Oct. 22, 2016
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Vanderbilt — Tennessee State Postgame Notes
Oct. 22, 2016
Vanderbilt Stadium
Vanderbilt Head Coach Derek Mason
Opening comments:
“Hats off to TSU. They played a heck of a ballgame. That team has some explosive players offensively. The goal for our team is to go 1-0 every week, and that’s what we did. We’ve talked a lot about being 1-0 every week for the back half of the season.
“We gave up a big play early, but offensively, we came out and answered back. Offensively, that was good to see.
“Our offensive line dominated this game. Our rush-game was on. Kyle [Shurmur] had time to throw. To have two running backs go over 100 yards and rush for over 300 overall is pretty impressive.
“We won the turnover battle, and that’s always good… We also won time of possession, and that’s what you need to do to win games. Shurmur looked poised and continued to lead. He got the ball to a lot of guys. It was also good to see [Jared] Pinkney come out.”
On the upcoming bye week:
“Now we get a chance to rest, which we’ll need to make a run… I’m going to give the guys a couple of days off and we’ll be back at it after that. We’ll give these guys some time to get well. I’ve put them through some tough practices, so we’ll let them get their bodies back.”
On Vanderbilt’s rushing attack:
“Any time you can run the ball effectively, it pulls linebackers up. That makes it easier to hit stuff off play-action and hit those windows.”
On an early fourth-down conversion:
“It was huge. There are times in the game where you have to make calls and have to do what you feel [is right]. I had confidence in our offense. I had faith in Kyle and he had time in the pocket.”
On Vanderbilt running back Darrius Sims:
“We’re always looking for guys who can make plays. We’ve talked a lot about some guys for the last couple of years. It’s just a matter of getting them the ball. You have to have extended series to do that… We have a stable of running backs. We have a lot of guys to get the ball to.”
On Coach Mason’s first back-to-back wins since being named Vanderbilt’s head coach:
“It means a lot. It means a lot heading into the next four games at .500. Our goal every week is to go 1-0 and I like where this team is. It’s about learning what we can and getting better.”
On whether opposing teams racking up yardage and stats matters:
“The only stat that matters to me is winning. TSU has an explosive offense. The last time I checked, they can really score some points. I look at the point total. The biggest difference for us going forward is [allowing] 19 points or less… The end result, and what I’m looking for is a win.”
On allowing a long touchdown pass to TSU to open the game:
“Our goal is to play top-down in the secondary. Football is an imperfect game played by imperfect people trying to seek perfection. You try not to repeat your mistakes again. We gave up 17 points in the first half and none in the second.”
On Vanderbilt tight end Jared Pinkney:
“Andy [Ludwig] came to me on Wednesday saying he saw something he liked in the match-ups. We need some options, and TSU gave us some room to try one-on-ones with our tight ends.”
S Ryan White
On what the sideline was like after giving up 14 points:
“No, not concerned but we knew we had to get ourselves together and play Vanderbilt defense. We knew what we were doing wasn’t what we were used to and we knew we had to regroup and get it together.”
On whether the turnovers were the difference:
“On defense we know we like to fly around and we knew they were going to flag the ball when they were running it. So anytime we had the chance, we were going to take a shot at the ball and force turnovers.”
On how he felt the safeties played:
“We felt that we didn’t play how we wanted to of course. Like you said, the first half we didn’t play too well but we knew we had to stay within ourselves and we knew everybody collectively we were going to get it together. We just had to do our thing.”
On whether they feel like they have some momentum going:
“Oh for sure, we think we have momentum and we want to keep that up. When we come to practice next week, we are going to work and when we are going to come to practice the next week, we are going to work and keep going with that process that coach always talks about and keep going 1-0 each week.”
DL Nifae Lealao
On how the defensive line can get more sacks down the stretch:
“I think from a defensive line standpoint, our thing is always speed to power, getting hands in the throwing lanes and just collapsing the pocket. There are a few things through our four-man and three-man game that we can get home a little faster but it is a process. Coming off some games where all we are getting heavy double teams, some scoops and powers, I think we are just working more towards transitioning to pass faster and just getting home, helping the secondary out.”
On whether you have tried to bring more pressure the past two games:
“Definitely, I think we could actually get more and I think the more we are able to accomplish on the field, the more times we will be able to get back there and get in the backfield faster.”
On whether this was as good of a team they expected TSU to be:
“Well at the end of the day, it is football. Everybody is playing to win, the win counts whether you are FBS or FCS and every win is important, every game is important and every down is important. So no matter if you are in the FCS, no matter if it is TSU, no matter if it is Georgia or whatever, every game is important. I think we have to go into the game with the same mindset and same focus and I think we were able to do that the last two weeks and get to go into the bye week.”
On whether Butler was a tougher quarterback to bring down than most:
“See that is the kind of thing, whenever you are working with a mobile quarterback, it is always shedding off the blocks, getting off and looking to cage the rabbit. I will say that he did a pretty nice job today. The defensive line was working to get home but I do think he was one of the best quarterbacks we have played in a while that wasn’t really a pocket guy. Definitely someone who is on the move, we just had to get to the ball and I think we did a good job.”
On whether the times he escaped was him making a good play:
“Whenever someone crashes through the line, everybody is at fault and there is not one single person to blame. I think at times that it is an imperfect game and I think sometimes someone misses an assignment and it is how you respond to that and I think we are doing a great job responding to our mistakes today.”
On what the mood is with the team after the two wins:
“I think we were able to show up and tell ourselves that we can do this no matter if we are away, no matter if we are fighting to get a good SEC win, or if we are home, or getting a homecoming win and to be able to withstand at home. So I think in the last two weeks we were able to be consistent, stick to the game plan and like Ryan said be sure to be 1-0 each week and have that as our job and focus each Saturday.”
RB Khari Blasingame
On the holes the linemen were getting for him and the running corps:
“The power was huge and we had some cutbacks on the 15. The offensive linemen did a really good job of staying with their man, moving people. Those holes were huge. You could have put a truck through those things.”
On if tonight was representative of what he thought the running game could be for Vanderbilt with everyone healthy:
“We wanted to like he said make it the more the merrier. We want to spread the ball around, make sure we keep people fresh and make sure people are making plays and producing. If you’re making plays and producing you see the grass. We always thought the more the merrier.”
QB Kyle Shurmer
On what got the offense going finishing the game scoring three touchdowns to pull away:
“We just played within ourselves. I’ll say it every time. We just executed. We didn’t get behind the chains like you saw on our second drive. We shot ourselves in the foot and we got a holding call and got to third and 20 or whatever it was. The biggest thing was being ahead of the chains. Being good on first and second down so you don’t have to be in those bad situations. If we are in third and short it is so much better than being in third and eight or third and nine.”
On how effective this offense can be having all the running backs be effective and healthy:
“I think it’s great. The more the merrier. They are all number one backs I think. I’ll hand the ball off every now and then if I have to if they run the ball like they did today.”
On how much big it was to get that fourth down conversion:
“It was great. We didn’t try to do too much. We just had C.J. (Duncan) out there and just get the ball in his hands and see what he can do with it. That was the biggest thing, we have a bunch of playmakers and just getting the ball to those guys. C.J. made a great play and it was just huge to keep that momentum going for sure.”
On how he feels about the performance of the offense after putting up big yards tonight:
“It’s great. We wanted a full head of steam headed into this bye week. That was the biggest thing to go 1-0 and put together a great game. Obviously, we’d like to do that more than anything else. It was great to get this game going into a bye week, but we still have some work to do. We will get back to work tomorrow. This week is going to be a little different than a game week. We will get to go back and correct some of our own stuff instead of focusing on another opponent.”
On Jared Pinkney’s breakout performance tonight:
“We see it everyday in practice. It was just a matter of it all coming together in the game. Pinkney is a great player. It was just a matter of putting it together in the game and I’m really happy for him.”
OL Barrett Gouger
On how tonights running performance ranks in his mind to other performances:
“It looks like we took care of business tonight. That’s what we want as an offensive line. Set goals and run the football and we did. The running backs ran hard and congratulations to those guys they played a heck of a game.”
On what he saw on film leading into today’s game that would give them opportunities to make plays:
“Yeah, we thought they were a good football team. They were 5-1, so we knew we had to play hard and prepare well and I think we did that. You know, we thought we could move the ball along and on the offensive line all five guys played great. The running backs ran well. You know, it was a complete effort. We took care of business tonight and that’s what we needed to do.”
On if they feel like they have some momentum after back to back wins:
“Yeah absolutely. You know, every week we want to go 1-0 and we did that and accomplished our goals heading into a bye week. This will give us a chance to rest and that’ll be good, but we are moving in the right direction.”
Tennessee State Head Coach Rod Reed
Opening Statement:
“We started fast; I thought our kids played extremely hard. Going up against an SEC opponent, there are some things you cannot do, and turning the ball over is one of them. We had a couple of turnovers in some inopportune times. We had the ball down in the red zone twice, when I think we turned it over. If we come out with six points (in those red zone opportunities), you never know what could have happened. Give credit to Vanderbilt, they played well. We had a little bit more success defensively than I anticipated. (Offensive coordinator Jeff Parker) did a great job drawing up a scheme to get some successful plays. We thought our receivers could be successful on the outside if they came out in press coverage, so we used that early on and we jumped out on them. Vanderbilt didn’t quit though. They are an SEC team, and we didn’t expect this to be easy, we knew it was going to be a fight. We gave ourselves a chance, but just let it slip away a little bit in the end. Ralph Webb is as good as advertised; he is a good back.”
On Vanderbilt’s offensive strategy and personnel:
“Their personnel out-bigged us; they play big boy football. They brought three tight ends in at times and were able to run the power and lean on us a bit. (Vanderbilt) did what we thought they would do, we just missed some tackles. They made us tackle with our cornerbacks and we didn’t do a good job of that at times. We got off the field a couple of times and gave ourselves a chance to be successful, but in the end, they just overpowered us.”
On his takeaways from the team’s performance tonight:
“We don’t play football games for moral victories. We came to win, so make no mistake about it, but in every game, you take the good and you take the bad. We have to accentuate the positives and then we have to improve on the negatives. We’ll go back to the drawing board tomorrow, we’ll get this one out of our system and we’ll get ready for conference play next week.”
