Riding high off the thrill of three consecutive wins and a national ranking for the first time since the 2013 season, No. 25 Vanderbilt Commodores had the nation’s eyes upon them. The excitement on campus and in the broader community was palpable in the days leading up to their clash with No. 5 Texas. Students waited in an online queue during class to get tickets and when the student section sold out, they bought them. The stadium was filled with the most black and gold for an SEC matchup in years, and there was an expectation that Vanderbilt would not only compete — but also win — against another top-five team.
At the end of the night, though, Vanderbilt Football was brought back to reality when it suffered a 27-24 defeat at the hands of the Longhorns.
“I hate losing more than I love winning,” quarterback Diego Pavia said. “We want more, [and] the team deserves more.”
If this were another season and another team, this article and this loss would likely reinforce the “moral victory” narrative. For this team, though, a moral victory narrative would only be an insult.
Knowing all this, why did Vanderbilt lose? It was outplayed and out-executed. Nothing went devastatingly wrong; all the fixings were there to make the Texas matchup an epic barbeque — the turnout, the key players and ingredients, the leadup, the setup and even the weather — but the little details left the Black and Gold hungry for more.
Faulty lighter
One simple yet necessary component of any good barbeque is a reliable lighter. There won’t be a dependable spark for the grill without it. Sometimes, even more frustrating than no lighter at all is a faulty one. One that starts strong, but then its flame disappears, and it just clicks to no avail. This faulty lighter is akin to the lack of urgency with which Vanderbilt played its game against Texas.
Vanderbilt’s strategy was effective at the beginning of the game, and its flame roared. After just five Texas snaps, Langston Patterson closed the gap on quarterback Quinn Ewers and got a hand on the throw before his teammate Martel Hight brought down the tip to complete the interception. The crowd exploded and all the momentum fell into the Commodores’s hands.
Pavia and Co. took the ball at Texas’ 31-yard line and kept the grill on high heat. Five plays were all it took for the Commodores to get their first touchdown — an 18-yard rush by Pavia, who made a sensational play as he dove and touched the ball on the inside of the pylon. The fire was roaring for the Commodores; you could hear the meat sizzling and see the Texas fans sweating in their burnt orange.
Then, the lighter went flat. It clicked but produced no flame.
Texas retaliated and scored a touchdown. Then the Longhorns scored another, and then they scored another. The Commodores allowed three unanswered touchdowns and found themselves in a 21-7 hole in the first half of play. To counter, they went three-and-out on offense and turned the ball over twice. The spark returned when Vanderbilt took the field with 34 seconds remaining in the first half.
Through those 34 seconds, Vanderbilt moved the ball from its 47-yard line to Texas’ 36. Then, sophomore phenom Brock Taylor (more on him later) entered and nailed a 54-yarder; Vanderbilt put its first points on the scoreboard since the first three minutes of the game. The ‘Dores knew they needed to spark the fire again before halftime, or everyone would write off the barbeque and settle for fast food on their way home.
Vanderbilt’s lighter woes wouldn’t end here though, the flame wasn’t as dim as the first half, but it wasn’t blazing in the second half, either. The lighter would work for a split second, a three-minute drive resulting in a touchdown in the third, and another one-minute drive in the final 1:57 of the fourth quarter. The Commodores’ offense failed to replicate the same spark that it created at the beginning of the barbeque, and this hindered the Commodores’s ability to produce results and put points on the board — even among a myriad of mistakes from Texas.
“We battled back [and] showed a little fight in the second half,” head coach Clark Lea said. “It was just too late by the time we synced up and made a run for it.”
The presence of a reliable lighter and spark behind the offense is what has carried Vanderbilt to its best wins this season. This game was always within reach and in the moments when the spark returned, Vanderbilt looked like the better team.
Dropping the plate
Vanderbilt’s perfect barbeque of the Longhorns also fell flat because it couldn’t hold onto the ball, between interceptions and three-and-out situations.
Have you ever gone to a barbeque and thought, “That grill smells so good; I can’t wait to finally dig in” By the time you grab your food, you can practically already taste the spread you’ve laid out. However, things quickly take a turn when you’re distracted and the next thing you know, your plate is on the ground and your efforts are quickly wiped away. Sure, you can get another plate of food, but you will never get that first one back, and you can’t stop thinking, ”What if I just didn’t drop that other plate.”
This is similar to how Vanderbilt’s offense played against Texas. What if the Commodores’ sustained longer drives? What if they converted their fourth-down attempt? What if their trick play wasn’t called back due to a penalty? These plates were practically served to Vanderbilt on a silver platter from the Longhorns, yet the Commodores couldn’t create much to show for it.
Leading up to Saturday’s game, Pavia had only thrown two interceptions through the whole season, one against Kentucky and the other against Ball State. On Saturday, that total doubled in a single game; Pavia threw two more interceptions. While only one of them created a scoring drive for Texas, these mistakes, paired with the abundance of three-and-outs, were costly to the team effort.
That isn’t even to mention the Sedrick Alexander fumble which killed a healthy-looking drive that could have ended in more points.
Playing against SEC-caliber teams is tiring for a defense, especially when trying to limit an offense averaging 37.6 points per game. The longer an offense can extend its drives, the more rest its defense will get and the sharper it will be on the field. On Saturday, Vanderbilt converted on just 3-of-12 third downs (25% conversion rate) as opposed to Texas’s 9-of-15 (60% conversion rate). Vanderbilt put its defense back on the field over and over again, failing to provide it with the rest time it needed. This stat starkly contrasts with Vanderbilt’s incredible win over Alabama when it converted on 12-of-18 attempts
“We can’t be in the business of turning the ball over,” Lea said postgame. “Those early scores defensively where we were settling into the game — and then turning the ball over, and [then] three-and-outs on offense — took us out of our strategy and really put the result out of reach.”
Vanderbilt’s offense needed to be better on first and second-down plays today, but it dropped the plate when it mattered most — and its leader recognized and acknowledged that.
“We’ve just got to get better because those [turnovers] are points,” Pavia said. “That’s on me. I need to be better.”
Dropping your plate — going three and out once or twice or turning the ball over — happens to the best of us. However, Vanderbilt can play better and cleaner offense than it did yesterday; it can possess the ball for 45 minutes of the game and never trail once it gets ahead. The Commodores’ failure to do so cost them another top-five win and perhaps the best metaphorical barbeque that Music City has seen in decades.
Secret Recipe
Every barbeque has at least one “special” dish that always just hits differently. The dish that you always have to keep your eye on to make sure you grab some before its gone.
Vanderbilt has a special recipe that it brought to this matchup and one that kept it in this game: His name is Brock Taylor. The best part about a secret recipe is that the person making it is reliable: You always know what you’re getting, and that it’s going to taste exemplary. Taylor is the perfect example of this. He is 15-for-18 on field goals this year, and four of those makes have been from 50-plus yards. He made all three extra points on Saturday and put the team on his back when he banged a no-doubter 54-yard attempt through the uprights as time expired in the first half.
Vanderbilt needed points right before the first half ended, and Taylor delivered. His kick brought the score to 21-10. With the Commodores getting the ball to start the half, it felt like Taylor had given them a lifeline.
In a game where putting points on the board is critical, it helps to have the Taylor special recipe to lean back on and trust, no matter the distance or day.
The game has been played, and the ‘Dores put together another competitive week of SEC football. It wasn’t the result that Commodore Nation wanted, but if anything, it just proved that Vanderbilt can win on any given weekend. For now, there’s not much else to do but wait and see if the AP voters agree that — despite the loss — Vanderbilt is still a top-25 team.
This will undoubtedly be a week of betterment and reflection for the Commodores as they search for an elusive sixth win — and bowl eligibility — at Auburn on Nov. 2 11:45 a.m. CDT.
