What did this game tell the nation about Vanderbilt Football? I’ll leave it to legendary musician Elton John, and his hit song “I’m Still Standing.”
“Don’t you know that I’m still standing, better than I ever did? / Lookin’ Like a true survivor, feelin’ like a little kid. / And I’m still standin’ after all this time,” Elton sings.
Vanderbilt opened the week as 21.5-point underdogs, making it hard to imagine a world where it stayed competitive against No. 7 Missouri. When they had been completely counted out, cast aside and all but forgotten about, the Commodores charged into Columbia, Mo. to take on the Tigers. In doing so, they nearly turned the world upside down.
They may be disappointed to have played so well through four weeks of the season and only be 2-2, but the Commodores are still standing. In fact, with Diego Pavia running this offense, it’s safe to surmise that they’re standing better than they have for a long time.
There’s no getting around it: Vanderbilt Football played its most complete game since Lea took over the program in 2021.
No matter the circumstances, a loss will always leave a bitter aftertaste. Still, though, the way the ‘Dores competed in this game was sweet. In a way, it was even sweeter than the Virginia Tech win by virtue of the opponent they played.
And yet, the Black and Gold did so much more than just compete: they played their hearts out. During the postgame press conference, head coach Lea conveyed a similar message.
“I’ve got a team that’s in pain in the locker room,” Lea said. “A team that fought and was gritty.”
Yesterday’s gutsy performance was unlike anything I’ve seen in my four years at Vanderbilt. It was the moral victory to end all moral victories. While I’ll go on to be somewhat negative in this article, I have to give credit where credit is due: Lea and his team put a terrible Week Three loss behind them and played their best football
It’s hard not to ask, “What if?” game when it comes to this game. What if Vanderbilt had found the end zone in double overtime to win the game? What if the Commodores had held Missouri out after opening extra time with a Pavia touchdown pass? What if Brock Taylor made the 31-yard field goal to send it to triple overtime?
What if Vanderbilt won this game? Would it be ranked? Would Nashville welcome in the cast of College Gameday for Vanderbilt’s Oct. 5 game against Alabama?
“People are pissed off that we lost like they should be, but we’re motivated to play our next opponent,” Pavia said postgame. “[We’re] taking it day by day. We’re an inch away from coming over the hump.”
Saturday’s game will long be remembered by the Black and Gold faithful as a gutsy performance from Pavia and the rest of Vanderbilt Football. Unfortunately, the record books will not remember it the same way. There are such things as good and bad losses, but when all is said and done, 2-2 is 2-2. And that’s a tough pill to swallow.
Fried fish
Vanderbilt’s Week One victory over Virginia Tech had many — including myself — excited about the team’s front seven. My “seven fishes” reference in Commodore Brunch Week One praised the combination of returning veterans, up-and-coming youngsters and transfers who seemingly bolstered Vanderbilt’s first line of defense. In August, Lea’s unit got to the quarterback four times and produced eight tackles for loss, sure, but the way it won the battle in the trenches with the Hokies’ offensive line was even more encouraging. For the first time in Lea’s tenure, it looked like the defensive front would be a strength.
Less than a month later, I’m not sure that’s the case anymore. Vanderbilt has a serious problem, and the once vibrant fishes that made up its front seven have looked fried over the past two weeks.
A handful of plays on Saturday afternoon saw Missouri quarterback Brady Cook stand in a clean pocket for four or five — sometimes even more — seconds. Vanderbilt’s three sacks don’t tell the full story, as the Commodores generated zero quarterback hurries. Simply put, Cook’s pocket was cleaner than a Michelin Star kitchen.
In fairness, the Commodores were missing a ton of depth on defense thanks to a handful of injuries to their secondary. Those types of injuries have forced Lea to modify his gameplan, leaning more on his linebackers for coverage than he’d probably like to. That isn’t to say he’s moved completely away from the blitz, but the secondary’s struggles make it harder to leave players out on an island. Especially when the inhabitants of that island are Luther Burden III and Theo Wease Jr., two potential first-round picks in the 2025 NFL Draft this spring.
Truthfully, it doesn’t matter who’s catching or throwing passes. When all was said and done, Vanderbilt’s secondary did an excellent job of bending without breaking against Missouri, as it only allowed one passing touchdown against the Tigers’ outstanding group of pass catchers. Though the season wears on, and the matchups keep getting more difficult, this won’t be the case.
What’s most important is that the Commodores start pressuring the quarterback like they did against Virginia Tech, because other SEC quarterbacks will make Lea’s secondary pay even more than Cook if they don’t.
Runny eggs
The defensive problems that Vanderbilt encountered in its last two weeks go beyond an inconsistent pass rush. The Commodores’ run defense might be an even bigger issue. After getting completely gashed on the ground by Georgia State last weekend (157 rushing yards and a touchdown), Lea and the rest of the defensive coaching staff were completely outmatched by head coach Eliah Drinkwitz and offensive coordinator Kirby Moore.
Credit to Vanderbilt for holding the Tigers’ to 20 points in regulation, but let’s not forget that Missouri’s kicker Blake Craig missed three field goals (24, 40 and 46 yards) that were all well within his range. That 20 could very easily have turned into a 29 had it not been for a couple of fortunate wind gusts and hooked kicks.
Running back Nate Noel was undoubtedly the best player on the field on Saturday, as evidenced by his 24 carries for 199 yards, a ridiculous 8.3 yards per carry. Noel had six carries that went for 10 or more yards, highlighted by a 64-yard gain at the beginning of the third quarter that put Missouri in a position to eventually take its first lead of the game.
Vanderbilt did do a nice job limiting Missouri’s other runners — Marcus Carroll and Cook combined for 17 yards on 16 carries — but it had no answers for Noel’s next-level speed. The Tigers’ offensive lines created hole after hole up the middle for Noel, who came bursting through into the second and third levels of the defense. Vanderbilt’s secondary did a (mostly) masterful job at limiting Missouri’s passing game, but its run defense couldn’t pay those efforts forward.
Things were seemingly looking up for Vanderbilt’s defense over the course of the first two games after it only allowed 115 combined rushing yards to Virginia Tech and Alcorn State. However, 157 yards to the Panthers and another 216 to the Tigers yesterday, and it looks like Vanderbilt might have regressed to square one after its first month of play.
This isn’t a new theme for Lea’s unit, which has ranked 13th, 10th and 14th in the SEC in rushing yards allowed per game from 2021-23.
If Vanderbilt wants to find success under Tim Beck and Jerry Kill’s offense, it needs to stop opponents from running the ball all over the field. When teams do that, they take up large chunks of time and keep the ball out of Pavia and Co.’s hands. Losing the possession battle is a cardinal sin for an offense that’s meant to operate slowly and methodically on the ground while controlling the clock.
Captain Crunch time
One of the things that separates good teams from great teams is the ability to operate in a calm and composed manner during a game’s biggest moments. Some call it the “clutch gene.”
Vanderbilt Football has been about as volatile as it gets when it comes to crunch time this season. Now that the Commodores have had three games decided by the final possession, it’s becoming increasingly clear why that is. They don’t have the clutch gene.
Pavia has been about as clutch as it gets. He’s led four late-game touchdown drives to bring Vanderbilt back from the depths of despair. A 6-play, 70-yard drive late in the fourth quarter against Virginia Tech to tie the game at 27-apiece. Two touchdown drives on the Commodores’ final two possessions against Georgia State (8-for-65 and 3-39) gave Vanderbilt a 32-29 lead. Then again in Columbia yesterday — an 8-play, 80-yard drive to keep his team’s hopes of an upset alive.
While it’s an unbelievable luxury to have a quarterback who can win games during their late stages, a heroic play-caller isn’t the only thing that matters. Against both Virginia Tech and Missouri, Vanderbilt came out firing but completely cooled off until Pavia saved the day. For this team to sustain success in the long term, it’s going to need to play better in the second and third quarters.
On the other side of the theoretical clutch coin is Lea, who has often folded under the pressure of program-defining wins under the bright lights of national attention. Vanderbilt caught many eyes against Virginia Tech when it jumped out to a 17-3 lead, but Lea’s defense folded and nearly blew the game, allowing 311 total yards in the second half (compared to just 86 in the first).
Two weeks later, Lea’s unit allowed Georgia State to drive 75 yards in 59 seconds to stun the Commodores and win the game. And yesterday, after Vanderbilt opened up overtime with a score and needed one final stop to win, Burden III burnt the defense and halted all momentum with a one-play touchdown.
Lea knows it’s on him to keep working through these struggles, and he’s confident that Vanderbilt can do just that.
“We’re going to be disappointed in the result, but we’re going to stay committed to our process,” Lea said. “This is a journey. The season didn’t end in Atlanta. It doesn’t end here today.”
There’s no getting around the fact that this is Vanderbilt’s best team in over five years. It hasn’t been easy to build the program back up from the rock-bottom state that Derek Mason left it in, but to Lea’s credit, Vanderbilt is in much better shape than it was when he got here. Now, it’s up to Lea to continue to learn from these moments and be better for it.
If the first four weeks have taught us anything about this team, it’s that the Commodores are resilient. They stayed standing after Georgia State last week, and they’ll stay standing after this loss, as well.
Lea and his group will have the next 13 days to right these wrongs before welcoming a juggernaut in No. 4 Alabama to FirstBank Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 5.
