Derek Mason was trained under Jim Harbaugh to wear gas station attendant shirts when he got to Stanford to take on the blue collar mentality. He said he thought it was a little weird but it worked. Derek Mason is going to bring blue-collar work ethic, which our guys are totally up for, he knows the game well and will teach his team to “beat the brakes” off the opponent.
Derek wants world class in football and academics. He’s talking SEC East titles. That leads us to the SEC championship game, and then the next step when we win that. He loves his players who are in place. They want to win big, that’s Kyle Woestmann’s, Caleb Azubike’s and Patton Robinette’s goal . We’ve got a lot of talent on this football team. James said after the bowl game that our 2014 team would be better than 2013. We’re pretty loaded. There will be some interesting personnel decisions in the spring. Right now, Derek has 90% of his staff selected. Will have that once names are in place. He will talk extensively with the loyal Coaches Herb Hand and Charles Bankins from James’ staff, who have stayed on, recruited extensively and stayed loyal to our kids on the team. Then it’s time to recruit like there’s no tomorrow starting ASAP. We’ve got to get guys like four-star quarterback KJ Carta-Samuels and four-star running back Mikale Wilbon back on board at Vanderbilt University. They de-committed and we want them back.
Derek has a lot to do. From a personal standpoint, he’s a really fine man and knows the game of football. He wants to run the ball of course, have explosive plays, score all of the time in the red zone and have a run-pass balance in the offense which all coaches aspire to.
Assistant coaches in place and recruiting are priority one right now, and then get ready for the spring with our present players, who are the backbone of this program right now. Spring game will give us some good intel on what to expect next year. Now it’s time to solidify our new staff and recruit like there’s no tomorrow to land the stellar class we are looking for.
Like what I’m hearing. Want to see what we can get done in these next two and a half weeks, but I like Derek’s character. Good Vanderbilt man.
Basketball tonight at LSU @9 PM ET/8 CT on ESPNU. Would be a nice win in Baton Rouge if we can get it tonight. Our starting five of Rod, Kyle, Dai-Jon, James and Damian are starting to look pretty special to me. If Shelby and Luke can give us some quality minutes, the we can achieve some good things this year. Not guaranteeing a tourney bid, but it’s certainly a possibility with our group. Tonight is important.