A year ago, it was already evident that offensive coordinator Tim Beck and QB Diego Pavia were transforming Vanderbilt into at least a semi-legitimate team after coming in from New Mexico State, even before they upset Alabama and shocked the universe into an upside-down state.
Now, a year later, Vandy returns most of the same key players from a year ago, and now they’re all a year older. In fact, nearly all of their starters on offense are at least on their 5th year of college football. It’s an experienced
group, and a supremely confident one.
This is what I said last year before the game:
Tim Beck runs a pistol-based offense that is focused on the read option run, and everything builds off of that. It’s pretty much identical the offensive scheme Chris Ault pioneered at Nevada and Greg Roman/Colin Kaepernick set the NFL on fire with for a season and half with the 49ers back in 2012.
Nearly every run play is a QB read option, and even many of the passes often keep an element of motion to have the start of the play look similar to the start of a read option.
A year later, much is the same. QB Diego Pavia is still the main man of the offense as a true option QB. Sedrick Alexander still excels as a between-the-tackles rusher. TE Eli Stowers is still the main pass-catching threat on 3rd downs. And the receivers are still highly involved as jet reverse options.
The offense runs almost solely out of pistol and approaches the game far from traditionally. The ever-present threat of a QB keeper is what keeps the whole thing going. Is Pavia going to run a draw? Is he going to pull the ball and run a read option? Is he going to run a speed option? Is he going to roll out and then run it? Or roll out and pass it? Is he going to keep it for a second, then throw a shovel pass as soon as you commit? That uncertainty keeps defenses from ever attacking with confidence, and it gives Sedrick Alexander and the rest of the ball carriers what feels likes miles and miles of open space to work with when they get the ball.
Offensive coordinator Tim Beck might actually be crazy. I watched him call back-to-back identical wide receiver jet sweeps, for about 2 yards each. Then on 3rd and 6, he does the same thing again, except Pavia pulls the ball back from a WR and dives headfirst into the line of scrimmage…. and gets the first down. Against a legitimate SEC defense in South Carolina.
And couple that with Pavia, who will run a speed option and then pitch the ball backwards after he’s already gotten the first down, or will throw a late shovel pass, sacrificing himself to already being in the process of being tackled before committing to pass the ball. It feels like the Dore’s are playing with fire all game long, and yet it never seems to come back to bite them.
The real negative of the offense is the lack of a downfield passing game. If they get the lead, they will start milking the clock on every single play as early as the 2nd quarter (Alabama saw that last year). And they are excellent at converting 3rd down after 3rd down with little QB boot plays and passes where you think he’s about to run it for the billionth time. However, when trying to execute any downfield passing, Pavia struggles with accuracy unless his guy is wide open on a coverage bust, and he struggles to operate out of a clean pocket – he just can’t help it, he’s going to start moving around and can run himself into sacks. The real question for Vandy will be if they can play from behind and score quickly when needed (or maybe it won’t ever come back to bite them… Maybe they’ll just always have interminably long drives converting 3rd downs and this is their world, we’re just living in it).
As far as season stats go, they are passing for 271 yards per game and rushing for 223 per game, with the 4th-highest scoring offense in the league at 49 points per game. Pavia has 1211 passing yards with an impressive 75% completion rate, and 13 TDs to only 3 interceptions… Plus he leads the team with 294 rushing yards.
Sedrick Alexander has 243 rushing yards, and an absurd 7 touchdowns. TE Eli Stowers leads the team with 301 receiving yards, and wide outs Junior Sherrill and Tre Richardson aren’t far behind with 225 and 236, respectively.
However, their overall schedule has to be taken into account here. Charleston Southern and Georgia State are scrimmage-level squads that even old Vanderbilt would have beaten. Utah State is dreadful and on their 3rd head coach in 3 years. Virginia Tech is supposed to be a big school, but were bad last year and then already fired their coach 3 games into the season this year. Finally, South Carolina is the big win for Vandy, and the Gamecocks were playing without their starting QB.
I’m not saying the Vandy offense isn’t really good. But the 49 points per game is not sustainable as they enter into SEC play, rather than feasting on 3 cupcakes, a broken ACC squad, and an SEC team without their QB. Old Vandy still would have lost half of those, so this team is a legitimately good squad, but definitely take some of the early success this year within context.
For Alabama, this game, unfortunately, is what started off pretty much all of the negative narratives about Kane Wommack’s defense. Though Wommack saw improved scoring numbers and a much improved pass defense over Alabama’s last few defensive coordinators, his defense struggled to get off the field vs Pavia a year ago, giving up an astronomical amount of 4th down conversions and a death by a thousand QB runs. That carried over into similar struggles vs Jackson Arnold with Oklahoma when the Sooners pretty much changed their offense to copy the Vandy gameplan vs Alabama, and then again in the season opener vs Florida State, where Gus Malzahn runs a different version of a somewhat similarly-minded offense based on QB rushing and misdirection.
Alabama has a great pass defense. Does it matter if the opponent doesn’t really pass? Can they finally figure out how to contain a running QB or stop WR reverses? I’d like to hope so. Unfortunately, they’ve yet to prove they can.
I don’t think this is a game the defense can win on it’s own. The Alabama offense will have to jump out to an early lead and keep scoring to force Vandy into actual passing situations. If they do, I think the defense can feast. Otherwise, it’ll be a long day. I’m predicting 33 points for Vandy. Can Alabama outscore it?
