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Baylor Head Coach Art Briles

Opening statementà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I'm ecstatic. This was a great win, a tough win, and it was the win we needed. We'd like for everything to be the way it's been [with the crazy stats], but it's not going to be that way. I thought our guys did a great job of sustaining, maintaining, not panicking and just taking care of business. It's hard to stay at the level we've been at energy-wise, emotionally, and production-wise. All in all today, it was a good thing to get a tough win against a conference opponent."

On the third quarter lull à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"You have to give Iowa State some credit, but I think we had some penalties in there. You have to be set and ready, so that's a risk you take sometimes with tempo. But I just don't think we had the energy we had at the start of the game and that's my fault."

On Seth Russell's injury à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"Always a concern, first and foremost about his health, and then about football. He's a tough guy and it's hard to see tough guys get hurt. My main concern right now is him, from an emotional standpoint, and then football."

On moving forward à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"It's all about our health. That's what it's going to come down to, so the next six to eight days will determine that. We'll be like we want to be, but if we're not, we'll figure out a way to be like we want to be."

On how the team has fared so far à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"Our guys have done what we needed them to do. We understand there are other things out there so you're never sure what's going to happen. We have a big task in front of us in K-State."

On the defense making plays à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"The defense, particularly in the first half, really made a big push. We had a chance to really get away from them in the first half and we didn't. The defense had a big fourth down stop in the fourth quarter. That's the difference in the ball game. You can be the smartest guy in the room, but if you fumble and throw interceptions, you're going to lose."

Baylor WR Corey Coleman

On getting an early lead then letting up in the second half à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"We're going to take the blame, but the weather was bad - a lot of rain, so we couldn't really do a lot of stuff that we usually do. We had to run the ball a lot and it's kind of tough for the receivers to catch the ball because of the rain."

On Seth Russell struggling à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"It's kind of hard to play when the ball is water logged and you kind of have to try and throw the ball like a shot-put to get it to your receivers. It was tough for him. It was hard for the receivers to catch the ball too. It was an ugly win, but we got it."

On breaking Kendall Wright's career TD receptions record at Baylor à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I feel excited. I talked to Kendall like two days ago and we were talking about it. It's just a blessing to even be in the same category as Kendall."

Baylor OT Spencer Drango

On offensive struggles in the second half à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I think it was a combination of things. We kept shooting ourselves in the foot with penalties, whether it was not getting set or something like that, it was little things that we can't have. I think we kind of took our foot off the gas a little bit, so the combination of those things. We tried to get rolling and then we had a fumble. I mean, it's wet out there, they fumbled three or four times. It happens on both sides of the ball and we just need to take better care of it."

On if he felt like struggles going into a bye week are good à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I'm happy it's a bye week. It gives us a little time to recover and get ready for the weird schedule we have in the coming weeks with a Thursday game. It does give us motivation, though, as a line and as a team, because we can make games close. I think it was 18 points or however many it was, for us that's a close game. We just have to keep going and fight through."

On if the team is where they want to be going into the bye week à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"We're 7-0 right now, so I think so. But like I said earlier, there's just those little things to clean up. I think this is one of our less clean games across the board. But I am glad it's going into the bye week."

On how the defense played today à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I thought they played pretty well. They had a lot of turnovers, a lot of sacks. It's tough for me to watch them sometimes [on the sideline], but from what I saw I thought they did well, especially when the offense was struggling a little bit in the third quarter. Them being able to get stops and give us some time to figure it out was really good."

On the Iowa State D-line batting the ball down a lot ...
"I don't know, I know they were hustling. Number 45 was on the left, on my side, and he ran all the way across the line and batted it from the right side. So that was just a good hustle play by him. It may be attributed to the rain a little bit, I don't know. I think it was just a lot of good hustle by them."

On what the feeling is on the sideline when the offense isn't fully clicking ...
"There's a little bit of frustration because we know what we can do. But have to be able to clear that and make sure we don't let frustration bog us down even more. It's tough to do sometimes when you get a drive going and then you have a bunch of mistakes, but it's something we have to deal with and something the leadership on the team addressed, and we'll move on and we'll do better."

Baylor NB Travon Blanchard

On today's game plan for the defense à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"It was getting the ball back to our offense, especially in conditions like today. With a lot of rain, the ball is slippery. The conditions were favorable in a way to get turnovers, get interceptions and get the ball back into the offense's hands. The more, the better. That's big."

Baylor DE Jamal Palmer

On forcing a turnover late in the fourth quarter à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I just got on the ball. I felt like I could get off that play, and I just shot at the ball, ripped through the ball right away to get us the ball back."

On going into the bye week à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"It comes at a good time. We have a good team ahead of us, and we're going on the road. We're going to have to be ready for [Kansas State]. With the young guys, we have to get it in their heads to get into that bye week and kind of settle down. Let's get back to it. Let's get back to us and get ready for this big turnaround with these big games."

On the offense scoring a season-low 45 points à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"It put a lot on us, and we kind of want a game like that where they don't score all the time so we can show what we can do on defense. I think that we did pretty good with them not scoring at times and not doing anything, but it's not going to be (Iowa State) for the whole season. We knew that. We just have to do our job. When (the offense) is lacking, we have to be on top."

Baylor DB Ryan Reid

On growing as a player à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"That's all I'm thinking about now. To me, that's just a big change from last year. At practice, I'm busting my butt hard just trying to be a better player than I was last year for this whole Baylor nation. I just have a better feel of college football, a better feel of the game. I can say it's just me being in better position. I've made my technique better over time."

On playing a big part in the win à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"Even though the offense will always get the hype, we like to show people that [the defense] can make stops. Put us out there however long you want, but we just want to show people we're a great defense that can make stops."

Iowa State Head Coach Paul Rhoads

Opening statementà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I'd like to start by praising the Big 12 Conference and the offenses in this league after playing the three top offenses in the country the last three weeks. There's no question this is an explosive league when it comes to offenses, and this team doesn't disappoint anybody ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢' ¬" there's a lot of talent out there. I take it from there to say I'm really proud of our kids in the effort they gave, in an effort to slow down that offense, in an effort to score more points, and an effort to compete in the fourth quarter. We had an opportunity to get an onside kick and pull this game within seven and put ourselves in position to compete and win the game. You do that on the road in conditions like this against the second ranked team in the country, you're pleased with the energy and effort they gave. Not pleased with the outcome, and tomorrow we'll go back to work to get that corrected."

On what his team did in the middle of the game to keep Baylor from scoring as much à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"We played fast, got more people to the ball, we had a lot of two- and three-man tackles as opposed to one-man tackles, and we started making some one-man tackles when we were faced with that. I thought our secondary did an incredible job of getting their eyes around and putting themselves in position to deny some deep balls. We batted several balls at the line of scrimmage, which helped us, and honestly they missed on a couple plays, which helped too."

On if weather conditions affected the game à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I don't think so. I think it had less of an effect on throwing than it did catching, that was my observation in pregame, and it carried over into the game. It thought the deep ball was easier to throw and catch than the short balls, and I thought the short balls were affected on both sides because of that, and I think that's why you saw some batted balls and some balls in the turf. Overall, I don't think it hurt them or hurt us, or helped them or helped us."

Iowa State QB Joel Lanning

On how facing Texas Tech, TCU and Baylor in three straight weeks will help them à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"It's going to be good for us. We've faced the best that we can, and we have Texas next week and they're rolling right now too after just beating OU. The rest of the schedule is not easy, just because we played the number two and three team in the country doesn't mean anything, so we're just going to have to keep practicing, battling, and keep fighting."

Iowa State RB Mike Warren

On watching the defense in the third quarter and if Baylor seemed frustrated à ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"Yeah, you could definitely see on the sideline that their demeanor was starting to change, and our guys on the side of the defense were getting hyped up and being really energetic, and I could feel that pretty much throughout the rest of the game."