Given Vanderbilt’s 3-0 start, there is plenty of buzz ahead of Saturday’s game with No. 1 Alabama in Nashville.

Derek Mason discussed the anticipation and expectation of the challenge during a Friday afternoon visit on The Paul Finebaum Show. Mason recalled when Vanderbilt visited Mississippi State in 2014 and how it was as impressive a football team to look at, and he brought that up to explain that Alabama is different in person than watching on television.

“When you see the size, the girth, the athleticism in person, it’s totally different,” Mason said. “But for our football team, and I give them credit, we’re in a place where when you have juniors and seniors, these guys are going to worry about playing the game.”

Mason added that facing Alabama will be different than any game he’s experienced in Nashville.

“It’ll be the toughest ballgame we’ve played in my tenure and with that, we’ve got to meet a challenge,” he told Finebaum.

Mason dismissed the “buzz” around the game because he said Vanderbilt players get up at 5:45 a.m. and begin practice in the morning before they go off to class. So they presumably miss some of the distractions that go with an opponent of this magnitude.

“It looks different than most teams,” Mason said. “I will say this: Our guys have been focused, it’s been a great week of practice. The preparation’s been great. We had a great 45-minute get-after-it practice this morning, and it’s time to rev it up tomorrow at 2:39 and kick it off.”