Vanderbilt defensive players have a tendency to be humble.

Look no further than redshirt sophomore linebacker Chris Marve’s assessment of the unit’s performance after the Commodores concluded a 45-0 punishing of the overmatched Western Carolina Catamounts Saturday night.

“Seeing as they didn’t score or anything,” he said, “I think we played pretty good.”

Chalk that massive understatement up to good character.

Whatever designs the Catamounts had on scoring on Saturday were snuffed out early on. Marve forced fumbles on their first two possessions, and it all went downhill from there for Western Carolina, the first shutout victim of a Vanderbilt team since the Commodores blanked The Citadel 58-0 in 1999.

“We wanted to go out there and set a good tempo, intimidate and dominate from the first snap, and I think we did a pretty good job doing that,” Marve said.

Western Carolina ended the half with six consecutive punts and a turnover on downs. Their only foray into Commodore territory was courtesy of a botched Brett Upson punt that deflected off Austin Monahan and was recovered at the Vanderbilt 37.

No matter. Redshirt sophomore tackle T.J. Greenstone leveled quarterback Zack Jaynes for an 8-yard sack on the next play and after two short passes, the Catamounts were out of field goal range. A desperate pass by Jaynes into the end zone was swatted away by Casey Hayward, and that was as close as Western Carolina got to scoring all day.

Greenstone finished with a team high of five tackles, including a sack, and a fumble recovery. Western Carolina managed just 41 rushing yards on less than 2 yards a carry.

“We saw everything that we saw in practice,” Greenstone said. “Our coaches prepared us very well for it. Their line was playing back a little bit, which helped us be able to crowd the ball a little bit more. We played in the scheme of things and when plays presented themselves we were in position to make them.”

All told, Western Carolina mustered just 115 total yards of offense and had as many turnovers (four) as they had first downs. Freshman cornerback Eric Samuels had an interception and a fumble recovery in his first game action, and Hayward and senior Myron Lewis combined for five pass deflections.

Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson was hard pressed to find anything the defense did wrong, as they consistently penetrated into the backfield the entire night, never allowing the Catamounts to establish any semblance of a drive.

“They were very aggressive, caused turnovers,” Johnson said. “That’s just what you want out of your defense. They’ve got a lot of pride, they wanted that shutout.”

On the other side, Western Carolina coach Dennis Wagner was left shaking his head.

“I can’t say that we should have scored,” he said, “because we didn’t even come close.”