HOOVER, Ala. -- Vanderbilt football coach Derek Mason decided a little punctuation lesson was in order to describe the Commodores entering his second season.
"The season we had a year ago was a comma," Mason said Monday as the Southeastern Conference opened its annual Media Days event. "It's a comma and not a period. This football team has definitely done the things that we need to do in order to get ourselves back on track and be exactly what we want to be."
The Commodores produced exclamation points under previous coach James Franklin, who went 24-15 in three seasons, including consecutive 9-4 marks in 2012 and 2013. Mason was enjoying a successful run as Stanford's defensive coordinator when he was tabbed to replace Franklin, who left for Penn State, but last year was a disaster from the start.
Vanderbilt opened with a stunning 37-7 home loss to Temple and never recovered, finishing 3-9 overall and winless in league play.
"It was definitely frustrating," senior center Spencer Pulley said. "When you go through the season, you try to take it one game at a time, just going from one week to the next, but at the end of the season, it was hard to look back."
Mason is optimistic this year will be better with the additions of Andy Ludwig as the offensive coordinator and James Dobson as strength and conditioning coach. Ludwig coached at Wisconsin last season, while Dobson worked at Nebraska, and Mason is calling the defensive signals after doing so in last year's finale against Tennessee.
Being better than 3-9 is a must for Mason, who isn't new to the business.
"I've been coaching for 22 years, and my understanding is that every year I coach on a one-year mentality," he said. "You understand exactly what this game is and what you have to do, and it's about production. We're going to be a better football team, but I can't predict wins."
McElwain on the clock
The last five SEC coaches fired for a lack of victories (Houston Nutt, Gene Chizik, Joker Phillips, Derek Dooley and Will Muschamp) didn't last more than four seasons at their respective schools.
Jim McElwain was hired this past winter at Florida to replace Muschamp, and he knows the clock is ticking at a program that won a national championship in 1996 under Steve Spurrier and in 2006 and 2008 under Urban Meyer.
"It's kind of great to have the expectations," McElwain said. "We're obviously in a recruiting footprint where we can probably attract some explosive playmakers along the way, and yet it all starts up front on both sides of the ball. Rebuilding that offensive line to allow us an opportunity to be successful is something that we really need to do."
Tray on the Plains
Auburn allowed 38, 35, 31, 41, 34 and 55 points last season in its last six games against SEC opposition.
Bringing aboard Muschamp as the defensive coordinator could go a long way in improving those numbers, but there is also the addition of former Georgia safety Tray Matthews. The 6-foot-1, 213-pound redshirt sophomore sat out last season after transferring from the Bulldogs and was the defensive MVP of Auburn's A-Day game in April.
"He's going to have to be a leader," Tigers senior cornerback Jonathan Jones said. "He has some experience, and we're going to need his big body at safety coming down in the box. I think he's going to be able to do it.
"He has a good work ethic. When he couldn't play last season, you saw him in there working out, and you knew then that he had the potential."
Odds and ends
Every SEC team will host a prostate cancer awareness game in September in recognition of former league commissioner Mike Slive. Auburn coach Gus Malzahn on Michigan's Jim Harbaugh holding a satellite camp in Alabama: "I think that whole thing kind of got blown out of proportion, to be honest with you. The chances of a team up North coming into our state and getting a player that we want or Alabama wants are slim to none." New SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said the SEC Network wound up televising roughly 1,500 live events in its first year after having an inaugural goal of 1,000.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.