University of Tennessee Athletics
Tennessee vs. Vanderbilt Quotes
November 20, 2004 | Football
Nov. 20, 2004
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Vanderbilt vs. Tennessee
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Vanderbilt Football Stadium * Nashvile, Tenn.
TENNESSEE QUOTES
Head Coach Phil Fulmer:
"All I know is that we're the Eastern Division champions in the SEC. Not one person picked us. We're young and we've faced lots of adversity. We have to give Vanderbilt a lot of credit. They kept fighting back. It would have been easy for them to just give up, but I didn't expect them to. They are better than their record indicates."
"Did we play our best football tonight? No. But, I'm excited about Rick Clausen. It's rather ironic. He started to the season competing for a starting position, but lost it. He's tremendously unselfish. He's also tremendously encouraging given how well C.J. Leak played. He (Clausen) stayed the course and you have to give a lot of credit to him."
"We dodged a bullet. I told the team that. We're young, we're banged up. I'd like to have a better killer instinct. We had a chance to knock them out."
"There was point in this football game where we should have taken over. I told the players to look at themselves honestly and see if we prepared as much as we needed to. Lots of young guys got chances to play and we're somewhat beat up."
On What Made Vanderbilt a Challenging Opponent:
"The fact that they run the option makes it extremely tough. It limits our pressures - I think Cutler (Jay) will be one of the guys you see every Sunday. I'm happy because we didn't get our butts beat. The option took away some of our stuff. We didn't play with the same intensity as we have in the past few weeks. There were a bunch of plays in this game that should have been made that weren't. But again, you have to give Vanderbilt a lot of credit."
On UT's Future:
"We need receivers to make plays. We need runningbacks to make plays. We need our defensive line to dominate. I'm saying that in a positive tone, because we won the game and have the chance to be a lot better."
On Keeping Focus after 28-6 lead:
"There is some psychological effect of jumping on some one. I told the team that they have to be proud to get to this point and win an Eastern Division championship. Auburn will likely lick their chops after watching this tape. "
Quarterback Rick Clausen
"We took care of business. They came at us with everything they had and played a great game. We got a win against a good Vanderbilt team. We do whatever it takes to win games."
On his start
"I was pretty calm entering the game and through the whole thing. I just wanted to have fun and knew that I needed to get the receivers the ball. I felt comfortable out there and played a pretty good game."
On Vanderbilt's last series
"I had faith in the defense when Vanderbilt came out with two minutes to go. I knew if for some reason the defense couldn't stop them, then it would be up to the offense and we would be able to do it."
On Vanderbilt's offense
"Vanderbilt has a really good offense and a really good quarterback."
Tailback Cedric Houston
"I was not worried as the game stayed close. We knew we had to do our job and I had confidence we would. It was great to come to Nashville and get this win because all week we talked about how important of a win this would be for us and moving a step closer to the SEC Championship game."
On the offensive line's performance
"The offensive line came out and dominated from the start. They told me before the game they were going to dominate the first half and they did just that. On our first series, they created so many holes, Rick [Clausen] could have walked the ball up the middle."
Defensive Tackle Parys Haralson
"We knew it would be a tough fought game. My hat goes off to Vanderbilt and their effort. They gave us a lot to go back and work on. We knew they were going to come at us with the option and we prepared for it, but it was still hard to stop. Vanderbilt made a lot of big plays and we made a bunch of mistakes. We were surprised it was so close and know we can and need to play better."
On previous year's shut-outs
"We did not think about the shut-outs from the past few seasons. We knew this was a different Vanderbilt team."
On future
"We are thinking less about the SEC Championship game and more about next week's Kentucky game. We particularly are thinking about how to improve the defense. We have a lot of guys with a lot of heart and when we don't play our best it hurts."
Cornerback Roshaun Fellows
"We need to get better for Kentucky. We need to start strong, play the whole game strong and finish strong. We cannot have any lapses."
On the interception at the end of the game
"I just got lucky. On that last play, I was playing low and preparing to tackle and just got lucky when the ball fell into my hands."
VANDERBILT QUOTES
Head Coach Bobby Johnson
"I was pleased with our effort, but not our results. I thought our guys came out and played extremely hard. They did some good things. They believed they had a chance to win the game. That is what you need in a game like this - a rivalry game - for our program to step up and put some pressure on the other team and I think we came a little closer."
"We had some guys banged up who were playing. We had some guys who were sick that were playing. We had a make-shift offensive line. I'm really pleased with how they competed today."
"Those turnovers were killers. They made an aggressive play on the option. They blitzed just about everybody. They knocked it out of Jay's hand. That was the start. It would have been easy for us to give up after the first two turnovers but our guys came back pretty well."
"We play well at times then we make mistakes that keep you from being successful in certain drives. We were playing a pretty good team out there today. Our guys kept playing and plugging. I guess it was sort of the story of the season."
On Cutler:
"Jay Cutler is a playmaker and he did some great things for us. He took hit after hit after hit. I can't fault him [for the two interceptions]. But I would like to eliminate them."
On Brandon Smith:
"Brandon did a good job of turning a short pass play into a real long one. It wasn't going to pay for us to sit back in the pocket for a long time and try to protect Jay. We had a patched-up offensive line. We were trying to get the ball out of Jay's hand quickly. Brandon made a great play [on the 80-yard TD reception] and made several other good runs after short catches."
WR Brandon Smith
On Yards After Catch:
"That's something I worked on in the offseason - getting additional yards after the catch. I did a pretty good job of that today. We were trying to get stuff underneath so we could keep the pressure off of Jay (Cutler) and we did a pretty good job of that today."
Success against their Secondary:
"We knew they had pretty young cornerbacks so I was trying to get something off them, but I didn't know I was going to do anything like that. That's football for you.
On Being able to Scare Tennessee:
"It's real big, especially in the past couple of years when we've kind of laid down and didn't get our offense going. They weren't really expecting that. We tried to keep things going. If we would have had a little more time, we probably would have pulled it out.
QB Jay Cutler
"We had a good plan. We knew we wouldn't be able to hold them out forever. They're stout up front and have good linebackers. We were trying to move them a little bit and hope for the big plays. Brandon made some big catches and turned them into long runs. We knew exactly what they were going to do and we played well."
"We came out here and had a good showing. We needed that. We felt like we could win. We went out there with fire and passion. Those seniors played their hearts out."
LB Kevin Joyce
"To be competitive the last two years, that's definitely progress. Is that what we wanted? Of course not. Nobody wants to lose that many games, but we have to take it for what it is and try to build on it."
On Coach Johnson's post-game comments:
"He thanked everyone for their effort all year. He knows everyone gave 100 percent every game. Losing these games, we all made technical errors. He thanked the seniors for holding strong and buying into the Coach Johnson way of doing things."
