Vanderbilt/Kentucky Post-Game Quotes

Nov. 11, 2006

Recap | Box Score | Notes

Vanderbilt/Kentucky Post-Game Quotes
November 11, 2006
Commonwealth Stadium – Lexington, Ky.

Vanderbilt Coach Bobby Johnson

On the play of Andre’ Woodson and the Kentucky offense…
“He’s a great player. They have an outstanding offensive coach as well, but we just didn’t tackle well. They threw a lot of short passes and we let them turn those into long passes. At the end of the game we gambled a little and they threw it over our head. We just didn’t play very well on defense today.”

On Vanderbilt’s offense…
“Turnovers are a big thing. We had the ball down there on the one-yard line and we dropped a pass then threw an interception. We just let them run all over us. It was winnable but we have to find ways to make it happen. That’s what I told the team afterwards. We have to find a way to make that catch, make that tackle, make the right call. There’s coaching in there too. It’s not just the players.”

On no longer being bowl eligible…
“That has not come up. The expectation for this team is we want to play as good as we can every week and find out what happens at the end of the year. We’re going to try to play this week and play Tennessee as good as we can play them.”

On the play of Kentucky’s running back Rafael Little…
“The statistics tell it all. He is a good player. We didn’t do a very good job of tackling him. He caught short passes and he turned them into long ones.”

On the play of Vanderbilt’s quarterback Chris Nickson…
“He played great. He’s going to be a very good player for us; he is a fine player for us right now. He’s only going to get better and better. I wouldn’t say he had a fantastic game. He threw an interception down there in the endzone and had a fumble down there too. Other than turning the ball over his other execution was pretty good.”

On using the reverse plays…
“We have some good, fast wide receivers and we wanted to use them in different ways. I thought Sean Walker made a fantastic play down there on that reverse and touchdown. The line did a good job to get a hole there for him and he found it and just ran right through it. We had a little rocket and roll that we got good yardage out of too.”

Vanderbilt Players

On the mistakes he made and taking the loss…
“It was terrible. It was a shame. We practice so hard, and our entire focus is on not making critical mistakes, and it absolutely killed us. I take every bit of it on my shoulders.”

On the opportunities they had and the successful plays they had, despite the loss…
“There were plenty of opportunities for us. I missed a few holes, and I made a few key, critical mistakes, but that’s how the game goes. We’ve seen it seven times this year, year after year. We don’t mean to, it’s just something that we’ve got to learn how to maintain and keep under control.”

On no longer being eligible for a bowl game and the mindset of the team…
“It’s on Tennessee. That is our focus, that’s going to be our focus, and we’re not going to stop to think about anything else except for Tennessee this weekend. We have a good chance. I can’t even express how good I think we are, and how good I think we could be in the future. But we’re not even going to think about anything else except for Tennessee.”

On how he changed the offense to adjust to Kentucky’s defense…
“I just got rid of the ball quicker. They were keying in on me and hitting on me a little bit near the end of the game, so I tried to get it out of my hand a little quicker, and make my release a little faster.”

On his interception in the end zone when Vanderbilt was down 24-20…
“It was an ill-advised pass. I thought I had read the defense quite well, and I wanted to try and make a play. It was a wide open middle, and as soon as I went to the middle, the linebacker stepped up and stopped me a little bit. I tried to retreat and go back and throw it, and the defensive back made a great play on George Smith. It was awful big, because we could have put some pressure on them right there, and probably went ahead and won the game.”

#54 Theo Horrocks, Defensive Tackle

On no longer being eligible for a bowl game…
“That’s tough. All the seniors on the team, I feel so bad for them. It was their last chance at a bowl and we had to win today. We didn’t get it, but we still have another game to play. We’ve got to bounce back from this one and get another win against Tennessee this week.”

On the many chances and opportunities to win this game…
“We gave up too many big plays. They were beating us deep all day long. We’ve just got to watch it tomorrow and find out what we did wrong.”

Earl Bennett # 10 WR

On the outcome of the game…
“It’s a disappointing loss. We came into the week playing hard. We just didn’t make the big plays. We did not execute what we practiced all week and it caused a lot of pressure on us.”

On the Vanderbilt offense…
“We could run the ball well and pass the ball well today. I thought we really moved the ball well. It was just some of the errors we made cost us big plays. We played hard, we just didn’t finish well.”

On being eliminated from bowl contention…
“We just have to hold our heads high. Tennessee is a big rival game and we will be ready to play. We will just have to make next week our bowl game.”

Curtis Gatewood #48 DE

On how Kentucky’s 597 total yards …
“We will have to watch the film. We felt we had a pretty good team and we lost as a team. The bottom line – we didn’t get the job done. They had good plays called. We had mental breakdowns, some 30-40 yard plays turned into touchdowns.”

On how it feels to come up short in close games…
“We have to do some soul-searching to figure out why we keep coming up short and can’t get over the hump. We have to be consistent in all phases of the game. I thought the offense stepped up – the defense just didn’t. It hurts bad because we invested a lot into the season. But we can’t dwell on it we have to look toward the future.”

On UK’s season-high 450 passing yards …
“They got us from every angle. I thought we had a pretty good scheme coming into the game. We just made some mental errors and they broke some short yardage plays into long drives. We weren’t getting at the quarterback enough.”

Kentucky Head Coach Rich Brooks

“I’m very happy and pleased obviously with our football team. It was a game where we just seemed to keep making mistakes and the good news is we overcame those mistakes. I think this football team has some resilience now and a lot more confidence than we did early in the season. The fact that we could go down again going into the fourth quarter – when Vanderbilt went down and scored to make it 20-17 – and the fact we were able to come back again, as we did last week, speaks volumes for where our heads are mentally at this point. Vanderbilt is a very good football team. They kept coming at us. Their quarterback is very difficult to defend and when they spread the field on us, they made some great throws and catches because we were right there in coverage. But they made the play and we couldn’t get the ball knocked out. Late in the game after Vanderbilt called timeout, we were running ball trying to get the clock down. We talked about it and decided rather than run it on third down we would try to go for it all. It worked, we found Keenan Burton for the touchdown and that gave us the comfort zone obviously. I was disappointed they did get that last touchdown. I thought we had intercepted it, that shows you how smart I am. At any rate, we completed another conference victory. We’re 4-3 in the SEC East. My understanding is Georgia beat Auburn. It’s incredible what goes on in this league, it’s a tough league. The fact that Kentucky is in the hunt and in the middle of the pack and battling people I think is significant. I am very proud of this football team for what they have accomplished. Having said that, it’s not over. We have Louisiana-Monroe at home and Tennessee on the road. We need to keep climbing the ladder if you will, inch up and keep climbing the ladder to see where this season lands at the end of the year.”

On how Kentucky is playing right now …
“I don’t know about championship caliber at this point, but we are a very competitive team with more weapons than we’ve ever had since I’ve been here. Wasn’t it nice to see (number) 22, Rafael Little, out there again. I’m sure that knee won’t feel very good tonight, but he played a magnificent game. He gave us a spark in the running game and obviously was a factor in the passing game. Keenan Burton had a career game. DeMario Ford comes in and gets a touchdown. We had two or three plays early in the game where we had people open and the ball was just a little bit too long. Missed opportunities, missed an easy field goal on the first drive, hit it off the upright, had a punt blocked. But the bottom line is we ended up taking it away more than we gave it up. That’s been the signature of this defensive football team. We make plays. I don’t think there was a bigger one than E.J. Adams, a true freshman intercepting the ball down there and running it out to midfield. Nickson must have thought he had an “S” on his chest because he looked like he should have taken the sack. He tried to get in there, throw it, and E.J. stepped in front and made a great play and a very good run. That’s a big time play for a true freshman.”

On building a successful program …
“Let’s hope we’re headed in that direction. We’re 6-4 and 4-3 in the league, 4-3 is huge for me. That team that was honored out there today (1976 SEC Champions) won six games when they only played six and that’s a great goal to go for. Since this league expanded, Kentucky has only won four games, that’s the most they’ve won. This team has equaled it and we still have a league game left and a non-league game at home.”

On becoming bowl eligible …
“It is a milestone, but it’s not finished. We have an opportunity to climb that bowl ladder. I don’t want to just slide in with six wins. I want to have a winning season. I can’t tell you how proud I am of this football team, particularly the seniors that have been through so much. They get to go out with success at the end of a very difficult stretch in Kentucky football history.”

Kentucky Players

On becoming bowl eligible…
“This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened in my career but now we want that seventh win and we want an eight win. We want as many wins as possible.”

On Kentucky’s upcoming preparation…
“We’re going to work hard. We can’t take it easy and we’re still trying to excel. We have Louisiana Monroe next week and they’re a good team.”

On Vanderbilt’s defense…
“One of the main things we noticed about them is that they have a young secondary with a lot of sophomores and true freshmen. We worked on a lot of plays that we were going to do and we made it happen.”

#3 Andre’ Woodson, QB

On Kentucky’s play…
“We had a pretty good day. We did a good job getting in the air and getting our receivers open. I think the offensive line also did a fabulous job today.”

On Kentucky’s running backs…
“We’re really glad Rafael Little is healthy and that all the backs are getting healthy. That’s just that many more weapons we have to work with each week.”

On UK’s 597 yards of total offense…
“Numbers are great, but the biggest thing is that we executed and moved down the field and that the defense was also able to step up.”

On becoming bowl eligible…
“We’ve been waiting for this and it feels great that we’re bowl eligible now. Hopefully we’ll get accepted to a big game but at the same time we know that we still have more games to play this season.”

#19 Keenan Burton, WR

On becoming bowl eligible with six wins…
“This really means a lot to the program and to the fans. This is not the time to stop and let up. We still have two more games to focus on and we have to do everything to the best of our ability the rest of the season.”

On Kentucky’s win as a team…
“It’s always good for somebody to step up and have a big day but it doesn’t really mean much if we lose. Individual success doesn’t go far on this team. We have so many weapons and are so talented at every position, and we’ve been playing well as a unit. That is the key.”

On Kentucky’s defense…
“The defense forced a lot of turnovers today and they are so good at that. We (the offense) try to support them when we are on the sidelines. There are times when the offense puts them in a bad position. We can’t fumble past the 50 yard line and put our defense in that type of situation.”

On the maturity of Kentucky, despite being a young team…
“We have overcome a lot of adversity. We don’t have a lot of experience but it doesn’t really matter how old you are if you know how to execute during the game. We have to listen and understand the schemes. We want to get to the top.”

#13 Steve Johnson, Jr., WR

On his touchdown reception in the second half…
“Coach put me into the game at the right time. Before I went in, I told my teammates on the sidelines that I thought I was going to score in the game and then I did. It wasn’t really a play that was called for anybody in particular, but we executed.”

#7 E.J. Adams, CB

On his goal-line interception…
“At first I was shocked that I had the ball in my hands. I caught it, looked around and saw everybody, and then started running to get away. It felt really good. We have to keep making plays like that and keep forcing turnovers.”

On Kentucky’s defense…
“We made some crucial plays in the red zone. We knew that if we turned the ball over on offense, the defense had to force a turnover. The defense played with a lot of heart today.”