Villanova head coach Mark Ferrante…
 
Opening statement: Well, one for the ages I guess, right?  Our guys made some mistakes along the way, but like we talk to them all the time, 'be resilient, keep tapping the rock, keep grinding.' If we hang in there and do everything we're capable of doing, and minimize our mistakes and make a couple [defensive plays] like we did at the end with the turnovers, we got a couple in our favor.  We were hoping this game would be close in the fourth and we could come out on top, and that's what happened.  We ran the ball well, obviously Zach put the ball on the money and we had some targets making some huge plays, like some of the gentlemen you see behind today.  We're super excited.  I can't tell you how much this means for our program.  We're looking forward to enjoying it tonight, and we'll get back and get ready to go against Lehigh starting tomorrow.
 
On winning the game and the players returning from last year's injuries: If you talk to the guys, and again some are standing behind me, that missed part of last year due to injury and they came back for their fifth year, I think missing last year made them even hungrier to go out there today.  So, real proud of these guys.  Zach through the spring, all the way through the summer, and [Rob Rolle], [Ryan] Bell, [Matt] Gudzak, some of the guys that came back would have been back for their fifth year anyway, but I think the fact that they missed last year made this that much more special and they were hungrier to go in there and make some noise today.
 
On the importance of the kicking game: Well you saw what it almost did to us today.  The kicking game is a third of the game so it's super important.  We spend a lot of time on it, we do emphasize it, maybe more than most.  We'll get it squared away.  Statistics don't mean anything.  Statistically when you look at yards gained and time of possession, those types of things, it probably should have been more than a two-point game if we were able to manage the time a little better just before half, get a field goal there and if we could have prevented that scoop and score on the other field goal.  A win's a win, it's in that column, and whether it's two points or 20 points doesn't matter to me.  We're excited about it.
 
On the team's depth: I think that played out big time and I've said that multiple times.  To have the fifth year seniors and our four year seniors that got hurt last year back in the lineup, but then we really added depth to a lot of different positions.  Linebacker core, up front on the defensive line, all those things.  We had a lot of players that played last year as true freshmen, so they were much further along in spring practice.  You could notice it then, and obviously going through preseason they added some huge depth.  They make up a lot of our special teams and protecting for the punt and so on.  I think that's huge.  We have more depth than we had before with the injured guys back and the young guys getting as much playing time as they did last year.
 
On beating Temple: Anytime you get a win over an FBS opponent you know that that's huge.  We do always try to talk about it's not really who we're playing though.  It's how we're playing and what we're doing.  We almost talk about having a nameless and faceless opponent, but it just means a little more I guess nationally and those types of things to play up a level and come out with a victory.  We've been close a lot of times and we have some wins in our past, but to get this win against a team that's a local Philadelphia team as well it's really sweet right now.
 
On the series with Temple: It's great.  It's a great, local game.  Coach Collins and I talked at midfield before the game.  We do need a couple games moving forward, I believe 2023 and 2024 we're still looking at getting an FBS on our roster.  He and I talked about that and he seemed to have interest in that as well, so hopefully we can play them down the road.
 
On Aaron Forbes: Yeah, Forbes, I think it's his fourth or fifth 100-yard rushing game.  He ran hard.  He lost a little weight from last year.  We asked him to slim down a little bit but he's still strong.  He looks a little faster.  He's a four-year senior who's played a lot of football for us and he's an elected captain.  He's the only four-year captain we have, the other three captains are in their redshirt senior year, their fifth year, so that just tells you how the team feels about him to make him one of the captains after being only a four-year senior.  He runs hard, he has some speed and he brings a lot of emotion, a lot of energy to our offense.
 
On the offensive balance between the passing game and running game: That's huge.  We go into every game trying to have a balanced attack.  Obviously during the course of the game you're going to make your adjustments and you're going to take what the defense is giving you, but last year we weren't able to move the ball and the line of scrimmage as well as we did today.  Whenever you can mix it up and then sprinkle in the play action and the RPO's, when you can run the ball that makes all the difference in the world.  You saw some of our guys pretty open in the flat after some play action and those types of things.  If you're able to run the ball, that is what we want to do, and when you look at our defense that's their goal is to stop the run.  I think they did a good job of that today.
 
On moving the ball well but not scoring: That's frustrating.  We've got to clean up our special teams to say the least and we'll get back to that and we'll look at what it was.  There's a number of variables.  Sometimes it's the other team just making a good play and sometimes it's ourselves not executing to our capability.  We'll clean it up.  It is a little nerve racking when you come in at halftime and kind of controlled the clock and moved the ball a little bit but didn't have enough points on the board.  Fortunately we were able to put just enough on the board today to come out victorious.
 
On winning the game at the line of scrimmage: Games are always won on the line of scrimmage in my opinion.  Maybe that's because I'm a former o-line coach, so that's kind of what I've been used to saying to my guys, and then you go as your quarterback goes.  Zach went pretty good today and our guys up front were able to give him some quality time to deliver the ball down to the target, and we were able to run the ball as we just said.  It's always going to be won or lost at the line of scrimmage, in the trenches on both sides.  Our guys did a good job of that today.
 
On the Temple defense: Well they graduated a few guys.  We knew they were going to be strong up the middle with their tackles and their line-backing core back.  They lost both ends.  I believe both of their ends from a year ago are in NFL camps right now, so we knew we could maybe get on the edges a little bit.  That's why we had some early play action.  We got the ball out to the flat and those types of things.  Our guys did a great job.  We moved them around better than I anticipated at times.  The other thing that always concerns you when you're playing an FBS is they're always going to rotate more guys through.  For our five offensive linemen to be able to play the whole game, I guess that answers the question of are we in shape, because we were on the field for a long time offensively and they seemed to continue to push through any type of tiredness or adversity they were going to face.  If we can run the game like that then we'll have a chance in just about every game.
 
On the players talking about being successful with sticking to the game plan: That's great and we talk about that all the time.  We talk about the mental aspect of the game, we talk about focus.  If you focus and you take care of the fundamentals, that's how we start, right?  We talk about focus and fundamentals, and then if you have that down then you can play faster.  You slow the game down for yourself and you kind of have a feel for what's going on, and then we always want to try to finish.  That's a thing we didn't do in the first half, we weren't finishing drives.  We were moving the ball.  The fundamentals of what we're trying to do seemed to be going in a good direction, but we weren't finishing the drive and that's what we talked about in the locker room at halftime.  We were pretty physical today too, so that's what we preach is focus, fundamentals, play fast and finish.  Our guys did a great job of that today.
 
On the fourth down touchdown: That's just Zach making a play.  They came with some pressure.  Zach only ran the ball on our designed kind of run play on a read for him one time today.  Most of the time he was handing off to the backs, and our three backs did a great job today.  Covington, Forbes and Gudzak, all those guys didn't skip a beat no matter who we had in there.  On that play, that's just two players that have played together for a long time and who spent a lot of time together this summer working together.  Jarrett and Zach, they worked together the whole summer so that's just two guys making a play.
 
On what they expected to see from Temple: It seems like they were running what we were preparing for.  They have a lot of guys.  Their roster is always going to be deeper, but it didn't look like they did too many crazy things.  I know they did that one offensive formation where they put all the linemen out and just had the quarterback and a center in the backfield, and they ran a lead option off of that, but our guys defended that well.  Sometimes crazy plays like that can get you a little bit off and a little misaligned, but schematically they pretty much did what our guys prepared for.  We had their whole season from last year, they had our whole season and we didn't change much up either.  It was just two teams going at it, playing real physical, and we just executed a little better down the stretch.
 
On the Temple timeout before Villanova punted: The clock was running, so we were going to take the penalty.  Just move it back five yards and then try to punt it from there.  They let the clock run down.  I don't know what was on the clock when they started and when they lined up for the punt, but I said guys 'don't snap,' and take penalty.  Let it run down as far as we can, and I think it went down all the way to 1:27 or something like that.  They were about to wind it again and I was going to take another 25 [seconds].  We were going to take the penalty again, but then that forced them to use one of their two timeouts.
 
On the fifth-year seniors and the resiliency they bring to the team: We have seven back and I think we only would have had four if some of the guys didn't get hurt, but last year we only had three fifth-year guys.  We talked in the offseason about senior leadership, about staying together as a team and playing selfless.  The guys did a great job with that from spring practice into preseason camp, and then obviously on the field today.  Whenever you have more veterans I think that helps in that category [the team's resiliency], but if you look at the roster that we had on the field today, we finished the game with a sophomore and two freshmen DB's on the field.  That's where we were hit hardest with graduation last year, so those guys really stepped up and did a nice job for us.
 
On Chucky Smith: Chuck is awesome.  He's in the ROTC program, I believe with our navy, so there's times I'll see him come in a half hour before practice and run three miles, there's times he'll be in there studying for an exam he's got, so that guy is invaluable.  Guys like that are invaluable to have on your roster for when something like today happened with our starting safety Julian Williams.  Chuck is an older guy so he's been in the program.  He made some plays, he made the tackle down on the eight-yard line on that last punt.  Whenever you can have a guy like Chucky Smith who is just an all-around awesome guy, in the classroom, on the field – and obviously he got his opportunity on the field today – he's going to add to your program to say the last.  It's nerve racking whenever we have a starter eliminated from the game but thankfully we were able to get through that today.
 
Senior quarterback Zach Bednarczyk…
 
On the go-ahead touchdown pass to Jarrett McClenton: I knew I probably had to roll out of the pocket, so I took a little three-step and just rolled out to my left, gave myself a chance to throw it to somebody.  Jarrett said he saw me the whole time, so he came around and you saw the rest.
 
On when he picked up McClenton: Once I cleared the D-end and I knew I had a little bit of room, I brought my eyes downfield and I saw him.  I just had to figure out a place to put it because there was a guy on him, defending him pretty well, so I just wanted to a spot to put it and he made a great play.
 
On the difficulty of making the pass while on the run and in a tight window: Going to my left, being a lefty it's not that tough.  If I was going to my right it would have been an extremely hard throw, but it wasn't too tough.  It was just honestly trying to figure out where to put the ball.  You have a split second to think about where you want to put it.  That was the hardest part.
 
On the importance of the first drive: That's huge, and that's how we started our year last year, with a score.  It's great for the offense.  It gives us a lot of confidence, and that's the first time going live since last year against Towson for me, so it was good for me as well.
 
On coming back after the blocked field goal: We want to score every possession anyway, so things like that might get you down a little bit but overall we overcame that challenge and were able to continue to play and try to put points on the board. 
 
On scoring on the first two offensive series of the game: I loved it because [the first touchdown] was to Bell and he was another guy who got hurt last year, so I think it gave us both a lot of confidence, and also as the whole team that we could hang with these guys.  We had a bunch of drives right down the field.  We sort of hurt ourselves on some of them, but we like to see that we're able to move the ball and I think today that we did a good job of doing that.  I love the fact that the first touchdown of the year was to Bell again, because that's how we started last year.
 
Senior wide receiver Jarrett McClenton…
 
On what adjustments he had to make on his touchdown reception: I just had to keep going.  I had to keep running across the field to get in his vision.
 
On the offensive line: I'm not really behind them but they were blocking exceptional today.  There were a lot of holes.  I saw Forbes had a couple good runs, Bell had a couple good runs.  The line was blocking exceptional.   
 
Sophomore defensive end Malik Fisher…
 
On stopping the Temple running game: We had a good scout team first of all and that gave us a good look during the week, but we just game planned a lot and spent a lot of time on film.  Friday is a big film day and we go through everything that they do.  When coach gives us a call, because [defensive coordinator] Coach Trainer always says he can call whatever, so it's about us executing.  He puts us in a lot of great positions just to make the plays, so being there and being ready to make the play is what it's about. 
 
On the Temple offensive line: We knew coming in that they didn't really have a young line, but they had some new linemen that had maybe started a game but hadn't started multiple games in a row.  We knew that we would have a chance to get at them a lot with a lot of movements and things like that.  It wasn't easy, but we could get in their heads a little bit so they seemed a little timid.  We were just doing what we do in practice every day so it wasn't that hard.
 
On facing a different quarterback than in last year's game: The quarterback was strong just like last year's quarterback, but him being a new quarterback as well is just getting in his head, trying to get hits on him.  That's what we try to do and that's what we did.
 
Senior linebacker Jeff Steeb…
 
On his interception: Coach put us in good coverage for the play.  We knew they were trying to hit the seams all day, so just from the formation I knew most likely it was probably going that way.  I was up on the line, but I was just glad I could make a play for the team.
 
On the defense reacting when they have to make big plays: We want to be the best team in the country.  That comes with a lot of responsibility and we look forward to that as a defense, just going out there to get a win for the team.  Overall today, the offense played exceptional.  We want to best the best team defense, so we're going to take those challenges head on.
 
On the clock running down before Villanova pinned Temple at the 8-yard line on a punt with less than two minutes left: [Temple] kind of hurt themselves calling that time out when we were punting.  We knew, but we were playing loose and we knew they were going to take a shot.  That was a freshman who made that play [interception] and it was a hell of a play.
 
On the difference between last year's game and this year: That was awesome.  I remember I was leaving here last year with such a sour taste in my mouth.  That last pick [today] and now being up here it's a totally different feeling.  It was just a great team win and I'm happy to be a part of Villanova football for my fifth year.  I know Zach is too.  He's my roommate and we talk about it all the time.  It was a big win, but then again it's just the first game so I'm looking forward to Lehigh.