Vanderbilt Preview 2018: Will the Commodores improve?
Derek Mason is a great speaker. He made us all want to walk through walls during his Media Days speech this year in Atlanta. He made you want to root for this Commodores team. You almost felt: “Screw this, I’m going to Nashville to see them play”.
Of course, what Mason failed to discuss is the fact that since James Franklin left, Vanderbilt – under his charge – haven’t had a winning season. His record at Vanderbilt has been at best poor and worst atrocious (18-31), and his SEC record (6-26) would at least have had people talking about the end of the road.
But for some reason – and this may be because people don’t think a lot of Vanderbilt football – people don’t seem to care.
So will 2018 be any different? Here’s our preview….
OFFENSE
If 2017 wasn’t that great for Vanderbilt (they were rescued from the SEC 0-for by getting to blow out Tennessee), then 2018 could be even more of a struggle. Although QB Kyle Shurmur’s back after a 2,823 yard, 26 TD season, one of his best weapons in RB Ralph Webb is gone, as have WRs Trent Sheffield and CJ Duncan. Kalija Lipscomb (610 yards, 8 TDs) is back though, and with Shurmur probably going to have to go more TE than WR in his throwing game, we should see Jared Pinkney also threatening.
As mentioned, the loss of Webb will be huge for the ‘Dores, but there will be hope that Illinois transfer Ke’Shawn Vaughn will pick things up.
On the upside, Shurmur should be protected nicely by a quality offensive line that brings back five starters and only allowed 19 sacks all season (28th in the nation).
DEFENSE
There aren’t words to describe how bad Vanderbilt’s ‘D’ was in SEC play last season. The Commodores went anchor down down down, giving up a laughable 43.3 points per game last year – including getting 52 dropped on them by Alabama after the crowd started chanting ‘We want ‘Bama’ (SEC folks probably don’t get irony, because we’re sure that Vandy fans knew they didn’t have a cat’s ass in hell’s chance of winning that one). And when they got beat, they were beaten badly (46 points per game).
Derek Mason – although a great defensive coach at Stanford back in the day- hired in Jason Tarver from the NFL, where he’d spent time as DC in Oakland for two years before becoming a defensive assistant at San Francisco. We don’t know how this will make Vanderbilt turn around – particularly as the team only returns four starters to a ‘D’ that was – as described – absolutely terrible in SEC play.
Both Tarver and Mason will be looking to top-sacking LBs Charles Wright (9 sacks) and his partner-in-crime LB Dare Odeyingbo (6.5 Sacks) for a bit of direction. In the secondary, they’ll be looking to CB Joejuan Williams, who had 10 passes defended last season….but how many balls will be thrown towards him.
PREDICTION
Sept. 1 Middle Tennessee
Sept. 8 Nevada
Sept. 15 at Notre Dame
Sept. 22 South Carolina
Sept. 29 Tennessee State
Oct. 6 at Georgia
Oct. 13 Florida
Oct. 20 at Kentucky
Oct. 27 at Arkansas
Nov. 3 OPEN DATE
Nov. 10 at Missouri
Nov. 17 Ole Miss
Nov. 24 Tennessee
We would be shocked if Vanderbilt manages a SEC win this year. We just don’t think that they can compete. Sure, they’ll get wins against MTSU, Nevada and Tennessee State to give them 3 wins, but the rest of the way – particularly as the ‘home crowd’ doesn’t give them any advantage whatsoever – isn’t going to be easy. The best chances for the Commodores to come out of the conference with some sort of smile will be the last two games of the season against Ole Miss and Tennessee. Although with that defense, it’s tough to even see them going 1-1.
VERDICT: 3-9. Sadly, this could be one of Derek Mason’s last season as Vandy coach.