In the second quarter, Tennessee and Vanderbilt emptied the benches for a skirmish.

While nobody was ejected, multiple personal fouls were handed out. This included one on head coach Clark Lea.

Here is what the coaches and players had to say about what transpired.

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On if he addressed the skirmish with his team:

“I addressed it (at halftime). Tried to address it on the sidelines, too. And we talked as a coaching staff, as well. And it did get pretty chippy there for a little bit. Talked about it at halftime, playing smart football. We didn’t necessarily do that. We had more penalties than we wanted.”

On why he was upset and the scuffle:

"I was upset. From where I was sitting, there were two consecutive snaps where after the whistle, our quarterback ended up on the ground. To me, part of my job is to fight for our players. Certainly for their safety. This is also a guy we lost there in the second half. All those hits add up. I was upset about that and I was upset about the delay of game call. There's nothing I can do about that once that flag is thrown but we can have conversations about it. We'll send it in and try to get an explanation for what happened there. In the moment, I was fighting for AJ (Swann). I was fighting for my team and doing everything I can to help shift what I was seeing happen on the field. I don't know all the ins and outs of the play that got the bench cleared. Obviously, that's not a part of our game. That's not something that we teach or preach and anyone who's watched us practice knows that's not who we are. But I also think that our players were fighting for one another. I think they were standing up for each other in that moment, too. Our first covenant is true brotherhood. I respect the fact that they were standing up for one another. We never want to cross those lines. We never want it to become something that takes away from the game. I thought our guys reset well at halftime and came out and played a disciplined second half. Ultimately, we'll speak to the powers that be about the plays I was frustrated about. None of that is going to get fixed after the fact."

On if it got out of hand:

"I don't think that it was close to being out of control. I think on both sides, the coaches and staff were in position to help keep things temped down. I think it was just an emotional moment in an emotional game at the end of an emotional season. I trust our team. I've got a lot of respect for our guys. They know the lines not to cross. I thought on the whole, for the moment, both sides did a good job of getting things leveled out. Like I said, I was proud of the way we came out in the second half and didn't have any of those issues show back up on our side."

On his perspective:

"I don't know what happened. I know it was just a bunch of chaos that started going on. I thought it was funny but I felt like we regrouped well. We stopped all that."

On if coaches warned them of ejections:

"Yeah. The coaches for sure was yelling that at us. Then we realized, yeah, we can't get kicked out. It is what it is. We weren't trying to get kicked out."

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