South Carolina Gamecocks vs. Vanderbilt Commodores: Shawn Elliott Postgame Press Conference

Interim head coach Shawn Elliott had a pretty lengthy postgame press conference after his first win in his new position. The press conference can be watched in it's entirety here, but here are the highlights.

On the importance of this win:

This was one heck of a team win...They kept fighting, they kept playing, they did everything we asked of them.

The way we came back and the way we rallied, it was a special night...I hope our fans understand that. Because it wasn't all pretty, but the bottom line is we came out and we won that football game and that's exactly what our football team needed to do.

On the defense:

Our defense stepped up to the plate, played an exceptional ballgame. Other than a personal foul, some minor runs and some other things.

I will watch [the defense] and I will ask questions. I'm a defensive guy. I love the offense, but I'm a defensive guy at heart. I'm not gonna go in and make any big time changes by any means, but I'm gonna ask how we can get better defensively. We played one heck of a game...They kept us right where we needed to be tonight.

On the offense:

Offensively we were a little inconsistent. It was like we'd take two steps forward and one step back on every series throughout the game and we never could put those back to back to back plays together. I thought we were moving the football well and were pretty confident in what we were doing, it was just one mishap after another....We struggled in the red zone, which we've gotta get better. We gotta get better as coaches, we gotta get better as players. We gotta be able to punch the ball, we've gotta be able to line up and run over them.

On whether the offense was purposely pushing the tempo:

We were making an effort to push it...I think we will make a better effort. I think that's one of the things you have to improve on. As you practice that more you get a little bit more comfortable with it offensively. Our players will become more confident in doing that as well. But yes, we wanted to push the tempo. We're gonna run a tempo-oriented offense.

On Perry Orth:

He's calm, cool and collected. I'm really proud of him...He's becoming a leader of our football team...He makes mistakes just like everybody else, he comes to the sideline, he listens, and then he goes back out. And the team respects him.

On carrying a visor as he led to team out during 2001:

Coach Spurrier, he gave me an opportunity here. A lot of other people wouldn't have done that. I knew I wanted to do something to kinda pay tribute to him. And I thought, what better way?

On whether wearing black uniforms was his idea:

It was. I just wanted a change, I wanted something to make it our own. Our team had said all week what about changing up the routine with our jerseys and doing something different. Coach Tanner even pointed it out and said we're 0-7 in black jerseys. I didn't know that. The thing I said is they don't make you play good, they don't make you play bad. It's what's inside.

On the energy of the team:

I told them in a meeting...I said listen, I want you to have fun, I want you to let it all loose and I want it to be just electric. And I said hey, a couple personal fouls for celebrations, it's on me...But they needed to let loose, they had a lot on their minds. So I wanted them to go out there and have fun.

On having a bye next week:

It's a good week to have a bye week. We haven't had a chance to go in and evaluate ourselves and see what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong...I think the open week is gonna be very very good just to go in and see how we can get this football team to be better.