Inside Vanderbilt’s Unlikely Resurgence From The Gallows
WHEN THE FINAL SCORE was wired out and the buzzer hit zero this past weekend, the numbers weren’t in Vanderbilt’s favor. Two weeks removed from their historic win over No. 1 ranked Alabama, the Commodores narrowly lost to No. 5 ranked Texas 24-27. Coming into Nashville, the Longhorns knew it might be a trap game, treading carefully on their SEC counterpart’s jaw-dropping loss on what seemed like the Crimson Tide’s year.
Show this article to anyone just a year ago and they would’ve said wonders about the transfer portal and NIL and how maybe the ghost of Cornelius Vanderbilt or current heir and CNN host Anderson Cooper pitched their life savings into the Commodores’ booster. But what makes a solid fantasy tale is seldom reality. The truth is Vanderbilt’s spotlight was earned and this year was anything but a fluke.
The tale of the Vanderbilt Commodores is one drenched in ridicule and historic parity. For years the Commodores were the runt of the SEC, often ceding power and seen as a doormat for typical blue blood powerhouses like Alabama, LSU, and Georgia. As a founding member, Vanderbilt has never had the honor of winning an SEC championship nor even a 10-win season. The closest the program got was under now-Penn State head coach with nine wins in both 2012 and 2013.
The past ten years have been anything but fruitful to the Commodores, 33-74 since 2015 and statistically the worst team in both the SEC and the Power Five. It was clear that not much could save Vanderbilt. Culture sways have came and went and the NIL era largely left Nashville’s biggest university untouched. That never stopped anyone from trying though.
In 2021, the Commodores hired Clark Lea as the team’s 29th head coach, the third-most in the conference. Usually when teams lose as bad as Vandy, top dogs come at a hefty premium and a culture of winning passes on to the big schools. The worst thing for any college football program is constant turnover and Vanderbilt has seen no shortage of it. The program is seen as a stepping ground for coaches to move on to larger programs, and Lea wanted no part of it.
Lea had made the decision to return to his alma mater after serving as defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. Leaving a distinguished post for Nashville took little convincing, but still a choice regardless. Tackling Vanderbilt’s woes is enough to make any coordinator or first time head coach green in the gills. A lack of distinct quarterback since Jay Cutler, a decimated defense, and most importantly: a culture of complacency awaited Lea. But one thing was clear– he was set on reviving the Commodores from the dead.
“That is the dream. That’s why I came here. That’s what I came here to do,” Lea said after the Alabama win. “That was special and something I’ll never forget.”
SUCCESS ISN’T AN overnight story. It rarely is. Struggling to find any semblance of progress after a 9-27 start to his first three seasons, it was clear that Vanderbilt had a lower level of transfer portal ingress than other SEC schools. Lea started to understand that while Vanderbilt is eons different from other programs at the high Division I level, the chickens had to come home to roost. Vanderbilt would be forced into the portal era, whether they liked it or not.
Lea took on a policy of selective transfers, one that led to starting quarterback Diego Pavia finding his way to Vandy after spending two seasons at New Mexico Military Institute and one more at New Mexico State. It’s not easy for Vanderbilt to go out and seek out high level talent in the portal, most of the crop is gobbled up quickly by the big sharks– especially in the SEC. That leaves Vanderbilt searching for the scraps– or in the Commodores’ case, hidden gems.
Lea’s 2023 season didn’t go to plan at all. After a solid 2022 season where the team went 5-7 and was one win away from bowl eligible, most programs expect an improvement the following year. Instead, after a win against Hawaii and FCS-level Alabama State, the Commodores got pummeled by teams like UNLV and South Carolina. But, there were still premonitions of a season yet to come. Against No. 1 ranked Georgia, the Commodores managed to cut the margin to 17. A miniscule feat but still relevant. Ranked teams were constantly put on upset notice, and even while every team heeded to warnings, thoughts of Vanderbilt being on the national stage began to fester.
Time as a college football head coach is short and constantly a balancing act between just good enough and bad enough to get fired. With a lack of improvement, Lea’s seat slowly began to heat up. Maybe not externally but the thought always lingers for a coach. He immediately began to look for ways or examples of how programs began to turn a ship.
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That led him to look at Las Cruces, New Mexico– home of New Mexico State, who only last year gave another SEC team– Auburn, a 31-10 beatdown only a week after the Tigers blew out Vandy in Tennessee.
“I probably watched that game nine times, and that was before I was thinking about making a change,” Lea said to ESPN. “I was fascinated with what that looked like. What were the markings of that team that allowed them to separate in that game?”
The separation came from Pavia who completed 19-of-28, threw for over 200 yards, and three touchdowns and no picks for a 163.9 passer efficiency rating. The Aggies didn’t have Josh Allen back at quarterback nor did they have any special SEC-beating pieces. In short, it was nothing that Vanderbilt didn’t already have.
Lea was keen on getting some of the Aggies’ pieces over to Nashville ASAP– mainly offensive coordinator Tim Beck, but instead landed on signing the coordinator and Pavia over to Vanderbilt. Pavia clearly wasn’t a blue-chip transfer recruit. He didn’t hail from a powerhouse state or a big-time high school. He wasn’t a five-star who managed to fall from grace. Pavia was a six-foot tall, Albuquerque native who didn’t receive a single Division I offer.
“I just think they were scared of my height,” Pavia said. “People like to focus on height, weight and 40-yard dash times. I like to go off film. I move well. I feel like I throw the ball well. I feel like I run well. I just don’t have God-given height and weight.”
FAST FORWARD to the 2024 season and you can quickly see the fruits of Lea’s, Pavia’s, and a refreshed Vanderbilt’s labor. A win over Alabama only just a couple years ago was a feverish dream that not a single pundit could cook up. And a close loss to Texas proves it wasn’t a fluke either. Vanderbilt squarely outplayed the Crimson Tide possession after possession.
Prior to the Commodores’ day of reckoning, Vanderbilt had lost 60 straight games against AP-ranked opponents. That streak has come to a screeching halt. Right out of the gate Lea and Pavia took advantage of a sluggish Jalen Milroe and Crimson Tide– jumping out to a 16-point lead.
Time again and again, Vanderbilt showed they were apt to grab low-hanging fruit by capitalizing on Alabama’s penalties and woes on both sides of the ball. This was a Commodore team that hasn’t reared its head in years past. Disciplined, calm, cool, and collected.
Pavia continued to impress throwing 20 attempts, completing 16, and 252 yards. It was clear that Diego Pavia showed no signs of slowing down. While Alabama continued to tear themselves down, it was clear that this was no Commodore team of the past.
The Commodores would go onto win that game 40-35, sending the Crimson Tide packing amidst a stunned audience on SEC Network– the game wasn’t even televised on a major network.
“So as far as the game went, you know, independent of the way I feel right now, we expected to win that game,” Lea said after the game. “It’s not shocking to me, you know, I was going to be emotional no matter what, cause it’s a big win and to capture that stadium and as we’re kneeling the ball out you know just a picture in my mind of what the dream is. That is the dream. That’s why I came here. That’s what I came here to do, and there are days where you feel like you’re really close, and there are days where you feel like you’re miles away. And to have that actualized for the moment, that was special and something I’ll never forget.
Now, we expected it, and I’m proud of our team the way we battled. When you look at the game itself, we knew we needed to limit possessions, that’s an explosive offense. It’s a good Alabama team. I’ve got a ton of respect for Caleb [DeBoer]. I thought his guys battled too. I believe they had nine possessions. We said, you know, in the game part of our big three was a 10-possession game, so to get a nine-possession game means that we met that mark.”
It was also tight end Eli Stowers that caught six balls for 113 yards, the sixth tight end since 1996 to register 100 yards against Alabama, a testament to how Lea’s transformation of offensive personnel and philosophy has led to increased output from his players.
A win that sent shockwaves through the world now had SEC teams coming to Nashville or facing the Commodores on their heels. Kentucky was throttled the following week in a 20-13 win by Vandy showing off Vanderbilt’s new resurgence.
But Lea knows as best as anyone else that a rise to fame in college football is a fickle distinction. As with any Cinderella story, success must be continued for a whole program and a culture to shift. Whether you’re Saint Peter’s in 2021 or Appalachian State in Ann Arbor on a fall day in 2007, programs fall just as quickly as they climb.
The ‘Dores’ next test was when new SEC brethren Texas came to town. While the game wasn’t pretty at times, with Pavia throwing two interceptions, he also threw for two touchdowns and 142 yards. While Vanderbilt came in as 17.5 point underdogs, they managed to cut the margin to three.
Part of that was on the other side of the ball that was featured against Alabama. The Commodores picked off Quinn Ewers two times– and including against the Crimson Tide, the defense came up with three total interceptions. Compared to only 12 all of last year, three amongst two games could be the start of a defense that is built to last rather than wither.
The Commodores still have a tough task ahead of them, needing to win one more game to become bowl-eligible for the first time since 2018. They’ll face LSU and Tennessee, two teams currently ranked in the AP Top-25 Poll.
This season, Vanderbilt has come a long way. Becoming ranked for the first time since 2014, and the first time in the middle of the season since 2008. Lea has taken on the persona of former Vanderbilt head coach and now Penn State’s own James Franklin, who led the Commodores to successful seasons in 2013 and 2014.
But Lea wants to chart his own path– one which requires a hefty uphill climb.
“In the world of college football, you just don’t have time to let one game turn into the next,” Lea said.
But Vanderbilt’s transformation can best be seen in a quote that was mentioned earlier. After all the years of ridicule and brash overlook, Lea said it best, “we expected to win.”
