NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Derek Mason channeled the late Dennis Green earlier this week when sizing up the challenge that awaits his unbeaten Vanderbilt football team.
“They are who we think they are -- good!” Mason said of the No. 1-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide.
Mason, by contrast, is hardly who a lot of people thought he was, at least as a head coach, in the infant stages of his Vanderbilt tenure. He lost his first game as head coach to Temple 37-7 in a dreadful performance at home and five of his first six games before finishing the season 3-9, with the three wins coming over Massachusetts, Charleston Southern and Old Dominion.