It’s been 2,170 days since Vanderbilt Football qualified for a bowl game. Let that number sink in. Almost six years ago, on Nov. 24, 2018, the Commodores beat the Tennessee Volunteers 38-13 to improve to 6-6 and sneak into the Academy Sports + Outdoors Texas Bowl.
After five seasons of constant gutter balls — a 12-45 cumulative record — the ‘Dores finally hit a strike. Actually, they’ve hit six of them. It might have taken a while, but Vanderbilt is going bowling again. Quarterback Diego Pavia isn’t surprised.
“The first time I ever walked into Coach Lea’s office, I looked him dead in his eye and said, ‘I’ll take you to a bowl game,’” Diego Pavia said after the game. “He was like, ‘You take me to a bowl game, you get what you want.’ But that’s just the bare minimum. We’ve got bigger aspirations.”
Proud of these men.#Brotherhood #Anchordown pic.twitter.com/K6Yzw7P596
— Tim Beck (@TimBeckFB) November 3, 2024
The Commodores’ 17-7 victory over the Tigers marks the first time they’ve ever won a game in Jordan-Hare Stadium. It’s also the first time Vanderbilt has beaten Auburn since the 2012 season and the first time since 1955 that the Black and Gold have defeated both Alabama and Auburn in the same season.
Head coach Clark Lea’s 6-3 start isn’t just impressive because it marks the first time he’s reached bowl eligibility. It’s impressive because he’s the first Commodore head coach to win six of his first nine games since Greg MacIntyre in 1982. This is Vanderbilt’s best start to a season since 1982.
We’ve experienced the highs and lows of Vanderbilt Football over the years, but no one understands it more than Lea himself. The loud celebrations coming from the visiting locker room at Jordan-Hare — where Vanderbilt’s players and coaches congregated after the game — forced a smile out of Lea amidst his near tears.
“I don’t know that anyone will actually understand what December was for us except for that [inner] circle,” Lea said. “To be in this moment, at six wins, means a lot. This is a marker for us, [but] it’s not an arrival. This is a special win. The other five have been special, too. We’re going to celebrate this the right way.”
THEY ARE SHOTGUNNING SPRITES IN THE VANDY LOCKER ROOM pic.twitter.com/CgpUewfsMx
— Cutler Klein (@CutlerKlein) November 2, 2024
Escargot
This was an ugly victory, but good teams do whatever it takes to win, even if its a slugfest. This isn’t the first time Vanderbilt’s had to get down and dirty to defeat a conference foe on the road.
“We’re a gritty team, [and] we’re going to have to win ugly too,” Pavia said.
In Week Seven, the ‘Dores walked into Kroger Field in Lexington and won a sloppy game against the Kentucky Wildcats, 20-13. That marked the Commodores’ first SEC road win in nearly two years. Today marks the first time Vanderbilt has won two conference road games in the same season since 2012.
Nothing is guaranteed in the SEC, especially on the road. Vanderbilt’s performance, albeit rather unattractive, is incredibly encouraging. Yesterday, the Commodores proved that they don’t have to rely on a vintage performance by Diego Pavia to win games.
Vanderbilt’s offense wasn’t operating at its best in this game, as Auburn’s group outgained it 327 to 227 en route to its worst offensive output — both in yardage (227) and in total points (17) — of the 2024 season. It’s hard to imagine that 17 points would be enough for a team that’s relied so heavily on dominant scoring performances to pull off a road upset, but that’s the magic of this year’s ‘Dores: No matter what, they find a way to win.
Lea’s defense stepped up on Saturday in a way I’ve never seen before. Sure, the Tigers’ passing attack isn’t the strongest in the SEC, but this is an Auburn team that ran for 328 yards and 2 scores in Week 9 against Kentucky, one of the best defenses in the conference. Jarquez Hunter dominated, touting the ball 23 times for 278 yards. The SEC’s leading rusher couldn’t find the same success against Vanderbilt, as Hunter ran a 12 times for a season-low 50 yards on Saturday.
Auburn only gained 88 yards on the ground all game. Lea found his opponent’s biggest asset and completely neutralized it. If that isn’t elite coaching, I don’t know what is.
Vanderbilt played completely outside the its core play calling identity on Saturday, producing zero rushes of 10-plus yards as it was held under 100 rushing yards for the first time since the 2023 season. Diego Pavia (12 carries for 26 yards) and Sedrick Alexander (10 for 28) — normally a dynamic duo out of the backfield — were both banged up and ineffective.
Many (including myself) have an aversion to escargot, but Vanderbilt fans will certainly learn to appreciate the delicacy after the Commodores’ slugfest win on Saturday.
Puntpourri
The margin of error on the road is always thin. The game yesterday had even thinner margins thanks to how low-scoring it was. For Vanderbilt to win a game that it’s offense couldn’t sustain consistent drives, it had to win the field position battle. That’s where Jessee Mirco and the Black and Gold punting unit came in.
I’m starting to think that Vanderbilt might be the punting powerhouse of the FBS. It may have started with Matthew Hayball — a former All-American and member of the First-Team All-SEC who is now the starting punter for the New Orleans Saints — but it’s continued with Mirco. The Ohio State transfer hasn’t been called on much in 2024 (just 19 punts over the team’s first 8 games), but he delivered against Auburn.
Mirco was, without a doubt, the star of Saturday’s slugfest.
He punted eight times for 423 total yards, averaging 52.9 yards per punt. Two of his punts went for 60-plus yards, and he pinned Auburn inside its 20-yard line on three separate occasions. Two of those three occasions left Auburn inside its 2-yard line, resulting in three-and-outs.
Both of those three-and-outs led to Auburn punts, and both of those punts resulted in scores for the Commodores. Scoring opportunities were at a premium in this game, and Mirco put Vanderbilt in a position to win.
Many might get a kick (pun intended) out of it, but facts are facts — Vanderbilt won the field position battle against Auburn because of Mirco’s punting.
The Australian wasn’t the only special teams player that gave Vanderbilt a leg (no pun intended) up in this one. As he’s done so often in 2024, Martel Hight flipped the script for the Black and Gold with a timely punt return. The SEC’s top returner made the most of his only opportunity of the game at the end of the third quarter — when the game was still tied 7-7 — with a 39-yard return that set Vanderbilt up just outside of Auburn’s red zone.
Vanderbilt and Auburn combined to go 6-of-29 on third-down conversions and thusly punted the ball a total of 14 times.
In a game when the majority (14-of-24) of total drives ended in punts, the team that won the field position battle was always going to win this game. The Commodores’ offense faltered, and it wouldn’t have gotten the 17 points it needed to win without Mirco, Hight and the rest of its punting unit’s contributions.
Freezer-burnt bread
Pavia and Hugh Freeze’s budding rivalry is absolutely hilarious.
Pavia and New Mexico State dominated Freeze’s Liberty team in 2022, accumulating 339 total yards and 6 total touchdowns en route to a 49-14 smackdown. A year later, the Aggies strolled into Jordan-Hare Stadium — where Freeze was in his first year coaching — and embarrassed the Tigers 31-10. Pavia threw for three more scores in that affair, which was the biggest win of his career at the time.
Freeze had jokes about Pavia during his midweek press conference.
“I’m sick of seeing [Pavia],” Freeze said. “I’ve had enough of him and [the] competitor he is.”
Pavia, now 3-0 against Freeze and 2-0 against Auburn, feels a bit differently.
“They [Auburn] didn’t want to take a chance on me,” Pavia said. “But that’s everyone around the country, and I got a chip on my shoulder everywhere I go.
Props to Freeze for clamping down on Pavia on Saturday. The signal caller completed just 9-of-23 passes for 143 yards and 2 touchdowns while remaining a non-factor on the ground. It’s certainly the best that Freeze’s defense has performed against the New Mexico native in any of their three clashes.
Have opposing defenses in the SEC finally accumulated enough film to slow down the Commodores’ previously unstoppable offense? They struggled against Texas, too, as two of their three scores came thanks to a short field after Lea’s defense forced interceptions.
I’m starting to think that Vanderbilt’s offense is faltering. The same motion and trick plays that worked against Alabama and Missouri aren’t working anymore. The offensive plays when offensive coordinator Tim Beck sends Pavia rolling in one direction — which worked earlier in the season — are getting shut down consistently. Pavia’s designed rushes, which typically went for four or five yards before his injury, are now only going for one or two.
Vanderbilt’s lack of productivity on first and second downs over the past two weeks have crushed its offensive production and made third downs feel insurmountable. The Commodores rank fourth in the SEC on third-down-conversion rate (46%). They converted 3-of-12 third downs against Texas and 4-of-16 against Auburn.
It remains to be seen how much of Vanderbilt’s recent offensive struggles are due to Pavia’s leg injury, which is clearly limiting his explosivity. This was Pavia’s worst statistical performance of the season. He looked uncomfortable throwing and running the ball as Vanderbilt’s offense stuttered.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Pavia has the best thing for Vanderbilt since sliced bread. This performance doesn’t change that. He still threw two critical touchdowns and led Vanderbilt to bowl eligibility. But I think that same metaphorical bread that Pavia represents is starting to get freezer burnt because of this injury. The road ahead for the Commodores isn’t going to be easy, and they’ll need to hold hope that the bye week in Week 12 will get Pavia healthy and the rest of the offense back on track.
For now, though, the Commodores will celebrate a historical moment as they turn their attention to their homecoming date with South Carolina.
