Head Coach Phillip Fulmer:"As I told our football team in the locker room, that loss is on me. I've got big shoulders, and I take responsibility. That wasn't us. The penalties, the orange-area efforts... we've been outstanding in those areas (in our previous games). Our punt coverage has been exceptional (in previous games). We never gave our defense really a chance.
"I think our defensive team played really hard today. (Florida's) a good offensive team, they're going to make some plays along the way. "Our team ... it seems like we've got to learn things the hard way. And so I think everything we do, we learn from and get better from it. As a coach, last year's team was one of those teams that drove you nuts, but they got better and better. We played with effort, we responded and we won. We played for the (SEC) championship in Atlanta when a lot of other people had given up on us early. We won't give up, and we have a chance to be there again. It's just a little bit harder road.
"We had good success running the ball, but when you get 28 points down, it's very difficult to stay with it."
On the plan for kicking to Brandon James: "We were kicking it to the boundary, to the sideline every play we could. (Brandon) James is a good player."
On QB Jonathan Crompton: "Jon's doing some really, really nice things. He's a new quarterback; he's young quarterback, and he's got to continue to improve. He's a competitor. He made some really nice plays today, but he also missed some opportunities."
Jonathan Crompton, QB: "Obviously this hurts right now. We just have to come back tomorrow and start work for Auburn. We moved the ball great at times on offense. We stopped ourselves. We shot ourselves in the foot."
On the long drive at the beginning and the frustrations of the turnover: "Our offense a lot of the times was clicking, and we can move the ball and not many people can stop us except ourselves. I think our defense played a good game tonight and held them and we gave them points as an offense."
On the impact of the orange-zone fumble: "Anytime you don't get points in the red zone it hurts, especially on the 1-yard line. It hurt as an offense, but I think we will bounce back and we are emotionally strong as an offense."
On whether or not Tennessee could stay in the game: "We shot ourselves in the foot. We should have won the ball game in my opinion. We gave up 14 points in the red zone, and they scored seven points off turnovers. We fumbled on the first drive, and that gave them three more. Those things change the whole momentum of the game."
Bobby Johnson, Vanderbilt Head Coach Opening statement:
"It was a wild game. A lot of crazy things happened in the first quarter and went all the way through to the end. I am extremely proud of our guys for playing hard. We had a bunch of guys get hurt. We had some guys come in who had not played before. It was a great effort by both teams. Both teams played extremely hard. We were fortunate to come out on top. We got a really good win down here in Oxford."
On the defense in the second half: "They returned a kickoff and got one on a fumble. We just kept playing. They got us a couple of times for big plays, but we never stopped playing, especially in the red zone. We made some big plays on the goal line stand, and of course the fumble at the end was a huge play. We were opportunistic to say the least. We played very well on defense." On the quick turnaround at the beginning: "I can't tell you what I was saying. We came back to 10-7 and got back in the football game. Our guys started playing with a little more confidence.
On the performance in the second half: "It speaks to our conditioning. Coach John (Sisk) does a good job with our strength and conditioning program. We are not playing a lot of guys. We are very thin. We are not making a lot of substitutions. We have some people out that hindered us tonight. We just keep playing no matter what happens before. We made some big plays after their big plays. That was a big key."
After the fumble: "We were searching for things that would work against their offense. We had some trouble running the ball. It seems like when our guys have to have it, they do pretty well. McKenzie got us close to the goal line down there and then Jared ran down there. It would have been nice to be able to run out the clock, then Bryan Hahnfeldt did a good job with the kick. Those were three huge points. It would have been hard to hold them back. Their kicker missed one, but he's pretty good. I didn't want to give them a chance to tie it with a three. So we went for a field goal."
Memphis Head CoachTommy West
"We had to get a win. We needed to get a win. I thought our team did exactly what I asked them to do. I challenged them to out-rush a rushing team and win the turnover battle, which we hadn't done this year. We haven't been able to out-rush a team or win the turnover battle, but that's how you win football games. I really thought we gave up the special teams play in the first half, which was horrible to let that happen, but I thought we answered in the second half the way we were supposed to play. At the end of the day I'm very pleased that we were able to run the ball the way that we did. We didn't turn it over, and our special teams came back and got us two turnovers. I thought our defense was really good. They gave up three points on the night."
"You saw they had us going on the perimeter early in the game. Tim Walton made two nice adjustments and put a stop to it, but really, before we could get into the half to get it stopped, he made an adjustment on the field and got it stopped. He did a nice job of having a plan and we executed well in the second half. "
About the run:"We challenged our guys. I thought that we are playing against that style of offense that you know that you are not going to get many possessions. Basically, both teams had the ball three times in the first half. We had it three and got it back with a minute and forty seconds for our fourth possession. That's what we challenged, we have to out-rush this football team, but we don't often see that style of offense. "
What did you tell the team at the half? "I told them what I really felt. Don't tighten up because this game is 10-10. Everybody wants to holler at you coming in. Don't tighten up. Go do what we asked you to do and you'll blow this game open if you go and do what you are supposed to do. And they did. I didn't think they were bothered. It was 10-10 at half. I've seen it happen before, but I have been on the other end when I was in Chattanooga. You can be right there at the half, but eventually you start wearing down." That's what we did. Nichols State played their tails off and played really, really hard, but there was a time where if you keep pounding it, then they just started to wear down
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