Vanderbilt survived its first true scare of 2025. Yes, they lost to Alabama, but I think all of us had that circled as a likely loss as revenge for last year even if you expected Vanderbilt to be 7-1 at this point. If you did, I need proof then I will fully congratulate you on your impressive predictive skills. Or homerism. Probably homerism.
Losing to Missouri would have been the first bump in the dream scenario season we are all living together. The game being an ugly, grind-it-out affair was somewhat
expected. The unexpected bit was Vanderbilt only scoring 17 points and having the game come down to a last-play Hail Mary that was caught just short of the goal line. And by “just short,’ I mean inches away from it.
This brawl of a game has me questioning some positive things about the team that I thought were more established while also raising some intrigue about other aspects of the team even higher. For example, Pavia was very pedestrian, but the run defense was elite. After 8 games, where does the current evaluation stand?
Lessons We Know Well
Diego Pavia’s Heisman bid took a step back in his worst performance of the season, but the fact that a Vanderbilt player is in the conversation for college football’s most prestigious award says enough on its own. He was 10/19 through the air for 129 yards and had an interception on a pass that was tipped at the line. On the ground, Pavia carried the ball 8 times for 20 yards and scored once, which was the game-winning TD late in the 4th quarter. His QBR was a mediocre 59.1. He missed some throws but had others dropped. Missouri’s defense muddied the reads very well and closed plays down quickly. Still, Pavia battled it out, and he found a way to be the hero, or at least one hero, in Vanderbilt’s win. The gritty competitor will certainly want to do more to help his team in the games ahead, but he provided just enough when it mattered.
Another group that was well below their impressive standards for the season was the offensive line. A week after manhandling LSU, Missouri put them on their heels more often than not. Missouri only managed 4 TFLs, with 2 being sacks, but they were disruptive all night. Vanderbilt was held to 5.5 yards per carry. That figure drops to 2.4 without MK Young’s 80-yard TD run. They are in for another war with Texas’s front 7 being just as good or better than Missouri’s.
One very positive marker Vanderbilt put down was that the run defense is very real. The Commodores are 18th in the country in opponent rushing yards per game (101.9) and 35th in opponent rushing yards per attempt (3.51). They just held Ahmad Hardy, the most effective back in the SEC to 4.9 yards per carry, which is 1.1 yards per carry down from his season average. The Tigers best run was a direct snap to WR Kevin Coleman Jr that went for 34 yards. Other than that and a 17-yard carry by Hardy, the rushing attack was kept well in check. Including last weeks 10 carries for 22 yards, Hardy’s backup Jamal Roberts has run the ball 66 times for 428 yards for a 6.5 yards per carry average. Obviously, he was nowhere near that on West End. Vanderbilt’s defense can be successful if they keep forcing teams to be one dimensional, especially teams that want to run the ball first and foremost.
Brock Taylor. I refuse to say more.
Lessons We Are Learning
Eli Stowers needs a breakout performance. He is one of the, if not THE, most talented TEs in the country, but he only has more than 4 catches twice this year. Those performances came against Georgia State (5 catches for 73 yards) and Utah State (6 catches for 68 yards). His only other game over 45 yards receiving was a 4-catch, 86-yard game against Charleston Southern. Everyone in college football knows Pavia wants to find Stowers in key moments. OC Tim Beck needs to find ways to facilitate that connection, and the TE needs to find ways to separate in those moments to be the star this team will need in these next few weeks. The contributions from Cole Spence like he had in the LSU game will feed off of Stowers commanding attention and still winning often enough to scare defenses.
The Top 2 WRs for Vanderbilt need to find a bit more consistency. The offense certainly focuses on sharing the touches among a wide variety of players to exploit matchups or just find the option that the defense cannot or did not cover. However, these two need to win a bit more often and consistently in their one-on-one battles to keep this season rolling. Tre Richardson got back to form with 4 catches for 62 yards, including a ridiculous toe-tap for 37 yards that required review to get correct, after a 0-reception performance against LSU. He did have 3 carries for 22 yards against the Bayou Bengals. Junior Sherrill had 1 catch for 8 yards, and he suffered a case of the drops with 3 or 4 balls going off his hands and hitting the turf. Sherrill is the other go-to option on 3rd down when teams shift coverages towards Stowers. One of the drops was on third down, and the two others were on 2nd and long situations where Vanderbilt needed to get the set of downs back on track.
Even on a mostly unproductive day, I think the RBs did a good job. Sedrick Alexander had 10 carries for 27 yards with his long only being 4. He was grinding and battling every time he was handed the ball. It was not pretty nor particularly effective, but Alexander did about as well as could be expected with the OL getting beaten more often than not. MK Young struggled on 3 of his 4 carries as they earned a combined 6 yards. The other carry was an 80-yard TD sprint. Like Alexander, his struggles were mostly out of his control.
The group that made the offensive struggles moot was the defense. Yes, the run defense is the better phase. The pass defense is holding its own though. The Commodores are 71st in opponent passing yards allowed per game. They are a slightly better 51st in yards per passing attempt. Teams are often chasing and throwing the ball more, which is why the raw yards per game is worse than yards per passing attempt. They key is the lack of big plays against. The Dores have allowed only 2 40+ yard passes (8th in FBS) and 8 30+ yard passes (31st). Oddly, they are 34th in 20+ yard passes allowed with 19 such instances. Then the proof of their plan shows up with Vanderbilt being 93rd in 10+ yard passes, having allowed 71 of those plays through 8 games. The pass defense is simply forcing teams to complete a ton of passes under 20 yards then tackling well in the secondary and eventually forcing mistakes with either the run defense or sacks. I do think they could be a bit less soft in coverage to potentially create more interceptions or shrink that number of 10-20 yard receptions.
Vanderbilt was only able to generate 1 sack against Missouri, but they still rank 23rd in the country in sacks per game at 2.63. It was Keanu Koht having his second QB takedown in as many weeks. The DL has 17 of the 21 sacks on the year. The men up front are causing a lot of havoc even just rushing 4. Sometimes the 4 guys rushing can change as a DL drops into coverage. Even on blitzes, the DL are often the ones leading the charge to the passer or cleaning up the play as a QB scrambles to escape the initial threat. They obviously also deserve a lot of credit for the run defense. Of the non-sack TFLs, the DL has 15.5 of the 33 recorded. Vanderbilt is 21st in TFLs per game, too. They disrupt drives so well that way.
This team is embracing the big moments. Coming off a win over then-#10 LSU with GameDay in town and the official launch of Diego Pavia’s #2Turnt Heisman campaign while facing #15 Missouri seems like a whole lot of spotlight for a team that has just been getting flashes of it for the most part. They may not have secured a dominant win or one that showed off the typical strengths of the team. They secured a win though. They kept their goals fully in their control. It was not pretty. It was impressive. As it is every week when vying for a Bowl Championship Series College Football Playoff spot, they are going in to Austin for another matchup drawing lots of attention.
The one area where “the moment” does seem to get to them a bit is the penalties. Guys are playing hard and trying to do too much at times. Kolbey Taylor had a DPI on 3rd and 23 on Missouri’s last drive where he could have let the WR catch the ball and tackle him to force 4th and 7. He really could have easily defended the pass but was just a bit too overeager. Junior Sherrill got called for a hold that negated a magic Pavia scramble right then left then to paydirt by just trying too hard to stay engaged downfield. A ticky tacky kick catch interference was called for a player just trying to be a bit too intimidating with how close he got to the punt returner. They need to clean those penalties up. The pressure situations are when they need to be cleanest.
Lessons for Further Study
Did OC Tim Beck and DC Steve Gregory learn from last week? Beck should have a blueprint for what his personnel struggled with against Missouri and likely will struggle with against Texas. Scheming around those things or finding ways to push the Longhorns away from those weak points will be key. If the edge rushers are winning a lot, can screens or particular run concepts exploit that space a bit? For Gregory, I hope the lesson for him was that the pressure needs to keep coming. Live and die bye it because you are mostly living. Even the plays where it does not get home are generally not turning into back-breaking explosive plays. The times when it does work are when Vanderbilt has the best chance to get off the field via turnovers or punts.
On the road in Austin, Texas, Vanderbilt is not the favorite, but they are the higher ranked team. They are the team truly in control of their CFP destiny. Texas should be in if they win out, but they have no room for error. They have a starting QB who just cleared concussion protocol and would have missed most of the week’s physical practice. Texas is the one who has not lived up to expectations this season. Put the ball down, and let’s play.
