Everything Luke Doty said after Vanderbilt

Luke Doty played in relief of injured LaNorris Sellers and completed 18-27 passes for 148 yards and an interception. Here’s everything he said after the 31-7 loss to Vanderbilt.

Question: When you see LaNorris go down, what’s your first thought, and then how do you think you played? 
Doty: Just move the ball down the field, put together a good drive. Obviously, you hate to see your starting guy, the guy that commands the offense, go down. But it’s on me to stay ready. My mindset going into it was just to put together a drive, get first downs, move the ball down the field, and I feel like we did a good job with that pretty much all night, just putting drives together, being consistent in the past game. Just got to be better in a lot of areas on my part, and just as an offense, as a whole. 

Question: Did LaNorris tell you anything going into the second half? 
Doty: No, he was back getting checked on by the doctors. I just went and talked to him for a second, told him we’ve got his back, and we’re going to do what we can to come back and win this thing. It’s unfortunate we didn’t. That’s on me and, you know, all of us. Wish him a speedy recovery, and he’ll be back soon. 

Question: What positives can you take from your performance if you have to be the starter going forward?
Doty: Just commanding the huddle, commanding the field, having my eyes in the right spot pre-snap, and just overall coming in prepared. I feel like I did a good job during the week, preparing like I do, preparing like the starter. So if something ever does happen, I’m ready to go when my number’s called. 

Question: Can you take us through those two fourth-down plays in the second half?
Doty: We’ve just got to be better all around. The one, the pass, that was completely on me. JD was in the flat and I’ve just got to give him a better ball, give him a chance to run, and overall just execute better on those downs for sure.

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Question: Is there anything y’all noticed that led to the presnap penalties throughout the night?
Doty: No. It’s just we’ve got to be better (with) mental focus before the ball is snapped. That starts with everybody getting your feet set, and just having the poise and confidence to go out there and know your job, know your responsibility. That’s on all of us for sure. 

Question: No matter how long LaNorris might be out, how do you get your arms around the team and say we can still do this, we’ve got a season ahead of us?
Doty: Just break down the film, watch it, build on the good, correct the bad, and really just show up to work tomorrow. That’s the only way we’re gonna continue to get better, move forward. I like to think about it as a 12-hour rule, 24-hour rule. We’ll watch film, get what we need to get corrected, and start preparing for next weekend. 

Question: Shane Beamer said one of the things he mentioned to you guys was the turnovers. How big of an impact was that, and how do you rectify that? 
Doty: Definitely drive killers. That starts with me, starts with the quarterback position, just being smart with the ball and taking care of the ball. It’s hard to win games when you don’t do that. I take full responsibility for that. I think it just goes back to preparing the right way, emphasizing ball security more, and really just taking care of it and taking pride in hanging onto the ball. We get in a rhythm, and then stuff like that happens. It’s hard to get back into a rhythm. We’ve got to be better from that standpoint, and that starts with me.

Question: It seemed like in critical situations, you couldn’t come up with a big play. What do you think was the cause of that? 
Doty: I think it goes back to the offense as a whole. We’ve just got to do a better job of executing. And again, that starts with me, it starts in the backfield with the quarterback and the center. Just doing a better job of taking care of our responsibilities, doing our jobs, and taking care of the ball. That was the big factor when we got a good drive going, and you get down into the red zone. You’ve got to be smart down there. You’ve got to take care of the ball, and ultimately, we didn’t get that done tonight. So that’s really what it comes down to.

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