Indianapolis - 30, Pittsburgh - 13
SHANE STEICHEN: Pittman got a concussion and then Zack Moss' arm.
Q. Shane, the horse collar on Zack, the hit on Pittman, are those dirty plays?
SHANE STEICHEN: I've got to go back and look at them. Obviously you don't want to see guys get hurt, you know what I mean? They're bang-bang plays. In realtime, you obviously don't want that on your player. On the flip side, we don't want to do that. I'll go back and look at the tape.
Q. Have you talked to Pittman in the locker room?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, he seems good. He's in good spirits.
Q. Resiliency, last week it wasn't good. You knew that. Just tough, resiliency in this situation --
SHANE STEICHEN: The biggest thing, talking about last week, the resilience, it wasn't our best game. It wasn't who we were. The big thing was cleaning up the penalties. I think we had two penalties for ten yards today, and then getting the takeaways. We got three, and we didn't turn the ball over.
When that happens, you usually win football games. Excited for the guys putting in the work. The weekly preparation they did, and then going out and executing it on Saturday. Obviously not Sunday, but Saturday. It was great to see that today.
Q. You knew you needed to run the ball. You get 170 without J.T. and Zack. How do you do that?
SHANE STEICHEN: Credit to the offensive line. They did a heck of a job running the football. Credit to Jim Bob Cooter, offensive coordinator. He's done a heck of a job this year. All he does is work and get these guys ready to go. I think it's only a matter of time before Jim Bob gets a shot at head coach.
Q. What does he say about D.J. Montgomery to drop a touchdown pass and then obviously catch one and recover that?
SHANE STEICHEN: It's great to see. He's been working his tail off on scout team. When he was on scout team all year, he made plays and plays and plays, and it's like we've got to get this guy on the active roster.
Obviously we'd love to have that one back. But then he gets another opportunity and makes a big play and gets the touchdown. Credit to him, credit to Reggie getting him ready to roll.
It was good. A lot of guys had to step up today. And the preparation that goes into it -- obviously their position coaches getting them ready to go, knowing what to do, knowing the plan and going out and executing it.
Q. The guys that stepped up, Kyler Goodson and Trey Sermon, what did you see out of them that kind of got them ready for this moment?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, goody's got some explosive ability, as you guys saw. The big play that he had on the sideline was huge, showing off the speed that he has.
Trey is just a good strong runner, had some low creases that he got through there and made some tough yards. It was awesome to see those two guys running hard.
Credit to them, credit to Deandre Smith, the running back coach, getting them ready.
Q. What did that 14-play -- the 14 consecutive runs on that drive do for the course of the game itself?
SHANE STEICHEN: It was awesome to see. It just showed that we're capable of running the football whenever we want to. You've got to do it at a high level and execute. Obviously that's a big part of it.
Do you want to do that every week? Heck, yeah, you want to do that every week. Does it work out like that every week? No, it doesn't. Obviously there was a third down run, I think it was third and four, whatever it was, and we popped there, which was awesome to keep the drive going, and just a resilient effort by the offensive line.
Q. Was that Gardner's best game?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, statistically, he had three touchdowns, 18 for 28 for 215 or something. Yeah, he played really good. I mean, he was concise with his reads, his decisions, getting the ball out of his hands quick, and making plays.
He just operates at a high level. It was awesome to see.
Q. That 42-yarder to Pitt too.
SHANE STEICHEN: That was phenomenal, the scramble, he that really got us going. He just had to scramble out of the pocket. He just laid it, perfect ball to Pitt. It was a great play by him.
Q. In the first half, it's 44 seconds and you're deep, was it let's get a play and see if we can get something?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, for sure. We had timeouts there. It was like let's try to get a jump here. And obviously we hit the one and cut to D.J. there. We got some momentum and obviously got the PI down there to Alec. It worked out good.
I think, when you have that much time and that many timeouts, depending on where the ball is, you can be a little aggressive there and see how it plays out. You can think a little bit on what you want to do because you don't want to give it back to them obviously. It was a great two-minute drive right there at the half.
Q. When Pitt got hurt, did you sense that galvanized the team? The guys seemed really upset.
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, it was tough obviously to see that with Pitt. But to see him get up and walk off that field, I mean, the guy's tough as nails. It's over and over and over again what he does, the toughness he shows.
Just the credibility he brings to this football team year in and year out, and obviously this year, for sure the way he's playing, he's probably over a thousand yards now, right? He's been phenomenal.
Q. Over the past couple weeks, Nick Cross started to get more defensive snaps, today getting his first great interception. How great is it to see him make those plays and get those opportunities?
SHANE STEICHEN: It's great. Any time you get the opportunity to get in, you go and make the most of them. Just like Rodney Harrison did, and now Nick Cross gets the opportunity and gets in there and gets a big time interception to get those takeaways. Obviously it flips the momentum of the game, and it was great to see.
Q. From 13 last week to 30 unanswered, did you sense a shift? How did that work?
SHANE STEICHEN: We felt good. Obviously our defense was playing really good. They gave up only 6 points. Offensively, we were moving it good. I think we were 3 of 6 in the red zone, had to kick some field goals there. We felt like we could move it good, and we were. Obviously that's what we did and ended up scoring 30 at the end.
Q. The never flinch mentality, is that something you develop or is that something you identify in the character of your players you want in this program?
SHANE STEICHEN: Obviously it's both. In some of the players, it's in their DNA, and obviously you have to build it too, bringing that energy and juice every single day. Keeping those guys upbeat, and knowing that every time we step on the field, we're trying to win a football game, and that's the mentality we have to have.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports