Vanderbilt-Middle Tennessee Postgame Quotes

“There was a lot of ebb and flow in this game, We had so many things happen after that delay. We came out and had a punt blocked. Defensively, they marched down the field. We did what I haven’t seen this team do – we responded. Our offense marched down the field. Our defense got a three-and-out. Our offense came back down the field. We talk about the game being a 60-minute, four-quarter game, and that’s what it was today.”

On Ralph Webb running for 211 yards:
“Webb finished with 211 yards, two touchdowns – the third-most in school history. That was very special… he’s amazing. I’ll take him over any running back in the conference. He means a lot to this team. He’s a leader. He’s stands for everything that a Vanderbilt man should stand for. He loves to compete. He also has a good compliment of running backs behind him… he ran hard. The offensive line blocked well.”

On scoring 47 points:
“This team – the same team that has struggled, especially offensively – put up the most points in a game since 2013. I’m very proud of this team. They rose to the challenge… I thought they gave it their best at the end of the day. Was it perfect? No, but I thought they gave it their best.”

On Vanderbilt’s emotions:
“When we got into the locker room [during the delay], we turned the lights off. I told them to close their eyes and calm down. This group understands a lot about resiliency. We were committed to staying focused… Let your energy flow from one guy to the other.”

On the nearly two-hour weather delay:
“We made some adjustments. I was also aware that it was about to be halftime and [wanted to make adjustments then too]. If you show too much during that time period, you show too much of what your second half game plan is going to be.”

On the game script:
“It’s different every game you play… You saw good red zone defense, not great. You saw some better red zone offense – seven-for-seven for us. That’s terrific. I’m proud of these guys. There has been speculation of what we can do.”

“[MTSU] is great at throwing the football. Even though we gave up a bunch of yards, I thought our defense played solid.”

On Vanderbilt’s offensive line:
“I have to give our offensive line a shout out. They played extremely well. It was all about keeping [Kyle] Shurmur upright.”

LB/S Oren Burks
“On playing his new position of Star:
“It’s a lot of fun being able to move all around the field and make plays. Coach Mason has done a great job drawing up some plays with dropping and coming off the edge and getting a lot of different looks at the offense. It makes it difficult for them to adjust.”

On pressuring Middle Tennessee:
“Yeah, that was something we really focused on this week in preparation. We knew that they get the ball out quick so we tried to flush him [Stockstill] out quick out of the pocket and make him move his feet and get out of a rhythm.”

On the interception:
“Coming off the edge, I knew the ball was coming. We had been working on getting our hands up and I peeked at the last second and saw him pull him and I jumped. It is partially instinct when we make plays.”

On getting a sack:
“I think that was one of the things that my stats had been missing. I haven’t had a lot of sacks. I’ve played a little bit of defense and outside linebacker in high school so it was fun to get off of the edge today.”

On the offense:
“That was something we knew they were capable of doing. Having them go out there and executing plays and it showing up on the scoreboard, that is great for them and we are really happy for them and will support them no matter what. This is a great team win for us.”

LB Zach CunninghamOn the delay:
“That was probably him trying to keep us from having that anxiety, turning the lights off. It was so we wouldn’t waste our energy. We closed our eyes and tried to get in our zone to avoid that anxiety.”

On the defensive play:
“Yeah, I definitely feel like that. It was a great thing for me to see us all going out there and getting turnovers. Getting more turnovers is a big thing Coach Mason as been stressing and it was a good thing to see out there.”

On the turnovers:
“You never know what to expect when playing this game. The most you can do is try your best and try to do whatever is going to increase your chances of getting that turnover.”

On the fumble early in game:
“Yeah, it definitely gave us a lot of momentum for the defense and offense as well.”

S Ryan White
On the team’s tackling:
“We didn’t tackle as well as we wanted to, but when it came down to it we tackled enough to get the W and that is all the matters.”

RB Ralph Webb
On how it felt to close out the second half as well as they did in the first half:
“We came out and made sure we kept momentum. Shout out to the offensive line, these guys right here got they job done and allowed holes to open for us to excel in the running game.”

On what 200 yards rushing means:
“The offensive line did their job tonight. It is a great feeling to celebrate as a team, so take this victory and we will celebrate it tonight and get ready to work tomorrow.”

On what he visualized during the weather delay:
“Just staying the course, making sure we stay mentally focused. Come out with some energy, don’t come out there flat because we knew we were getting the ball and we were moving the ball well so we just wanted to go out there and continue.”

OL Barrett Gouger
On how much pride you take in getting a 200+ yard rusher:
“Absolutely, we take great pride. All the guys on the offensive line did a great job tonight and that was our goal going into the week. Just to establish a front, establish a run-game and I think we did that. Congrats to Ralph and we still have a lot of work to do, stuff to clean up so we keep moving forward.”

On how it felt to be challenged this week in practice:
“Yeah it was constructive criticism, we got challenged but we challenged ourselves and I think that is what we needed to do to be successful and that is what got the job done tonight. I think that all the guys did a great job tonight.”

On whether it felt like they were frustrating the Middle Tennessee defensive line:
“Yeah a little bit but we kind of stuck to our game plan and that was to keep running the ball. We talk about wearing a defense down and that is what we try to do when we run the ball and I think towards the end of the game we started to do that and that is what we have to do as an offensive line every game.”

On how it felt to enter the fourth quarter with a lead:
“Yeah, you know when you are down, you try to stay relaxed. When you have the lead, our goal as an offensive line is to keep doing what we were doing the whole game because we need to score, we need to score a lot of points. We knew we had to keep the pedal down and keep moving along so that is what we did.”

QB Kyle Shurmur
On what the delay did for him:
“We all just had to play within ourselves, I think we were just trying to do too much. The plays were there, we just didn’t execute. We just came out and played within ourselves and the passing game started to get going a little bit as you saw.”

On what worked in the two drives before halftime:
“Just relaxing, playing within ourselves. I think we tried to do too much, not with the plays, but just as players trying to make big plays instead of playing within the system. Coach has a great plan every week and he did today and it was more of just us executing as opposed to trying to do too much.”

On how much the weather delay helped get you focused when you came back:
“We were all eager back there, that is for sure. You never really like stoppage of plays especially when we had some momentum going in. It is what it is, we just had to do it.”

On the difference in the passing game from last week to this week:
“You saw a lot of it, play-action pass, Ralph did a great job, the offensive line did a great job running the ball and that is really what set it up. It was just a matter of execution, play within ourselves, not trying to do too much and that was it.”

On whether it means a little bit more to get this win over an in-state rival:
“For sure, it is great, any day to get a win is great. It was great, in-state, whatever, just to get a W. Wins or losses are all that matters to us and to get a win was our only goal and it was great.”

On the success in the red zone:
“Yeah it was huge, the closer you get to the end zone, everything gets more competitive, everyone needs to be sharp down there. It was great, it was a team effort and we all did a great job when we were down there but some stuff to work on but some great stuff to build upon.”

Middle Tennessee Head Coach Rick Stockstill
Opening Statement:
“It was a frustrating, disappointing loss. I’m disappointed in how we played in some areas. We had a ton of drops today in the passing game. I bet we had eight or nine drops, maybe more than that. We had a good drive on the first possession, we fumbled the ball and they go in and start on the six or seven (yard line). The defense did a good job and held them to a field goal. We drove back down and get a field goal ourselves. Then we hold them on defense, then we punt and make a poor decision in the return game and give them a safety. Just some frustrating things tonight in this game. I thought we battled. I thought we competed. In the second half, I thought our defense played really well. The first part to that rain delay we got a (blocked kick), we went in and scored and then we give up an explosive run to (Ralph) Webb. It was probably a 50-yard run, and then they go in and score. Then they hit another pass, so (Vanderbilt) outscored (us) 2-to-1 after the rain delay (before halftime). We battled back. We missed a field goal. We have to run the ball better. We didn’t run the ball very well, give Vanderbilt credit for that, but we have to find a way to run the ball more consistently and catch the ball more consistently than what we did tonight.

On why it is so tough to stop Vanderbilt RB Ralph Webb:
“He is a good back; you can’t take anything away from him, he is a physical runner. On the first long run, the 50-yarder, we missed a tackle and he came out of it and did a nice job. I bet he had 30 carries at least; he’s their workhorse. Their offensive line was big and good like we knew it would be. (Webb) did a good job. They kept feeding him the ball and we couldn’t stop him.

On the positives to take away from the Vanderbilt game going forward:
“I don’t know if (Vanderbilt) actually stopped (our offense) in the first half. We really just stopped ourselves. We kept coming back and Brent (Stockstill) hung in there tougher than nails and made some great throws. (Brent Stockstill) took a beating, but made some runs. I thought our offensive line pass-protected well. I thought Pat Smith made some nice catches, he caught the ball (along with) Ty Lee. Richie (James) was a little inconsistent, he probably had three or four drops, but made some good plays also. We did some good things, but we just weren’t consistent enough. We can’t give up the explosive runs that we did. We had a 4th-and-1 and it was still a two-score game and our outside receiver jumped offside and that made it 4th-and-6. Going in, we had a chance to cut it to a one-score game with nine minutes left, but we just have to play smarter. “

On whether the inclement weather delay had an impact on the team:
“Not a bit. If you look at it, we came out and on the first play we blocked the punt. We were ready and we had a good plan while we were inside during that delay. We missed a tackle on Webb’s long run, so I think (the delay) is not an excuse. We just didn’t play well enough defensively during the five or six minutes after the rain.”

On what impressed him on the defensive side of the ball for the Blue Raiders:
“Until you watch the film it is hard to say, but they played hard. I thought everybody played hard; I thought we competed. It looked like (linebacker Darius Harris) played fast and tackled well.”

MT QB Brent Stockstill
On MTSU’s offensive miscues:
“Of course they’re a really good defense. Coach Mason had a great plan, but I thought we moved the ball well. We ran it better than we did last year, moved it up and down the field well, but just had some things that can’t happen… penalties, jumping off sides, things like that. But we’ve got to put some points on the board, so it’s not acceptable.”

On setting school records in completions and attempts:
“We just wanted to win, that was our only expectation. I guess in a game like this, their front seven is so good, they make it tough to run the ball. I guess it’s on my shoulders to get it done through the air. We got better tonight versus a good opponent, but its just unacceptable.”

Takeaways from game:
The only people that can stop us is us, as an offense at least. They didn’t really do anything to stop us… I had an interception, one fumble… we’ll get that stuff fixed. But other than that we’re our own worst enemy, if we can get over that I think we’ll be ok the rest of the year.”

MTSU WR Richie James
On the impact of the early fumble in the game:
“I believe it did have an impact, I wasn’t really smart in the decision I made to make a misjudgment on the ball and then touch it. So that was on me.”

On whether defense threw the offense off rhythm:
“I mean at the end of the day it’s about us. We didn’t do our assignment very well. They have a good defense, but we also didn’t execute as well as we wanted to. We just have to come back tomorrow and work.”

On the positives seen on the offensive side:
“We played hard, we just have to execute well. That’s what Sunday practices are for, you shake it off and come back tomorrow and work.”

MTSU RB I’Tavius Mathers
On any miscues in the game:
“I don’t think we struggled running at all really. I feel like the first couple runs I struggled, but after that everything else opened up. It was pretty simple, the game plan worked but we just didn’t execute right. We turned the ball over too many times.

On the impact of the weather delay:
“Nothing really changed after the delay. Coach Franklin prepared us for this all week. He told us it was going to rain, we were going to have a delay, just be prepared and stay focused and locked in. I think the defense and the offense came out after the delay and we were focused and locked in.

On what he can take into the next game:
“I just cramped up, that’s what this is, and we just learn from these mistakes. We’ll just come out ready to play Bowling Green.”