MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Derek Mason, as we all are, is many things to many people. To his players, he's the coach who makes practice hard, so the games feel easy. To his coaching staff, he's the boss who demands the whole package, coaching and recruiting, every single day, because the standard is best.
But to himself, he's a realist.
So, when the rain started to fall on Saturday afternoon and the lightning started to strike within a six-mile radius of Floyd Stadium, he felt those dark clouds coming back. The ones that nearly 10 years to the day on Saturday, on August 28, 2014, came during his first game at Vanderbilt, a 37-7 loss to Temple at home that had its 8 p.