Coach Johnson Holds Weekly Press Conference

Coach Johnson Holds Weekly Press Conference

11/17/2003

Coach Johnson Holds Weekly Press Conference

Coach Johnson will address the local Nashville media every Monday of game week. Click below for the press conference transcript and game notes for the upcoming game.

Opening statement?

“Well, I’ll make an obvious statement — we had a very important win for our program. And I was very pleased with the way we did it. I don’t think we backed into the win. I think we played very well offensively, defensively. Our special teams contributed a lot to the win. That’s very satisfying. Hopefully we can continue to improve and carry this thing on to the end. Get some momentum for spring practice, recruiting, next year — it would help a lot. We’re continuing to work.”

On not “backing into the win”?

“I’m satisfied with the win, believe me. I don’t care how we get them. It was nice. Our offense was efficient. Our defense was aggressive. We had great special teams play against one of the best special teams performers in the history of NCAA football. Everybody rose to the occasion and, I thought, did extremely well.”

On winning on Senior Day?

“There were some happy guys in there. It’s always special on Senior Day. If you can make something special happen for them, it makes it a little more special for them. Those guys helped us to it. Nick Getter had a big catch in an early drive for a score. Those guys are still trying to contribute and do their part.”

On quarterback Jay Cutler, SEC Offensive Player of the Week?

“It’s important to win to have a chance to be recognized. Jay’s been a very good performer (all year), but when you throw four touchdown passes and run for 129 yards? He really did a great job of getting us in the right plays at the right time. I thought he was great in the leadership department Saturday. He really stepped up in that area. I think just the way he went about his job helped the whole football team. I think that’s a very well deserved honor for Jay and we’re glad he got it. Hopefully we can start a trend.”

On the Vanderbilt-Tennessee rivalry?

“I don’t think you have to have players from Tennessee to appreciate (the rivalry). But I think you have to have a more competitive rivalry for it to be the intensity of Auburn-Alabama, South Carolina-Clemson when I growing up, we have to step up our part and make this an interesting rivalry. Make it a rivalry because right now it really hasn’t been, I think they have won about 20 in a row. So hopefully we can end another streak.”

On Vanderbilt’s attitude after the win over Kentucky?

“Don’t make that mistake. Nobody around here thinks we have arrived. We’re going to try to even work harder this week. The point we’re trying to make to the guys is that if we would have played this well all year, we would have had a lot more victories. It’s under their control. It doesn’t guarantee you’re doing to win, but if we played as efficiently as we did against Kentucky against Navy, Georgia Tech, Mississippi maybe, Mississippi State, TCU. It’s up to them. We control a little bit of our own destiny. We could play very well against Tennessee and still not win, but it gives us a chance.”

On his explanation for Vanderbilt’s performance in Saturday’s win over Kentucky?

“Great coaching — it just had to be (Johnson laughs). Our assistant coaches worked extremely hard. Every week, as losses pile up, it gets a little bit harder and harder to go out and convince your guys that if you work hard in practice and do what we’re asking you to do, that you’re good enough to win. Our guys kept plugging at it. But I have to admit our guys came out fired up. The only real person that gets you fired up, as a football player, is yourself. The coaches help you get prepared, but you get yourself fired up, your teammates get you fired up. And they were fired up and really to play.”

On playing Tennessee?

“They’re a complete team now, with their offensive performance. I don’t know if you could ever question their offense. They’ve had some tough games, but they’ve got some great performances. (UT quarterback) Casey Clausen, look at his record. You can’t argue with it, as far as Tennessee goes, as far as the SEC goes, as far as the nation goes. You can’t overlook what’s he done at Tennessee. They have a great kicking game. And their defense has been great all year. We have a tough order. But I challenged the guys yesterday. This is not the time to go backwards, let’s go forward and see if we can duplicate a great effort this Saturday and give ourselves a chance to win.”

On comparisons to last year’s team going into the Tennessee game?

“It was tough. Nothing positive like the Kentucky game happened at this time last year, either. Last year we were down to nubs as far as people available to play. We were hunting people just to be able to fill out the roster. So it wasn’t really a very confident team that went down to the Coliseum to play. Hopefully we’ll be more confident this week. We have a tall order, of course. You go to Knoxville with 110,000 people cheering against you. Hopefully that’s going to help us get ready and play better. It’s going to be an exciting atmosphere, and you can’t argue with that. We’ve been down to the Swamp and those places, and this will be the big place.”

On the injury situation?

“We have Richard Freeman out — he was starting to come around as a defensive end. Dustin Dunning may not play this week. It’s been not as concentrated, like last year. It seemed like it all happened in the same position at the end of the year and we didn’t have any tailbacks available. It hasn’t been as bad, but several strategic injuries that have hurt us a little bit. Offensive line has hurt, obviously, but we have had some guys step up. Two freshmen, Tom Sorensen and Brian Stamper, and last week Ryan King stepped in for Justin (Geisinger) and did a good job. [Geisinger] did not injure his leg any more from what he tried to do in the game, he just didn’t feel confident that he could get his job done in the manner he’s used to doing it. That’s why he came out — he didn’t want to hurt the team. He felt that a fresh Ryan King going in there and being fired up was going to be better than what he could do with a hurt leg.”

On UT’s Neyland Stadium?

“I’ve only been to one game. I went over there and watched a practice one time when I was at Furman. I was a spectator once, but I think it has been added on to about 63 times since the time I went.”

On tailback Kwane Doster?

“I think he’ll be ready to go. He had a sore shoulder after the Florida game and then he got it bumped on Tuesday in a sort of fluky thing. We couldn’t seem to get it loosened up to the point that he could take a pounding out there at tailback, so if we could avoid putting him in there we were going to do that. We were fortunate to go without him in the game.”

On VU’s lack of upperclassmen?

“It is extremely encouraging for the future. We have no senior starters, very few on the roster. As these young players get a little better, I think they can see something a little brighter in the future, not only for them, but for the team. I think we have some redshirt-freshmen that we can add to the roster next year that are going to make us even better. But you have to realize that we’re competing in a tough league and those other teams are going to get better, too. That’s what we’re preaching to our guys — we have to make giants steps. These other teams are just adding on to their programs, we’re trying to make giant steps to compete in this league.”

On Commodores’ top 25 pass defense?

“I think the best thing that has happened to us this year is being able to get some pressure on quarterbacks all year. Not only out of some blitzes and some zone-blitzes, but our four-man rush has been fairly effective. Jovan Haye has stepped up and established himself as a top-notch defensive end, putting pressure on the passer and playing the run. Anytime you can get a little bit more pressure, it makes everybody better in your pass defense. We worked hard at that, and I think some people like Lorenzo Parker have stepped up. Bill Alford and Cheron Thompson have also. Dominique Morris played well for us last year and is playing well again this year. But I think those guys have gotten better. I’m going to knock on wood, because we’ve been fairly successful in playing some man-to-man, and those guys take a lot of pride in that and try to get better at it, and have been able to do that. If you can play man-to-man, sometimes you can get an extra rusher in there, or maybe two rushers, and put a little pressure on that quarterback.”

On Tennessee’s 20-consecutive wins over Vanderbilt?

“Unfortunately, we have too many streaks. Everybody wants to beat their rival, there’s no doubt about it. Our players are any different; our fans aren’t any different. But more important than ending streaks, we’re just trying to get better as a football team and those things will take care of themselves. We didn’t write down ‘end streaks’ as one of our goals this year, it’s not on the list. We have too many to choose from.”

On whether or not the Tennessee matchup is Vanderbilt “bowl game”?

“No. We’re going to treat bowl games as bowl games. The only way we’re going to do that is to get bowl eligible. That’s part of the process we’re trying to work through right now. It would be a great win, we’d be extremely happy. But right now, we’re not counting that as a bowl game.”

On the media’s attitude toward Vanderbilt?

“I think they believe in our players a little bit more now. Jay Cutler was one week away from being benched and now he’s SEC Offensive Player of the Week. I think they see that our guys try extremely hard, and to do that you have to work hard in practice and you have to want to improve. Our guys haven’t given up in any games, and they haven’t given up during the year. I think our fans appreciate what our players are doing.”

On the whereabouts of the goalposts?

“I think they are in many, many pieces. I’m glad they gave it to the students. We’re trying to build a little pride in our football program, not just in our players, but the whole university. I suspect that student crowd got a little bigger as the game went on. I think word got out that we were ahead and some of them came over ready to lend a hand in chopping down the goalposts. But it’s good if we can get our student body behind us. A big percentage of them are, but we like all the help we can get over here. So giving them the goalposts and letting them celebrate with them will help us.”

On Vanderbilt’s special teams play against Kentucky?

“It was fun. Jason Bourque — I don’t think (Derek) Abney saw him. He hit him right under the breast plate and racked him pretty good. Jason’s about 5-foot-6 and he was so fired up. It was great to see that happen. I think Ronnie Swoopes had a good lick in there. Ben Koger. Kelechi Ohanaja catching the punt on the one-yard line was a huge play for us. Special teams are extremely important, and its one phase that we treat jump as important as the other two, offense and defense. For the makeshift kicking crew that we have this year, I think that our guys have buckled down and really done a commendable job. Especially Ponch (punter Abtin Iranmanesh), and the kickers have hung in there as tough as they could. Special teams have not been that bad this year.”

On next year’s kicking prognosis?

“I think we’ve got a punter — I think Kyle Keown will be a good punter. We’re still evaluating the kicker situation. It’s hard to compete, to get yourself in a position to win and then not have the ability to get three points when you can’t stuff it in the endzone, and have something positive happen on a drive. So we’re going to look hard and we’ll evaluate that. We don’t have a lot of scholarships to give this year, so we’re trying to be extremely careful as to who we bring in at each position. We need help at several. That’s a tough question for us, and we’re trying to deal with that now.”

On the impact of the win on recruiting?

“We have a great product. I’ve said this over and over. We have a great university. We play in a great league. But until we could show some people that we could compete with people in this league, it was going to make getting the really good players a lot harder. We’re trying to tell them that we’re making progress, but until you see it in the paper, or we can call them up tonight or tomorrow night and tell them about the game — that’s a big, big help.”

On the impact of the reorganization on recruiting?

“I think it’s being used against us, but I think we’ve done a very good job explaining the situation. In a lot of cases, it’s turning out to be a positive for us. Especially guys who are excellent students and are looking for more than just football in their college experience.”