Oct. 16, 2007

Opening Statement
“We’re looking forward to playing Vanderbilt this week. It’s a 12:30 game. Vanderbilt is a very good team. I know before the season some of their players mentioned one of their goals was to go to a BCS game. They felt like their team was capable of winning nine or 10 games this year. They’ve lost to three really good teams – Alabama, Auburn and Georgia. They were pretty close games except for the Auburn game. Vandy has good players and had an excellent chance to beat Georgia last weekend. I think they fumbled at the 10-yard line going in. Georgia put a drive together to beat them.”

“They are third in the conference in total defense. They rank ahead of us on defense. They have a good scheme of things. They play hard and play tough, and it’s going to be a difficult game.”

“Last week the second half was by far the worst offensive half we’ve had all year. Defensively the fourth quarter was the worst we’ve had all year. We have a lot to coach on this week. We’re going to try to play a lot better if we’re going to beat Vandy. We realize that any team we play this year can beat us. If we play very well we have a chance to beat hopefully everybody we play.”

On Blake Mitchell
“We may let Blake play some this week. There’s not a huge difference between he and Chris Smelley, probably, but quarterback was not our problem last week. Our problem was third-and-one really. When you don’t make third-and-one, you try to run for it. If you don’t make it you punt and you’re not out there for a while.”

On narrow victory at North Carolina last week
“We are extremely thankful and fortunate we got out of there a winner. We’re not sitting here bragging about beating anybody. We’re just trying to get better as a team. Sometimes maybe winning like that helps you prepare for the next week. We don’t have cocky players. We have a bunch of players that realize we can lose to anybody we play if we don’t improve our play real soon.”

On offensive line
“We’ll probably have a new guard or two in there. Guard play wasn’t all that great last week. Some of the other players weren’t all that great either. It wasn’t just one guy. Overall our line didn’t play as well as we need to in the future. Again it’s a team sport and we’re not pointing fingers at anybody, we just didn’t get it done to play very well, but we did win the game.”

On Darian Stewart’s status
“Darian’s going to be alright. He went back in (against North Carolina). He got a hand on the next to the last jump ball in the end zone. They had a guy running right at him. For a minute it looked like their guy was going to jump in and catch that one.”

On getting the sixth win this season
“We were disappointed in our performance in the second half. We did get our sixth win. We know it’s not going to continue unless we continue to play a lot better these last five games. There was no big celebration in becoming bowl eligible.”

On season expectations
“Our expectations are up there a bit. We understand we need to play better, coach better if we’re going to come close or even have a chance of achieving all of our goals. All of our goals are still out there after seven weeks, so we’re in position if we can really start playing a bunch better and coaching better.”

On offensive production
“We only had three drives last week, and Ryan (Succop) missed a field goal at the end after we got the onside kick. We only had three drives and scored three touchdowns. You kick three field goals and we make nine points. We’re very fortunate. You can hash it around any way you want to, but we’re scoring touchdowns instead of kicking a bunch of field goals. We’ve maximized our chances. We need to coach better and play better to have a chance.”