Sept. 6, 2014
Recap | Box Score | Notes | SEC Nation Photos 
| Russell’s Photos | USATSI Photos
Vanderbilt Head Coach Derek Mason
Opening Comments:
“Give credit to Coach [Freeze] and his football team. They played well and had a good game plan. We didn’t get off the field on third down… We need to continue to look at ways of getting better, and we will.”
“We worked on third down [this week] like we did last week. We’ll continue to look, tweak, and adjust.”
On Vanderbilt Quarterback Stephen Rivers:
“We wanted to get more. You’re always looking to make plays. I thought there were opportunities for our wide receivers to make plays. I thought there were opportunities for Stephen [Rivers] to make throws. We’re going through the process of being young.”
“He looked solid [in practice]. He did a good job of leading us in practice. It wasn’t about Rivers [today]. It doesn’t fall on one guy. We still need to have our guys make plays. We can still eek out more in that run game.”
On Whether the Team is Frustrated:
“In that locker room, I see the same fight in that group. From the outside, you’re trying to find fault and blame… It’s about being able to execute… As we continue to go along, we’ll continue to get better.”
On Vanderbilt’s Ground Game:
“Until our quarterback play is stable to open up other options in our offense, [the run game will be important]. We want to get the ball to players early on the perimeter… [Until all of that happens], we still have to continue to move the ball downfield. When we executed, we moved the chains.”
On the Absence of Vanderbilt Running Back Jerron Seymour:
“I felt like I didn’t see the guy I saw on film. He moved well early in the week, but toward the end of the week, he looked slow and sluggish.”
On Ole Miss Quarterback Bo Wallace:
“Bo did a nice job… With a lack of a pass rush, we did more to us than [Ole Miss] did to us. We can get those things corrected. Bo did a good job of making good throws.”
On Ole Miss’ Interception Return for a Touchdown:
“There’s never a good time for that. The throw was errant, the ball was low, and the defensive back made a great play. You want opportunities like that for yourself.”
Vanderbilt QB Stephen Rivers
On how frustrating it was out there:
“It was pretty frustrating. They definitely brought some pressures, some good pressures. It definitely got us out of rhythm pretty consistently and we are unable to get a rhythm going”
On throwing an interception right after half time and how damaging that was to the confidence of winning:
“We were confident we can get out of there and get seven and get ourselves back into the game. It was one of those plays I shouldn’t have thrown it. I saw an opening and went for it and he wasn’t there and I shouldn’t throw that. But yeah, that kind of hurt since we went out there with positive attitude and we want to get back to the game, so that’s on me.”
Tight End Steven Scheu
On offensive touchdowns:
“There is a lot of frustration because we know what we’re capable of. We do it in practice every week; we see how talented we are and then we come out here… It seems like we get a string of plays going that are very positive plays, and all of a sudden we will get a penalty or some boneheaded mistake that puts us back to second and 15 or second and 18 and that’s tough for any offence to overcome. We’re staying positive, and as long as we stay tight as a group we’ll come out of this.”
On playing one QB:
“It was nice. We have a lot of faith in Stephen (Rivers). We love playing for him and it’s nice to be able to get in a rhythm, because every quarterback is different. It was nice to be able to develop a relationship with a quarterback and stick with him for one game. We saw some positive things later on in the game, but it was just tough on him.”
On going for the field goal in the fourth quarter:
“We were trying to go for the touchdown, but after a couple of pretty tough plays consecutively I can see why we kicked the field goal.”
Running Back Ralph Webb
On offense:
“I feel like offensive line is doing a great job in terms of running the ball. I just think we need to work on the passing game to complement it and be able to space out the field. We’ll take it to practice this week and work on keeping drives alive and converting downs.”
On Ole Miss’ defensive adjustments:
“I think they loaded the box because we were doing well with the running game. We just have to execute a little better in terms of the passing game, just get the ball rolling, and getting it to different receivers. In terms of running the ball, I think we did pretty well.”
On playing at LP Field:
“I just go out there and play football each and every Saturday. No matter what stadium we might play in, my team is prepared to win and that’s the ultimate goal.”
Linebacker Darreon Herring
On third down defense:“We just gotta learn to get off the field, in a sense. When we come to third down we just gotta be hands down and play the passes. They ran a lot on first and second down then they decided to throw so we’ve just got to be aware of those kinds of things and just play the pass and get off the field.”
On developing a 3-4 defense:
“There’s not too much of a growing pain, there’s nothing that we haven’t seen in practice. It’s just execution. We’ve just got to come out here and do what we do in practice. All these route combinations that they’re doing, we’ve seen them before. There’s nothing new, we’ve just got to execute a lot better than we did and get off the field.”
On missing last year’s seniors:
“It’s tough but every team goes through it. You lose people all the time you just have to keep working and keep executing. That’s the main thing. We’re a lot better than what the score says, last game and this game. We just have to keep working.”
Defensive lineman Vince Taylor
Game reaction:
“It was very frustrating, but they’re a pretty good team and they executed very well. We just have to keep working. It was frustrating.”
On picking up routes:
“It’s not much of us not seeing [routes], but we do have a lot of young guys playing. I’m actually kind of proud of those guys who’ve never played on this level of crowd against these level teams.”
Ole Miss Head Coach Hugh Freeze
On the game:
“We’re excited to get a road, SEC win and I thought our kids played a pretty solid game. Bo Wallace really managed us well. We played really solid defensively. I was a bit concerned before the game that we were a little flat. I do expect that though and I’ve always believed you don’t get your kids up to their emotional peak but two or three times a year. But good teams will still go out and execute and find a way to win games. There are a lot of individual efforts to talk about. I’m really thrilled that everyone who made the trip got into the game and got their chance to play. Those kids practice a lot and you never know when their time will come to where they have to step in and play so it was really good to see that also.”
On the play of the offense:
“We’ve certainly had success throwing the ball. I couldn’t tell you that it was the way we thought it would go coming in but Bo (Wallace) did a good job reading his progression. I think we have a good plan on offense. If we’re running the ball it certainly helps your pass game and we were running halfway decent to start the game.”
On the play of the defense:
“Theoretically, in my mind, I’ll give them a shutout. We had a fumble down there and they held them to a field goal and that’s all they can really do in that scenario. I think our defense has a chance to be good. We stopped the run primarily and we got some pressure on the quarterback and we didn’t give up explosive plays and I think that’s key for us this year. We want to make people drive to earn points and I think we did that well.”
On Cliff Coleman’s 39-yard interception return for a touchdown to start the second half:
“I’m really proud to see us take control of the game and to seeing our defense get that pick six was big. That really did take control of the game. I felt we had a chance to score more points in the first half, we dropped a touchdown and then they got us with two shifts that cost us another one. It easily could have been 28-0 at half and we didn’t convert. We took control of the game with that play and then the offense scored on the first drive of the second half.”
Kicker Andrew Fletcher
On his early success this year:
“It definitely is nice, I’m glad I can help the team out and get them six points.”
On comparing the stress of competing to start versus playing in a real game:
“It’s almost easier out there than it is in practice. You’ve got coaches yelling at you, and other kickers trying to make it, so it definitely helped me prepare mentally.”
Running Back Jordan Wilkins
On getting increased playing time and the offense’s success:
“It’s better. There’s some things we need to work on and sharpen up, but I’m enjoying it.”
On the running game this week:
“The O-line did their job, didn’t mess up their blocking schemes, stayed onsides, and basically just did a good job.”
On how good the offense can be:
“Very good. We just need to stay on schedule and find our landmarks and keep moving the ball and it will be very hard to stop us.”
Tight End Evan Engram:
On offense’s performance:
“I think the whole offense just came up to play, we had some runs open up. Coaches went in there knew we had a good game plan and we came to play and we came with some intensity and our offense was just clicking well”
On a better first half than last week:
“We wanted to come in this week rolling red, we didn’t want to mess around with anyone’s star. We didn’t want to give anyone any confidence. We wanted to get them quick and I think we definitely did that today”
On tempo of the offense:
“It definitely hurt them, we could tell in their demeanor and whatever that they were kind of tapping out so we kind of wanted to put our foot on the pedal even more”
Quarterback Bo Wallace
On the Vanderbilt defense:
“They gave us exactly what we thought. They played a lot of one high. We had a game plan against a couple of looks they like to play, and we were able to take advantage of that.”
On the win:
“Obviously there are things we have to clean up. Defense has been doing a great job of getting us the ball so we can run some plays. But there are always things to clean up, so we’ll watch the film tomorrow and I’m sure we won’t feel as good about it as we do now.”
On his performance:
“I knew that I couldn’t force the ball, and I think I did a good job of not doing that today. I feel good about how I played.
“On the third down where Laquon was 1 on 1, I thought about throwing the ball up to him. But third down, we’re in the red zone. Let’s just throw it out of bounds. Laquon was actually mad at me for it. I told him you play receiver and I’ll play quarterback.”
On Ryan Buchanan getting to play:
“That was fun for me. I was watching Ryan warmup and I was just laughing at him because you could tell he was a little nervous. But it was good, I think he did a really good job.”