Top Quotes Following Florida State's Win Over Boston College

17.  "Good football teams aren't always good. They are good when they have to be. I feel very relieved and very fortunate to come out with a victory even though we didn't play well in certain aspects. I still think we fought and stayed in the game. My hats off to defense. They held us in the game," Jimbo Fisher

16.  "It's been a long time since we won a game like this. A tough game where the other team may not be as good, but is going to fight you. We showed some fight. We punched back. That says something about us."  Bert Reed

15.  "In the past, I think we would have struggled and probably not won this game."  Christian Ponder

14.  "We found ways to kick [lose games in the past] around here every now and then." coach Jimbo Fisher said about the Noles pulling out the kind of game they often lost in recent years.

13.  "I feel we wouldn't have won this game in the past. Guys would have gotten down in certain situations," said linebacker Nigel Bradham, who had a team-high 10 tackles.

12. "We needed this, coming off that big win at Miami. Just like that Oklahoma game. We needed that," said defensive end Brandon Jenkins, who led the defense with two sacks

11.  "It wasn't pretty," Fisher said. "Like I've said before, we have not arrived. We have a long way to go as a football team, and we have a lot of mistakes we have to get ironed out. But I did see a football team that would compete, that stayed together, that didn't panic and made enough plays to win a game. Sometimes great seasons are made on games that you can scratch, claw and fight and find a way a way to pull one out. But we have a long way to go to where we need to go."

10.  "The first play we had the wrong personnel. They got a call from up top and thought they were in one back but they had two tight ends in. We were in nickel and one gap short. My hats off to Reid for running the guy down and making the play," said Jimbo Fisher on Greg Reid running down Montel Harris following his 72 yard run to open up the game.

9.  "This year, we trust the defense and the defense trusts us. We feed off of each other. It just feels like everybody is together now. We're a family."  Bert Reed

8.  "It swelled up pretty good and it was hurting a little bit, but it wasn't too bad. I'll probably get it drained and after that it'll be fine. What affected me the most was making dumb mental mistakes. I got to thank my teammates. They pulled me out of it."  Christian Ponder

7.  "We had some crucial short-yardage plays and he's a big back and is able to lower his shoulder and get those few yards.  He's still battling an ankle injury but that was huge for him to go out there and do what he did," said Christian Ponder on Ty Jones, who returned after missing the last 2 games and converted a third and 1 with a 1-yard run, and a 1-yard gain on fourth and 1 on the final drive that ran out the last 8:04 of the game. He finished with 35 yards on 10 carries, although he lost yardage on a run for the first time this season.

6.  "We didn't take enough chances, but we knew we had to do something drastic to try to change it and try to get some plays out there and try to get some guys on the edge. It was the right situation; they'd been doing some things on second down and we thought we got a little pattern there late in the second half, and we thought it was time to make it and luckily we did." Jimbo Fisher on calling the reverse.

5.  "Let me get this," said Bert Reed just before taking the pitch on an end around and racing 42 yards for a touchdown. "I just wanted that play bad. I saw Taiwan had great block and I went outside of him and then Jermaine had a great block. Then I saw nothing but green grass and I had to get there. I've been banged up a little bit, but nothing was going to stop me right there. Sometimes I go down pretty easy, but I felt like nothing was going to stop me right there from getting in that end zone. My team needed it, man."

4.  "He took a shot (the play before)," Ponder added, "and for him to come back and bounce right back on the next play and go for a big touchdown was huge. He really stepped up for me personally. He saved my butt. … I didn't really give us a chance at all to win and the defense played really well and the guys around me played really well and we were able to pull it out. That just proves the character that we have on this team."

3.  "The good teams I've been around and the great seasons I've been around, you find a way to win one or two ballgames like this that you just – you don't play your 'A' game," Fisher said. "You know what I mean? That's what I'm happiest about. That our kids didn't fluster, they didn't panic."

2.  "He was banged and bruised, he didn't play his normal game, but the kid's a winner. He's a champion. I know what's in his heart and I know what's in his mind and I looked him in the eye. I don't ever doubt on him. I don't. I believe in him and you measure players on their bad days. When you're able to scrounge around and find a win on your bad day, it says a lot about you"  said Coach Jimbo Fisher, who knew about the injury but never wavered in sticking with CP7 throughout the game.

1.  "Coach Fisher has been telling us that we're on that island, and all the boats have been burned. And we're not going back to what we used to be.  He's right. We haven't arrived yet, but I think we have begun a new chapter. There's a lot of pictures of guys on the walls around here who did a lot of great things for FSU. We're not going to take them down, but it's time we put some new pictures on the wall. Everybody has a past, but what are you going to do in the present? That's what's important. If we can keep improving and working hard, people are going to remember this team, too."  Punter Shawn Powell