Sept. 15, 2015
Mason | Herring, Kentera & Pulley | Gameday Central | Game Notes
Head coach Derek Mason, linebacker Darreon Herring, wide receiver Kris Kentera and offensive lineman Spencer Pulley met the media Tuesday to discuss Vanderbilt’s next game against Austin Peay. Kickoff is set for Saturday at 3 p.m. CT at Vanderbilt Stadium.
Vanderbilt Coach Derek Mason
Opening statement:
“We’ve got an Austin Peay team coming in here 0-2. They are trying to get their first win. We’re trying to get our first victory as well. This football team is focused, meaning our football team. We had a chance to get back on the grass today and get some corrections done. Make sure it is back to fundamentals – this game is going to be about us. Our football team has been close. But close is not good enough. From a talent standpoint, we feel like our guys are developing and working hard to get better. I’m excited about another opportunity that is in front of us, going to play good football. I believe we will do that.
“We’ve got to clean up some areas. We’ve started games slow. We haven’t scored points in the first quarter or third quarter. For us, we need to start fast. That was the focus of today’s practice, getting on the grass, making sure we get out there and start fast. Trying to make sure we can create our own energy through execution. That’s a good part of what we’ve been working on and what we have to do this week in order to start fast. We have to clean up special teams. Two weeks in a row, whether it is a muffed punt in week one or a punt return in week two, special teams has had some bright spots but it has also been sort of an Achilles heel. We just have to continue to keep working because we’re close – we’re extremely close. Our guys understand we have to continue to work on the things that give us the chance because just competing is not good enough. It is competition and execution that gives you a chance to play good football and we’re close.”
What is the key to cleaning up special teams?
“Execution. Playing better. For us, the schemes are sound. Guys do a good job in practice of understanding that. But you have to trust your training. When you get in the heat of battle, it is just about trusting your training of staying in the moment and being focused. We still have a young football team that is learning how to do that. They are competing and playing hard but the focus comes by just repetitively putting these guys under stress in practice. So that practice becomes playing. So there is no difference between what we do in practice and what we do in games. We just have to continue to stress the moment, continue to get these guys to execute better and hopefully the results are what you see on Saturday.”
What are the sources of the slow starts in the first and third quarter?
“I’m trying to diagnose everything that happens in our games and through practice; we just have to execute better. We haven’t been a heavily penalized team. But offensively we’re having penalties in the first drive. That stalls drives. When you get yourself in first and 15 and second and 17, those are hard situations to overcome. We just have to be better in games at being able to create our own momentum by just staying in the moment. The penalties we’re having are just lapses in focus. Let’s make sure we calm our guys down. Let’s get out there and play the way we know we’re capable of playing. I believe in that we can sustain some drives, gain some momentum and continue to push forward.”
Anything you can do in practice to reemphasize taking care of the football?
“Looking at the turnovers… we’re not getting turnovers. We haven’t been opportunistic. And there have been opportunities there. We have to get the ball turned over. There have been two games where we have no turnovers. That is never a good stat. Conversely, you look at what we’re doing offensively. We’re moving the football. We are able to gain yards. Decision-making is critical. I believe we have to continue to help (quarterback) Johnny (McCrary). We’re doing that. He has been calm at times and you’ve seen flashes of greatness. He’s struggled at times with just making the right decision at the right time. You’re going to live with some of that, but he has to get better every week. We’re challenging him to get better and he will get better. The thing our receivers have to do is help Johnny out. There were too many missed opportunities. Johnny at times made great throws, made great plays but we have to be consistent, consistent all the way around on offense, defense, special teams. Getting turnovers off the map and making sure we create some.”
How do you approach playing an FBS school, knowing it is different than the opponent (No. 10 Georgia) you played last week?
“Right now, our football team has a lot to clean up. For us, it is the next game. It is an opponent that is looking to get a win just like we are. With that, this game is more about us. I really don’t care who the opponent is, it just happens to be Austin Peay. For us, we have to make sure we clean up our fundamentals whether we’re talking about tackling, execution, special teams, offense, defense. We have to clean up what we need to clean up, go out and play a great game and the outcome is going to be the outcome. We want that thing to be positive so let’s continue to do the work.”
Center Spencer Pulley
On staying away from the blame game within the team:
“It’s not really a problem. We don’t really listen to the outside noise and what everyone is saying. Obviously, we’ve had problems in the red zone and not finishing drives. That is not something we place on one person. That is a whole offense statistic. We take that on our shoulders as the offensive line as well as everybody else does. It’s not a one person thing. In the locker room there isn’t any blame placed on one side of the ball or on one position.”
On slow starts:
“You definitely have to start fast in football. That is just something we have to get better at executing when we come out. We’ve had great drives, but we haven’t been able to finish it. That is definitely going to be a huge point of emphasis: finishing drives and getting the ball in the end zone.”
On winning the turnover battle:
“Turnovers are a huge factor in wins and losses if you look at all games across college football. That is something we definitely have to work on. As an offense we have to protect the ball. It’s got to be No. 1 priority. It starts with the offensive line, goes to quarterback and skill positions. It is definitely a huge thing that we are working on and plan to improve on.”
Wide Receiver Kris Kentera
On facing Austin Peay:
“Our mindset is to go out like it is any other game. We are facing Austin Peay this week and our goal is to go 1-0. It doesn’t matter who we play; that is our main goal each week.”
On success in hurry-up offense:
“We rep it a lot in practice. We are always dong the two-minute and that is the same situation we are doing when we go to hurry-up. You don’t really think, you more react. We have a bunch of players on the team who can go make plays when they have the ball in their hand. A lot of it is getting over the mental block of, `what am I going to do on this play?’ You know what is going to happen on that play. You know your route. It is just a quick way to get the ball into people’s hands and let them make plays.”
On Johnny McCrary’s play in the red zone:
“It’s not just Johnny, it’s everybody. He’s one person of the 11 people we have out there. We all have to step up in that situation. It’s an offensive time to produce and we haven’t done that recently. We made great strides this past week to start performing and scoring points in the red zone.”
Linebacker Darreon Herring
On Johnny McCrary’s red zone performance in preseason camp
“During the red zone in camp, he (McCrary) played phenomenally, all the quarterbacks did well. We would just like to see a lot more of that on game day. But he’s still young and he still has a lot that he’s going to do. I’m confident and the defense is confident that he’s going to get better.”
On defense not having forced a turnover this season:
“Yeah, that bugs us a lot. As a defense we should have more turnovers… just more opportunities of dropping the ball and ripping the ball when the running back or receiver has it. But that’s something that we’ve been working and improving on in practice this week. We’re doing different things and drills to get the turnover margin up.”
Practice drills to generate turnovers
“We work on it at practice. If the ball carrier has the ball the first person goes in for the tackle and the second person comes in and strips the ball and different things like that…. Just breaking to the ball and everybody running to the ball, because that’s where plays happen.”
Main differences between last season’s defense and this season’s:
“Coach Mason taking over the defense, and I guess our mentality has changed a lot just as far as knowing what to do more and having our backs up against the wall down there. We’re a lot more stout and smart as a team, and I think that’s been a part of our success for us.”
Scouting Austin Peay’s offense:
“They’ve got some pretty good backs… a huge back in #28 (Taye Davis), he’s like 6’3″, 240, so tackling him is going to be a big emphasis for us this week. But they’re a young team and still growing up, but they do a lot of great things that we will have to form a game plan on and get ready for this week.”
Outlook on playing a FCS school:
“We’re really not going in and looking at it as a FCS school. We’re going into it as if we’re playing an SEC opponent, each week, we don’t really look at what division they’re in. We go out there each Saturday like all the teams are the same.”