University of Tennessee Athletics
Head Coach Lane Kiffin's Media Day Transcript
November 17, 2009 | Football
Nov. 17, 2009
TRADING CARDS SATURDAY TO FIRST 5,000 FANS AT GATES 10 & 21
The UT Medical Center is sponsoring a football trading card set giveaway to the first 5,000 fans at both Gates 10 and 21 for Saturday's game against Vanderbilt. Senior players, Eric Berry and head coach Lane Kiffin are featured in the sets.
Opening Statement: "We are really excited about this match-up and being able to come back home. We've started a little bit of a home winning streak. It would be great to end the season that way, to kick start us into next season. It is another night game; we have had a couple night games and the stadium has been electric, and we expect it to be the same way. It is a huge day for the seniors, their last time to play in Neyland Stadium. There are so many guys that have been so important to us this year. This will be there last game here and so it would be great to win it for them. There are a number of productive players that we are going to miss and will always remember them (being a part of) our first year together, starting this foundation."
We are going to have to play really well. This is a team that the win-loss record doesn't show it, but they can be very difficult. We know they will be very excited for this game being an in-state game. They are going to come to play. Just study the tradition of the match-up the last two times they have come in here -- the last time in here Tennessee won by two points and the time before Vanderbilt beat Tennessee, so we are going to have to have a great week of practice."
On if the cancelled Sunday practice was the result of the team's mood: "No, it had nothing to do with that. It's the fourth quarter of the season and in order to have great practices Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I think guys do wear down. We don't do very much on Sunday anyway. We go out and do some corrections and move around a little bit, so we didn't go out just to keep them off their feet. As far as their mood, in the meeting we made sure to point out, `This is what happened in the game.' The score is what it is, but where did it go wrong?"
This was not a game that they were not prepared for. This was not a game that they were distracted and didn't come to play. And it's evident -- with two minutes left in the third quarter we are down by four points. We start the third quarter and we go down and kick a field goal, get inside the 10 and kick a field goal, come back get a turnover, get the ball back and don't get any points out of it even though we are in their territory. Then it kind of goes downhill from there. We play the worst quarter of the season as a team in the fourth quarter. So we are very disappointed in that. We have been a great fourth-quarter team almost all year long. We want to focus on what went wrong and correcting that, but also continue to remind them this is what happened. If we finish these series right here it's a completely different game. All of a sudden you score, you take the lead, the pressure is back on them and they may have to throw the ball a little bit and it can be a different game at that point."
On the dismissal of Nu'Keese Richardson and Mike Edwards: The last thing I wanted to do was to react to something. I wanted to make sure we had all the information before we did that. It was a very difficult decision. These are two kids, as you mentioned, that we recruited, that we sat with their parents and the people around them in their house. This has been very tough on me. Our No. 1 rule is to protect the team, and so as the head coach I have to make decisions that sometimes I don't want to do. It was a sad day yesterday for those two kids, and I wish them the best of luck. They obviously made a very poor decision, but we cannot allow that to be part of our team. That decision-making can't be anywhere near what we are doing. And the last thing that I can do is have something like that go on, keep people around who did that and go back in and sit on the couch next year or the year after and say, `When you come here, we are going to have a great culture, this is the best place for your son to come.' So I had to make the best decision for the team."
On Janzen Jackson's status: "I don't have any expectation on that at all. We will continue to get information and make a decision once we have the information."
On Jackson's situation being different: "We do not have all his information. I can't get into too much detail on it, but I think that the easiest thing to look at is he was released right away and was treated different in the manner by what happened. You can tell by what has come out of this. I can't get into much more detail than that till we get all the information."
