With a 28-10 loss to Tennessee, Vanderbilt wrapped up its season at 3-9, and coach Derek Mason recapped the loss after the game.

“This team will continue to push,” Mason said. “But right now I thanked these seniors taking the journey and told the underclassmen to go grab some wisdom from those guys.”

Mason thanked Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt and the Vols, who he said were resilient and fought back.

“I’m proud of this football team,” Mason said. “3-9 is not where we wanted to be. But tonight, given the circumstances, I thought we had some momentum early.”

Mason said Vanderbilt didn’t capitalize on an early interception.

“We got a couple of three and outs and just didn’t function the way we needed to function,” Mason said. “We needed points, more than 3 points out of those series.”

Mason recalled that this group of players went to 2 bowl games in their Vanderbilt careers, and have put in some work.

“Tonight, we just didn’t have enough horses,” Mason said. “Guys fought, they played hard, but we couldn’t overcome the idea of tackling and what that may look like on those two big runs. I thought we did a good job of containing it most of the night. For us, that’s not the way we needed to play tonight.”

Mason said they would go recruit, figure out the roster and see what’s next, “because I think there’s a lot there.”