Nov. 21, 2015
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Vanderbilt — Texas A&M Postgame Quotes
Nov. 21, 2015
Vanderbilt Stadium
Vanderbilt Head Coach Derek Mason
Opening Comments:
“I’d like to give credit to Coach Sumlin and Texas A&M. They had a good game plan. They came out and spread the field. They kept us off balance. For us, it was about untimely opportunities to get off the field… We couldn’t get anything going offensively… The momentum-changing play was the big TD in the second quarter. We had third down. We called time out. We came back and went down the sideline. That play changed what was happening… We have to move the ball. We have to score points. We can’t be a one-dimensional team.”
On Vanderbilt’s offense:
“We were able to run the ball well, but we have to have a balanced run-pass. You have to make plays. You have to make sure all the pressure isn’t on Ralph [Webb] and the run game. It had to do with balancing the run and the pass and not having opportunities to extend drives.”
On switching quarterbacks:
“I don’t know that the quarterback switching was a big deal… What you saw from a consistency standpoint, even when the quarterback stayed in, is we didn’t make plays… We wanted to see if Johnny [McCrary] could give us a spark.”
On receivers separating from defenders:
“We’re young… You need someone to make a play.”
On Vanderbilt’s defense:
“We gave up six field goals [other than the long TD]. That’s an SEC football team with four- and five-star players and a ton of talent. They hit one play for a TD. The rest of the time, they kicked field goals… I’ll keep encouraging these kids to fight… We have a big game coming up versus Tennessee and we’ll prepare for that.”
On the blustering winds:”You saw some 10- and 15-yard punts. You saw some passes sail…. The wind had everything to do with that.”
On What Coach Mason Told Vanderbilt’s Seniors:
“I love them. We didn’t want to send our seniors out like that, but you don’t have control over everything… We need to pay it forward to these guys against Tennessee.”
On Vanderbilt RB Ralph Webb going over 1,000 yards for the season:
“It’s great that Ralph made that mark. He played extremely well. He has been the one constant for us offensively who has done everything that he was advertised to do.”
On Texas A&M RB Tra Carson:
“Early on, we got him off the field… He’s a strong back. He does a good job of breaking tackles… It was a good night for him, but I think that had more to do with us than him.”
OL Spencer Pulley
On Ralph Webb surpassing 1,000 rushing yards on the season:
“Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s awesome for Ralph and the offense. Ralph’s a great player who plays hard, and the offensive line and the whole offense have worked hard to get the running game going, so that’s good. It’s good for the season, I guess, but we wish we had done more of that tonight.”
On what prevented the offense from making long drives:
“We had a couple of good drives in the first half, then we just made too many mistakes or penalties, got us behind the chains and couldn’t finish the drives. Coming out in the second half, we never really got it going again. You give them credit, they came out and played well, changed some things up on their defense. They were moving around, doing some kind of exotic looks and what not, but we just didn’t play well enough to win.”
On what slowed the offense in the first half:
“First drive, we had a few mistakes football-wise during plays. The second drive, we just had too many pre-snap penalties, which is unacceptable. Guys not set in the line or moving when the defense moves, just little things that we work on that can’t happen.”
On if freshmen playing O-Line contributed to those issues:
“At this point in the season you can’t really say that there are really any freshmen anymore. Everybody who’s out on the field is supposed to be out on the field. They’ve been playing this season, and they’re no longer freshmen anymore. It’s just an aspect of focusing and doing the things they’re supposed to do.”
On failing to reach bowl eligibility:
“It’s obviously very disappointing. I think the other seniors definitely deserved that. They’ve put in the work for four to five years, but this year, we didn’t quite do enough. You can put that on me and some of the leaders on this team, and I’ll take that, getting the team ready to play this team right here and not getting the win.”
RB Ralph Webb
On the offense’s frustration:
“It’s difficult right now. We just have to get back to the drawing board and get back to work on Sunday. We know we’ve got to be more efficient, and you can’t play behind the chains, so those penalties are drive killers. We’ve got to make sure we play in front of the chains, let’s not play behind.”
On reaching 1,000 yards rushing on the season:
“I’m very appreciate and thankful for the offensive line doing a great job all year, allowing me to get the runs that I got, but at the end of the day, I just want to get the win with my team.”
On being shutout:
“It hurts. We’re supposed to score points. Obviously something’s not going right if we’re not scoring points. We’re very disappointed, but we’re going to make sure we look at the film, analyze it, and get better.”
DE Caleb Azubike
On the small victories of forcing field goals:
“I did see that as small victories, but I’m used to that from our defense. We’ve been playing a hard, tough defense all year long, so that’s not something that surprised me. The way we’ve been playing all year set us up to have a pretty good game, and when you look at it from a bird’s eye view, what you want is a defensive effort where you were able to shut the offense out. I know personally we had some goals we wanted to achieve as a defense, and that just didn’t happen. That’s just something we have to put on our backs and shoulders, and go to work tomorrow, and come prepared to play. We have one more game on our schedule that’s been given to us, and we just have to take advantage of it.”
On moving on from this loss to face Tennessee:
“You don’t necessarily want to forget what happened. You want to assimilate what happened. As a football player, you have to learn how to assimilate and move on. Not necessarily just move on, but take what you’ve learned from the game, and take that and adapt that to the next game. I feel like as a defense we’re just going to watch the tape and correct what needs to get corrected. There’s a saying, `when you lose, you’re not as bad as you think you are, and when you win, you’re not as good as you think you are,’ and I truly and firmly believe that. I think as a defense we just have to come to work, do what we do every week, and next week we have another one.”
On not getting to go back to a bowl:
“Looking at it, it is the last home game on my senior schedule. I definitely wanted to win here tonight, that would have made my night, but talking to coach, talking to my team, talking to Darreon [Herring], all we have to do is come back and work harder. We understand how bad this feels, so the only way to ease the pain is to go out and put a beating on the team we have next week. We’re going to come out as a defense and know what we did wrong, I’m not particularly proud of how we played, but that’s just a part of the game. You have to learn how to fix, and learn how to correct, and learn how to move on. As a defense we’re just going to move on, and watch our team get better, and make sure those guys aren’t putting their heads out. They put an amazing effort out tonight, it just didn’t go our way. We’re going to work on composing ourselves, and make sure we’re ready for the game next week.”
On keeping the offense away from field goal territory:
“It’s just understanding, as a defense, how to play together. Football is the ultimate team sport as Coach Mason says, so as a team we understand not to let little leaks get by us. When we have the chance to tackle, we have to rap up. That was a big issue tonight, not rapping up on tackles. They have a lot bigger backs than we were normally accustomed to, but we have to learn how to tackle them. As a team we have to go back to the drawing board, and understand what we lapsed in, and what we did well in, and move on and understand that this game doesn’t define us and how good our defense has been all season. This is just a stump in the road, and we’re just going to learn how to get over it.”
LB Darreon Herring
On Texas A&M’s 95 yard touchdown:
“That play really didn’t deter us at all. We just had to come out there with a mindset for the next couple of series. We were going to fix it and move on.”
On whether A&M’s 95-yard touchdown diminishes the effort of the defense:
“I think its still a really good effort. The defense went out with this high-powered offense. Besides that touchdown, they kicked six field goals, and the long touchdown didn’t deteriorate us. Things happen, they’re going to make plays. They have great receivers and a good quarterback so we just had the mindset that after that, it wasn’t going to happen again.”
On how Texas A&M’s offense was different than previously played teams:
“Going into this week, I think that they had a lot of rushing yards last week against their opponent. This week we focused on stopping the run. They kind of spread us out. We had to get adjusted each and every series, and come to the sideline and regroup as a team and see the things that they were doing. I think we adjusted well toward the end when third quarter when they started spreading us out more.”
On playing behind as a defense:
“At the end of the day we’re a team. Defense made some mistakes out there, there were some dropped interceptions that could have put the offense in good field position for them to score. It would have definitely helped if the offense had scored some points for us, but at the end of the day we’re a team. Special teams needs to go out there and score some points. They had a number of opportunities on show time or kickoff return to run it back. Just as a team we have got to get better and stop looking around for someone to make a big play.”
On not going to a bowl game:
“It’s definitely disappointing, but at the end of the day next week we have another game and that’s just another opportunity for me to go out with my brothers and play for each other and beat UT.”
On whether morale can be brought back up before the game against UT:
“It definitely can be brought up. This isn’t our first loss of the season. Most of the time when you do lose, teams just come back stronger. It’s just a learning opportunity for us to go out there and practice harder. Even though we’re not bowl eligible, the players still play for each other. Everybody on the team, including the seniors and all the other young players, they’re going to play their heart out to send us out with this last victory.”
Texas A&M Coach Kevin Sumlin
On second half defense:
“I thought we played with a lot of energy. From the start of the game to the end of the game we made some adjustments, but our guys flew around and made plays. I understand that was our first shutout since 2004. That’s a heck of an effort by our defense and defensive staff, particularly on the road in league play. We’ve had issues across the board in all phases — offense, defense, special teams at times this year, but defensively, can we get better? Yes, but, we’ve gotta be happy with their effort tonight.”
On keeping the “0” on the scoreboard:
“That’s always important. With the guys, there wasn’t a whole lot of chatter about it, but we could feel it on the sideline. I thought our guys took the field with energy every time with a purpose and played with confidence. That’s something we can build on. That’s not just a Saturday night situation, that’s an energy deal and a preparation deal Monday through Friday. The way we approached it last week we need to approach it this week.”
On offense:
“We moved the ball. Kyle [Allen] came out early and was accurate and really even when we didn’t score, we did move the ball and create momentum on the field. That worked hand-in-hand. Drew [Kaser] had another outstanding night punting the ball. This is a defense that’s leading the league in red zone defense. They’re salty in there and we’ve gotta get better in there. We were able to move the ball and Taylor Bertolet was a weapon for us. On the road, sure we’d like to have more touchdowns. What I do think we did a good job of was taking care of the ball. We didn’t have any turnovers.”
On momentum for next week:
“Our special teams were outstanding tonight. We blocked a punt, we should have gotten another one. Christian [Kirk], going the other way, with the wind going the other way, it’s harder going against the wind than with it. We got a good return out of him. We covered well with our kickoffs and our punts. Our special teams were really solid when we had to be to create some `on the fields’ for them offensively — whether it was kickoff or when we did punt. So we moved the ball… we gotta get better but Kyle [Allen] did what we asked him to do…we stalled out on drops. We had way too many penalties. That hadn’t been our M.O., but we had 10 penalties tonight and that’s just not us. Being on the road that’s something we’re going to have to address this week because we’re going to be on the road again.
“It’s a pretty happy locker room. To get the first shutout in 11 years with what this team has been through this year, we’re far from overconfident but we needed to get some confidence. If there was ever a situation from the team to go through this game on the road and not turn the ball over and block a punt and shut out the team — there’s some things, some real positive things. Where we are right now is a really good place to be.”
On Bertolet’s six field goals:
“He’s been solid all year. He missed one, but the guy is kicking off and doing a really good job for us this year — particularly in this type of game where you know you might be called upon because of the red zone defense that we faced. We had somebody call him `Perolot’ out there today. Did we want him to do all that today? To set field goal records? Probably not, but especially on a day like today, he’s doing his job and I’m happy for him.”
On the fans who traveled:
“I just want to say how much our team, our coaching staff, appreciate our fans traveling. You’re not really supposed to pay attention to anything like that but to look up there at the start of the 4th quarter and see I don’t know how many of our fans were there, but it was really special. To be on the road, to be this far away and to have that many people in the room — I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it as a team and how much I appreciate it as a coach and our players appreciate it. The energy on the field — that really helped us tonight and I just want to say thank you.”
DL Alonzo Williams
On defense in the second half:
“We fixed a couple of things. Everyone came together and said that we needed to play the run more since they were going to try and denominate us by running the ball more. We put a big emphasis on stopping the run this week.”
On allowing 27 passing yards:
“We’ve got two of the best defensive ends in the country and they’ll wreak havoc on the quarterback. They did a very good job of pressuring him. Our safeties and corners did a great job in covering.”
On the shutout:
“The first one in 11 years. My first one. All of the seniors’ first one. It was great. We came in at halftime and said ‘let’s try and get a shutout’ and we ended up pulling it off. Everyone came together, worked hard and we pulled it off.”
On this being a complete team win:
“Everybody was clicking on all the phases. I think we did a good job of playing as a team”.
DL Daeshon Hall
On the shutout:
“We played complete defense tonight. We got interceptions, some fumbles, sacks, TFLs. I feel like this was our most complete defensive game so far”.
On needing this after struggling this season:
“It’s always good to have production defensively. We were struggling a little bit and it was fun to get out of it”.
Keys to shutting down Webb:
“We had a good game plan. Coach Chavis and the defensive staff really knew what they were doing and they put us in good position to make plays.”
On what it’s like getting a complete team win:
“It’s always fun. Like Coach Sumlin and Coach Price always say `It’s always fun when you win.’ To have everyone contributing to a team win, it’s fun.”
On what this win means looking forward to next week:
“We know that we can stop the run. We know that we can play good team defense. Hopefully, that’ll carry into next week.”
QB Kyle Allen
On the emotion of getting a big road win in the SEC:
“I’m a pretty even-keeled guy. Not much stuff phases me. I just know in my heart that whatever’s going to happen is going to happen, and it’s for a reason. I’m very excited for the team for the performance we put on. Obviously, we’d like to score a lot more touchdowns. We stalled out a lot in the red zone and stuff like that. We moved the ball on them very well and that’s not something a lot of teams have done in the SEC. I’m very proud of the way our team played and the guys on defense were playing their butts off. Running up and down the field making great plays. I thought it was a very good team victory.”
On the 95-yard touchdown pass:
“Yeah, there were a lot of times during the game when Coach Spavital just said, ‘Let’s run verticals and let’s see if we can run by these fools.’ That was a third down play I think 3rd-and-10. That was about all we could do right there when they load the box. So, we said, ‘screw it’ and just threw it deep. Josh [Reynolds] told me early that he had been beating them off the line over and over again. So, I just gave something he could handle and he took it to the house. That was huge.”
On how much that one played shifted momentum:
“It was big. Because I think earlier in the drive before they were stopping us and we had a lot of tackles for loss, and they had a lot of confidence. I think after we hit that big touchdown that kind of took the wind out of them.”
On the emotion of being put in the starting role after three games:
“You know it’s the same every week. I don’t like to change my mindset. Going into the season I set goals for what I wanted to do. I set parameters for the entire week, what I wanted to do no matter where I was; starting or not starting. So, really nothing much changed maybe just a more level of intensity because I knew that I was going to start. But I just try to be the best leader for the team and try to play my best ball.”
On his own evaluation of his play tonight:
“I thought I played pretty well. There were a couple plays that I wish I had back. That one on fourth down that I threw to Christian [Kirk] too far inside. That’s a big one I wish I had back. It’s a tough team and they’re a tough defense. They play a lot of man coverage so our receivers needed to win and our receivers did a pretty good job of that for most of the night. But I thought I played pretty well. We had a couple drops at the receiver position and I had a couple overthrows and some bad reads, but you can always improve no matter who you are. You can always improve.”
On the importance of RB Tra Carson:
“By far he’s been the most consistent player on offense. He knows that our whole staff knows it. So, whenever we need a couple of yards or we need some sure yardage. We give the ball to Tra. They were doing a lot of exotic stuff up front. You know, switching up the fronts bringing blitzers from the linebacker position and really trying to load the box up in any way possible to stop the run because he’s been our workhorse and our most consistent player the whole year. And they knew that.”
RB Tra Carson
On what this win means moving forward:
“It’s a good confidence booster for our team. Trying to get our swagger back and get back on the right track.”
On how it was running against the Vanderbilt defense:
“Yeah, in the beginning of the game I was kind of frustrated you know because they are doing different things up front. A lot of exotic looks but the offensive line and Kyle [Murray] did a good job of adjusting in the second half. Checking to the right play and the offensive line picking up their blocks. We were moving the ball pretty well.”
On momentum after the long touchdown pass:
“Yeah, the touchdown was great for us and for [Josh Reynolds] and for Kyle [Allen]. It was just a great play overall.”
On if it feels like the team has some confidence going into to Baton Rouge:
“We were going against a good defense in Vanderbilt so this win will definitely boost our confidence.”