Aug. 29, 2014
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Vanderbilt – Temple Postgame Quotes
August 28, 2014
Vanderbilt Stadium
Vanderbilt Head Coach Derek Mason
Opening Comments:
“I put this on my shoulders. We did not do a good job of executing. Offensively, we couldn’t sustain drives. We couldn’t find any rhythm. Defensively, there were too many plays. We didn’t do a good job of setting edges. We had seven turnovers. It was a rough night at the office.”
On Vanderbilt’s quarterback change from Patton Robinette:
“We felt we needed to switch. We needed a different type of rhythm. We needed to jump start our offense a bit… This isn’t about one guy. This is about a football team. We just didn’t play well all the way around. We’ll find a way to be better.
“I told you we had three capable guys.”
On the loss of momentum after Temple’s fumble recovery for a touchdown just before halftime:
“We never got it back. We just kept playing from behind… We’ll get back at it tomorrow. We’ll learn from this and watch film. I have been here before. You take it, you learn from it, and we’ll coach our guys. We have nine days until the next game.”
On a 30-point loss:
“This loss is no different than a Notre Dame overtime loss. A loss is a loss, whether it’s 7-6 or 37-7… I don’t know what team can win with seven turnovers. We’ll get it right.
“You have to adapt and you have to adjust. In the end, we didn’t get it done. You evaluate everything you do… We’re not far away. We just didn’t execute tonight.”
On the weather delay:
“We kept our guys in the fold and waited it out. We got them up a couple of times to stretch… That’s no excuse, though. Temple dealt with the same elements.”
On whether Coach Mason sent mixed messages by pulling Patton Robinette:
“I don’t think Patton got the hook. Paton Robinette could be the guy next week. He just didn’t get off to a good start.”
OLB Kyle Woestmann
Game reaction:
“I know Coach Mason came in here said that it was on him and the coaches and that’s not the case at all. It was on us as players. They prepared us, the game plans were good, and we didn’t execute on the field. That’s on me, that’s on Joe [Townsend], that’s on our leadership, and we definitely have to take a different approach next week. Defensively, I thought we lost our fundamentals and that’s what hurt us. Missing tackles, not setting edges, and that’s what cost us. There were times we played lights out, and also times we lost our fundamentals. But, clearly, going into the next game, we’re gonna have to improve our conditioning and come back to basics. Make sure that on every snap everybody’s doing their job and that way we can be lights out the entire game.
“I just want to say that I’m proud of the young guys. There were a lot of guys playing tonight that hadn’t played yet, and I think they did a heck of a job. Temple also did a great job executing their game plan, and we definitely have to turn it around and pick it up.”
On where game started to get away:
“I think momentum is a heck of a thing in football, and they definitely got some big momentum swings. Sometimes we did a good job of holding them to a field goal, made them miss one, and a couple times we did not do a good job and I think we never really got the momentum back and that’s something you’ve gotta do on defense. You’ve gotta make big plays and sudden change to swing the momentum back and we did not do that at times tonight. We kind of let momentum roll and couldn’t turn it back around again.”
Comparing this loss to last season’s opening loss vs. Ole Miss:
“I’m gonna tell you something I told the defensive guys in the locker room. This time last year we were sitting in the locker room after giving up 39 points on defense to Ole Miss in a bad loss. What we did was we came to work and got better, corrected film, corrected techniques, then came back and played great defensive football the rest of the season. We’re gonna get back at it tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday, as long as we’ve got to in order to get ready to make sure this season ends up where we all plan and expect it to.”
OL Joe Townsend
Game reaction:
“We just got beat. We’ve gotta get better all across the board. Being an offensive lineman, being a center, I take great pride as an offensive lineman and I didn’t play as well as I needed to to allow the rest of the guys to make plays. We’ve gotta get better up front and there’s no pointing fingers. No one played well across the board and it starts with us so we’ve just gotta move pass this, get ready for Ole Miss and get better one day at a time.”
On state of team:
“We lost a football game, it’s not the end of the world. We’re gonna watch the film, correct it, move on and get ready to play next week.”
Temple Head Coach Matt Rhule
On what the team win means to the program:
“You know what I’m excited about is I don’t think I showed them anything. The team showed they did that. They picked all those passes off. They handled adversity. Even though they fumbled the snap in the end zone, they find a way. I was just pleased for them. They learned that if you prepare, put your heart and soul on the line and go out and play hard, things will happen.”
On defeating an SEC opponent:
“I think it’s just great for our conference. We have tremendous amount of respect for the SEC. But this is a great win for the American Conference to come down and get a win like this.
Preparing against Vanderbilt:
“We watched a lot of Stanford film and film of the Houston Texans where their offensive coordinator came from. But at the end of the day, we said let’s just do our deal and hope for the best.”
On maintaining pressure throughout the game:
“That was the crux of the game to me. Could our defensive line hang with their offensive line and vice versa? Right from the beginning, I think Praise [Martin-Oguike] hit the quarterback and Sharif [Finch] hit the quarterback. And we could put other guys in. Avery Robinson gets in and returns the fumble back. I would hate to say surprised but I was pleasantly surprised that we were able to hang in there so well on the d-line.”
On the way his defensive played overall:
“Defense had a shutout. I was just happy that so many different guys did it. To see our defensive line play at that level and see us pick balls off, I’m really happy about that. Every guy we weren’t redshirting, so I think about 69 guys, played tonight which was really great for us.”
On handling adversity during the game:“This was all them. They bought into the fact that adversity is going to come and to expect it. Even at halftime, let’s want this game to come down to the last play of the game. That’s how we want to play. We want to play that’s the brand of football. We didn’t prove that tonight. We got up early and the game was over. We want to win it at the end and that still lies ahead of us.”
Temple QB PJ Walker
On starting the season strong:
“We finished the season last year with a win. So, we wanted to come out here and start the season off with a win. We came up with a lot of energy and juice. We were held back due to the lightning, but it didn’t phase us. We play off havoc. All our guys were out here and ready to play.”
On finishing the game:
“We did a great job today of finishing. That was one thing I was proud of with the team. We finished, we kept fighting and we didn’t let up at all.”
On playing an SEC team:
“I feel like it is a rewarding victory, but they strap their pads on just like we do. That’s the way I look at it. I just feel like if we strap our pads up, and get ready to ball, we can beat anybody.”
Temple DB Tavon Young
On key to the defense turnover margin:
“Our main thing coming into the game was to get turnovers. We knew they were an SEC team they were smart. So I knew we were going to have to make the plays to win the game”
On wearing the #1 jersey:
“It’s a very good thing to me. The first nine numbers on the team are for the top guys. I didn’t come up with the first eight, and the last one (number) came up between three people. Everybody voted me to wear it for this game, and hopefully I can keep wearing it.”
On getting two interceptions in today’s game:
“Interceptions are good. I do it for the team though. It’s not just about me. I just worry about making plays, and make sure the offense gets back on the field. It’s just all about the team.”
Temple LB Tyler Matakevich
On the weather before the game:
“no,>
On the win tonight:
“This is tremendous. After what happened last year, starting a season like this- it’s a phenomenal feeling. We knew what this team could do last year, we just kept coming up short. We just really wanted to set the tone right now. It’s a great start, but we still have a long way to go.”
On the defense’s shutout:
“All my life it has been a defensive game, and this year we’ve just been saying that if we don’t let the opponent score, they can’t win. If we keep doing that, and keep giving PJ and the offense the ball, we’re going to be unstoppable. We have a long way to go though still.”
On young players in Temple’s secondary today:
“Tavon (Young) came up big today, he had two interceptions and stuff like that. The D-line, I mean it starts up front, and they got it going right away. From the first snap they got pressure on them and they really had no answer for it.”
On whether they are breaking through defensively after last year’s struggles:
“Oh, absolutely. We really just sat down, and studied the details. Even in our base package like today, Coach will say something and I’ll be writing it down, like `Oh my god, I didn’t know that.’ There are just so many things in his defense, and every day we’re learning more and more. Like today, I think we had seven turnovers. We’re definitely going to enjoy this one, but we’ve got to come back to work next week.”
On how they were able to hold on after seemingly momentum-killing plays:
“We just stuck together. Right when it happened, we went up to him and said, ‘don’t’ worry about it, we got you.’ I think that’s the biggest difference. When all the defensive guys came over to the sidelines we were like, ‘we got you.’ That’s pushed our team to the next level from last year.”
