Nov. 22, 2014
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Vanderbilt Head Coach Derek Mason
Opening Statement:
“Hats off to a really good Mississippi State football team. I thought they played hard and played physical and they showed why they are a top four team. We definitely had our fair share of mistakes and miscues. We didn’t do a good enough job for us. It started on defense and we just didn’t do a good enough job getting off the field. We didn’t set (the) edge. We had very little pressure on the quarterback whether it was a four-man rush or a five-man rush. It was a poor day tackling. They continued to extend plays and extend drives. Offensively, we had turnovers, miscues and missed opportunities. It was a poor game all the way around. I thought we executed poorly in all three phases. We just have to be better. I just talked to our team and told our team that’s not us. We practiced better than that and we have to play better when called on and that’s on me. I thought we were well-prepared, but we just didn’t finish the way we need to finish.”
On what Vanderbilt struggled with:
“I only go as far as where we were tonight. Tonight we played the number four team in the country and they just outplayed us. We didn’t tackle very well, we didn’t execute very well offensively, and we struggled at times to run the football.”
On facing the loss:
“We all need to own it. Right now, with these guys, we’re a family. Family doesn’t turn, run, or tuck tail. You talk to each other, you love on one another, and as you look to move forward, you look to the people who are really strong enough to build this thing on and you put it on their shoulders and you go.”
Vanderbilt Player Quotes
OL Spencer Pulley
Did you see that type of game coming?
“No, not at all. I mean, I don’t think you could ever see that type of game coming. You prepare to go out and play the best game you can play, and we didn’t.”
Is that the most angry you have seen Coach Mason since he’s been here?
“I mean, it’s frustrating to lose and it’s frustrating to lose games when you don’t do your best. It’s frustrating when you know you can play better in every aspect and we didn’t do that. It’s probably where most of the frustration comes from, but just a matter of not playing our best ball.”
What does this do to the team’s psyche going into the Tennessee game in regard to momentum?
“I would say it just gives us motivation to work harder and to work better. Obviously you know when you lose it shows your flaws more clearly. You don’t go over anything. Going into this week, that’s what we are going to fix. We are going to work harder than the previous weeks and come out ready to play our best football.”
Take the tough loss to Ole Miss early this year, and score-wise, this looks similar. When it is this late in the year, people think oh no, he’s lost the team.
“No, definitely not. We just didn’t come out and play the way we could play. There’s no loss of motivation. We love playing the game and we are fighting for getting better but we didn’t get it done tonight. We didn’t play as well as needed to, to get it done tonight.”
Thinking about the older guys on this team. Is it anger you’re feeling?
“No, not anger. It’s obviously frustrating. It’s frustrating when you can’t come together and play your best football. It’s not anger, it’s just frustration and we know what we can do and we haven’t been able to put it together and showcase it.”
How does it feel getting to the end of the year and still having this same adversity at quarterback?
“We trust the guys that are back there. Johnny has made plays, and Johnny is a great guy he knows what he’s doing, he knows how to play the game and he loves doing it. I have all the faith in the world in Johnny and I have faith in anybody that steps in the game. You don’t practice with one guy all the time, you practice with everybody on the team even if they don’t ever see the field. We are ready to go with whoever is up and ready to go.”
Have you ever seen this much bad luck at one position at quarterback?
“I mean, you can call it what you want I guess. You know things happen in the game of football. You prepare for the worst I guess and injuries happen. Things like that happen in the game of football and you have to be ready to respond. You can’t let things like that get you down.”
TE Davis Dudchock
Patton leaves the game injured from whatever that injury is, how do you feel seeing a guy come back from that so many times and then have to leave the game again going into next week?
“Patton has a lot of heart and he is always fighting to be on the field and contribute to help the guys so whoever is behind, we know that we have guys that are fighters and are going to scrap to the finish.”
Coach said he should own this loss. Is that fair that he takes it or should you guys take it?
“I don’t believe it’s fair. The players are playing the game. We are the ones between the white lines running the plays. It’s on the players to execute the plays and get the job done. Doing a better job at being intentional about our job very detail oriented and having incredible attention to detail which we did not have.”
How do you explain that it got out of hand that much?
“I think we just failed to execute. On offense we would string together a couple first downs here and there but didn’t sustain drives and when you can’t sustain drives the defense is on the field the entire time. We have to do our part on offense to sustain drives move the football and be very efficient with it and score points.”
DL Vince Taylor
Did you see this coming?
“We didn’t see this coming. We didn’t play as a team. We played a pretty good team. We are going to put our nose down and keep working to get at the other team in the state.”
Coach is angry. How do you feel about that anger?
“He is more disappointed than angry. I mean, I am more disappointed than angry. There comes a point when you have to stop saying it and start doing it.”
Mississippi State Head Coach Dan Mullen
Opening Statement:
“First I want to thank all of our fans this year. We’re 7-0 at home. We talked about it and if you want to compete in the SEC and compete for championships you have to win home games. We were able to do that this year. These fans that have helped build this with the expansion, the noise and believing in us and giving us that home field advantage. I believe we are 18-3 now the past three years at home and that just goes out to our student body, who is awesome and our fan base who is awesome. I’m so happy for our seniors, for them to come in and get sent out the way they got sent out with a big win like we had here tonight and to be able to finish perfect at home their senior year, that is a pretty special thing for that class. When I came here, we had a vision in what we wanted to build those guys. They have all bought into it and believed in it. I’m really pleased as a whole how our guys played today. I got the question over and over, ‘How are we are going to respond?’ I tell you what, we had a great week at practice. That’s all I can give you. It wasn’t coach talk; it was reality. I couldn’t be happier with how our guys responded. Guys were flying around making plays, playing with that chip on their shoulder. You know, really believing we have an awful lot still to play for. It didn’t matter who was on the field they were making plays. Being able to run it was huge. A lot of the down the field guys making plays, that was Mississippi State football tonight. It was great to see us respond off of a loss, to come out here and play at that level.”
On turnovers:
“You hope to see that out of the defensive line. I think we created three tonight. That’s what we wanted. We talked about it all week. I think it really broke our slump. One of those things, I think you start pushing and once we got one. I think we really started to roll and creating those turnovers were huge. Obviously Turtle (Christian Holmes), getting that touchdown with a strip six, that was a big play. I think it really broke the game open for us.”
On game control in the game plan:
“I just wanted us to go out and play a good game of football. There’s going to be people out there thinking we were throwing the ball around trying to get extra touchdowns or glamour points. That’s not what it’s about. It disrespects the game a little I think if you do that. Our guys just came out and played a great game of football.”
Mississippi State Players
OL Ben Beckwith
On establishing offense after last week
“We pretty much dominated all night up front. There were some pressures here and there from blitzes, but you expect that when they’re bringing six or seven guys. Going into halftime we dominated the game up front, and then after halftime we kind of came out a little sluggish, but we picked up well.
On how big of a win this is before facing Ole Miss next week
“It’s huge. It’s a big momentum swing for us. We were kind of in a lull; I wouldn’t say we were playing bad, but we weren’t playing like we were. We had the loss last week and a tough game, but we played well in the second half and I think that carried over into today.”
QB Dak Prescott
On turning the page with the Alabama game, putting it behind you
“That’s exactly what we wanted to do, come out and show how hungry we were after that loss. We just had to respond, and we did just that on offense and defense. It was a good, complete game from the whole team.”
On how important was it to play as a team going into the Egg Bowl
“It was very important. We needed to come in and get some momentum, get going fast, get a scoring touchdown on the first drive and keep going all throughout the game. I think we got back to that team we were earlier in the year. ”
LB Christian Holmes
On the touchdown tonight compared to others, which is more important
“This one tonight at home. I finally got that reaction I expected. The crowd just came alive.”
On running out of the tunnel, what was going through his mind
“It has really been a ride, a roller coaster. I was really excited; I kind of wanted to cry, but I couldn’t do that, so I just smiled and ran out and got my son.”
