Postgame Quotes - Middle Tennessee

Sept. 2, 2017

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Vanderbilt – Middle Tennessee Postgame Quotes
Sept. 2, 2017
Floyd Stadium

Vanderbilt Head Coach Derek Mason
On tonight’s game:
“First of all, hats off to MTSU. That’s a worthy opponent. I went over and shook Richie James’ hand. I think the young man is incredible and dynamic. I didn’t get a chance to see Brent Stockstill, but I know any time you have a new group of offensive linemen in front of you that can be a challenge. For us, I thought we started from the jump and had great momentum from the beginning. Offensively, defensively and on special teams I thought we started strong. (Kyle) Shurmur in the passing game I thought was solid. I thought he was hot and did a great job. Some of that momentum changed when (Jared Pinkney) got hurt, he’s a big target. Overall, I was pleased to see what we did in the first half passing. I thought our defense was fast and physical. We talked about that and about having better pass rushers in 2017 than we had in 2016 and tonight those guys brought it and I’m extremely proud of that. Ralph Webb is the first running back in a while to catch for 100 yards and I thought that was incredible. He played well and ran hard. MTSU did a great job loading the box on third downs. We talked about situational football and trying to dominate situational football. I thought defensively we got off the field and early in that ball game offensively we did a good job”.

On the importance of capturing a season-opening win:
“It’s 2017, it’s a new year. What we talked about was going 1-0 and that’s what we did tonight. It was really important, because for us it was something we haven’t done here in my tenure and we got it done.”

On Middle Tennessee’s performance:
“You look at the preseason hype and talk and they have a good offense over there. Their defense did a good job tonight. Once they got a hold of what we were doing they did a great job of slowing us down.”

Vanderbilt QB Kyle Shurmur
On building an early lead:
“You always want to jump out to a lead. Building a lead was huge to us. We put pressure on them and were able to do a lot of different things on offense and on defense as well. That was big for us.”