome offensive line and a good running back. It's pretty hard to stop us when we are clicking on all cylinders and we have great leaders out there leading the charge."

On the team's energy:

"Yeah, we all feed off of one another. If Jeff brings the juice or Paul [Turner] brings the juice we are going to feed off of them. It is all about bringing the juice and bringing the guys along with it. You know it takes 11 guys to bring the juice or it doesn't even matter."

On if he felt like himself playing against Middle Tennessee:

"I think I have to do a little more practicing. I have some rust to knock off and everything."

QB Jeff Driskel

On Kenneth Dixon's return:

"Kenneth is a game changer. I saw the Middle Tennessee staff watching the warm-ups to see if he was going to be able to play. I am sure they weren't too thrilled when they saw him come out there. Kenneth ran the ball hard today. He made some people miss. He didn't get as many touches as he usually does but he still found a way to get into the end zone three times. That is what Kenneth does. Just having him back out on the field with us is a relief. There's nothing wrong with giving the ball to 28. We're excited to have him back."

On how he felt after taking some hits against Middle Tennessee:

"Yeah, I had a couple plays there in a row. One I carried the ball, this year I have been pretty good at protecting myself running. If I see someone headed my way I get down. I just did not see him. He came from the left and my eyes were down field. I missed him and saw him at the last second and tried to go down and almost went straight into the hit. It knocked the wind out of me a little bit. I was fine and came back in after a couple of plays. Ryan [Higgins] did a great job of coming in and being ready. His first play in the game he read the defensive end and he squeezed and picked up like a 13-yard gain. I thought Ryan did an awesome job of filling in when I went out. Then my ankle just got a little rolled up on but it's fine. I came out but I was fine in just a few minutes. The first hit was a body shot. I knew I had gotten the wind knocked out of me when I got up. If you've ever had the wind knocked out of you then you know you feel like you are going to die."

On Jarred Craft and Dixon both playing early on:

"I don't think they changed up the way they were going to play if Kenneth could go. I think Jarred earned the right to start this game. He has been working hard in practice to earn this spot during Kenneth's absence. He had a couple big carries there at the end as well as Boston Scott and Blake Martin. We have a bunch of guys where if Kenneth will not be in with those three that can come in and get the job done, but I am sure [Middle Tennessee] was not too fired up with Kenneth being in there."

On having multiple offensive weapons back for this game:

"It was nice. That is kind of what I pictured in the spring to have all those guys out there with Kenneth in the backfield and Carlos and Paul on the outsides. Obviously, we have not had Conner Smith out there as much, but Kameron McKnight has done a good job of stepping up for us and making some big catches. Trent [Taylor] is constant. He is going to have his 10 catches for 100 yards a game. I don't know what he had, but I would be willing to bet it was somewhere around there. It is hard to stop when we have everyone going. I think that we made some strides today but we have a long way to go."

On throwing in the rain:

"We knew coming in that they had a high-powered offense especially in the passing game. I think it is just the mentality of, 'I'm not going to let something without a heartbeat beat me.' Before the game we knew it was probably going to be wet, but we had a couple different game plans to where if it got out of hand we would be able to run the ball and get under center. I think if you are going to be a good quarterback you are going to have a few rain games and you have to be able to throw it in the rain. I think I proved that I could do that today."

On scoring before halftime to extend the lead:

"You are not going to be able to sustain drives up the field all game. You have to hit some big plans. We did that a little bit. Bryson [Abraham] had his third pick-six of the season and it was awesome. It was a great play to cut the corner in the screen lane and he made them pay. Like I said, we are not going to be able to sustain drives all game and I thought we did a good job of hitting some big plays today."

CB Bryson Abraham

On his pick six against Middle Tennessee:

"It was a great coverage call. We have been practicing it all week. We saw it on film and Coach [Blake] Baker told us how to play it. It depends on what the two was doing. Xavier Woods gave me a great call because I did not really see it at first but he called the play out and I was able to execute it and take it for six. It was a good play for momentum."

On his three pick-sixes:

"When I catch it I feel like I am back in my high school days sometimes. I played quarterback in high school. I just see green grass. We practice it a lot, the pitch drills. I know you saw Lloyd Grogan pitch the ball back to Xavier Woods in the UTSA game. We practice the walls and it is a lot of great blocks that you really cannot see. You just see the end result, but it is actually a lot that builds up to it; Nick Thomason giving good blocks and Vernon [Butler] and [Vontarrius] Dora and stuff like that. It is all a good celebration at the end though."

On how easy the interception was:

"Like I said, Xavier Woods gave me a great call when he saw a certain motion. We are supposed to go to a certain play and he mentioned it and I was able to alert it right before the play snapped."

On what happened during that play:

"I read the two and he ran a bubble. I triggered on it right before the play. The reason I was able to trigger on it was because I knew that Xavier [Woods] was going to be over the top covering. He did a great job. If I could give it to him I would because he gave me the call right before the play. Otherwise I would have sat back a little so that was a great call by him."

On having Kenneth Dixon back:

"It is always great to have him. Just knowing who he is, I have known him for four years, he was depressed that he could not be out there and we were sad for him. Just to see him out there smiling and doing what he does, running through people and scoring. It was great to see out there and it was good to have the best player on our team out there. He is the leader of our team and we follow him. He always can bring the juice."

On if he noticed him running different:

"No. I know KD and he is a competitor. He is a competitor in everything, even in ping-pong. Every time he is out there he gives it his all. He missed a couple of games but he was just happy to be out there more than anything."

On if the secondary improved as unit:

"I feel like we improved. We did not give up many big plays and that is the great thing. If it takes them driving down the field then so be it. Coach Baker tells us that all the time, if it takes them dinking and dunking and make a tackle and make them snap it again. We did a great job like you can see on the scoreboard. We prevented a lot of points but we could have played better. We had a lot of errors. I know that I messed up on a couple of my techniques and several people did but that is football. That is the great thing about football it is not just about one person."

On how it was with all the weapons back:

"It was good to have Carlos [Henderson] back and the other guys and KD. Those are two impact players on our team. It is always great to see them out there doing what they do and making plays. The brotherhood that we have, it is not just about what they do but to see them out there and happy doing what they love, that is the great thing about it."

On how close the team is to having a complete game:

"We are close, I already know. It is not going to be long before we play a complete game. Today I do not think that we played a complete game. We are going to get it together. A win is a win. Coach Holtz says it all the time."

On the miscommunication the past few weeks:

"It is just like you said with us miscommunicating. It is something that we have to be prepared for and work on as a secondary. That is the good thing we can always improve because we have four games left. We can always improve and we know that and that is the great thing about watching film and just being together all the time. You can fix what you need to fix."

On putting up 45 points and holding them to 16:

"You know what you can do when you do not play a perfect game. You are never really going to play a perfect game. The great thing about it is sometimes we are going to have to play better than we did today against another team because you never know. We are just going to have to watch the film and correct it. We have to stay focused on the fundamentals and communication. We are going to be fine and I cannot wait for the next one. We will celebrate this one tonight."

Middle Tennessee HC Rick Stockstill

On running backs being hurt:

"They have missed the whole season, so we have got to use this game here to try to get some help back there to get some kind of resemblance. But we could not run the ball. I mean, thank goodness we can throw and catch because if we couldn't do that I don't know if we could move the ball. I think we had 25-30 yards rushing today so give them credit."

On moving on from the LA Tech game heading into Marshall next week:

"Well, one, it has been a long three months so I still believe in this team. I believe in this team whole heartedly and its not just lip service. I think we have really good makings of a really good team. We just have to get some people back. Hopefully we will be able to do that by Marshall. We have to continue to work and get better. There were a lot of good things today. They were better than us. Give them credit. They were better than us."