See this tag to find links to all coach comments from the April SEC coach conference call.
- Vandy had a good spring, but the ACL tear for DT Adam Smotherman was a major injury that will affect the team. Everything came together over the last five practices.
- He hasn't thought much about conference expansion, but he trusts that Mike Slive will let the coaches know what he's thinking on the subject at the spring meetings. He believes the SEC can attract schools that are looking for tough competition.
- When asked about what needs to improve on offense, he said everything does from the coaches down to the players. The new offensive coordinator Jimmy Kiser was the play caller last year, but he didn't have final say in the matter and had a bit of a time sink in being the quarterbacks coach. That's why he was promoted: to give him full play calling authority and let him focus on the offense as a whole.
- The offense will use some new schemes as well as three different tempos. The schemes will largely be the same, but the coaches looked for easy things to add that wouldn't burden the team.
- The SEC's reputation has helped in recruiting, especially in the southeast. When asked about the gap between the elite and Vandy, he replied, "they can only be signing 25 per year, supposedly" and that it's his responsibility to keep the gap from widening. He knows Vanderbilt has some restrictions but accepts that and will compete with what he's got.
- He hasn't thought about conference expansion through the public versus private school frame of reference. He figures that Vanderbilt wouldn't be invited today if it wasn't in the SEC, but he humbly pointed out that all of the non-football sports at Vandy are very attractive and competitive.