Vanderbilt vs. South Carolina: Postgame Press Conference

Well, that sucked.

It doesn’t really take a genius to figure out that Vanderbilt got outplayed by South Carolina on Saturday, though at least early on South Carolina didn’t appear to be clearly a better team — the talent differential didn’t look anything like the 41-7 final score did. But, of course, Vanderbilt only had 56 scholarship players available. Derek Mason didn’t go into the reasons for all the absences, though we can pretty well figure out what the reason was — particularly given (a) that Mason admitted that they didn’t find out about the absences until after the game plan had been put in on Thursday, and (b) what at least one of the players told DoreonthePlains on Twitter on Friday night.

And, I haven’t watched the postgame presser, but some people on Twitter are saying that Mason implied that if things don’t get better, next week’s game at Missouri may have to be called off. SEC COVID-19 protocols give the commissioner the option of cancelling a game if one team doesn’t have 53 players available (I’m actually unclear on whether it’s 53 scholarship players or 53 players, period), but if anybody had a positive test on Thursday or Friday, they’re out next week as well.

So... I don’t know. Anyway, here’s the postgame presser.

And, uh, here, have a postgame show from VandySports as well.