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In the locker room after an uninspiring win over Ball State, Vanderbilt football coach Clark Lea said he got on his players.
But not for playing poorly. Instead, Lea believed they weren’t celebrating the win enough. Despite the fact that it was ugly at times, the Commodores (5-2) had pulled out the 24-14 win.
“We’re not so entitled to winning that we don’t know how to — this is hard when we put so much time and energy into it,” Lea said. “But I love the fact that we have grown enough from that early loss to be where we are now, where we can close the game out. And yet, I’m not satisfied with that performance, and neither is our team.”
Things will get harder next week when Vanderbilt faces Texas (3:15 p.m. CT, SEC Network). The Commodores are a win from bowl eligibility and have a chance to get another marquee win like the one they picked up against Alabama two weeks ago.
Vanderbilt can celebrate the things it did to win an ugly game, things it failed to do at Georgia State in September. But there are a lot of elements that need to be cleaned up before the Longhorns come to town.
Take Diego Pavia. The quarterback went into the game completing 69% of his passes. On Saturday, that was just 55%, a 17-for-31 clip.
But Lea isn’t concerned about Pavia, who has proven time and time again his ability to win big games.
“Shoot, that dude’s been on the entire season, and if he has one night where he misses the mark a couple of times, we need to be able to pick him up, too,” Lea said. “He had some huge runs, some huge scrambles, and made some big connections off passes, too. And obviously, for (receiver) Eli (Stowers) to have the night that he had tonight was a part of that.”
Vanderbilt didn’t turn the ball over against Ball State, but it also didn’t force any turnovers. The defense allowed 268 yards and 5.3 yards per play. After not trailing at all against Alabama or Kentucky, the Commodores trailed for most of the first half and allowed the Cardinals to tie the game in the third quarter.
There were some games in the first few years under Lea where any win felt like a massive victory. After his first victory with the program in 2021 by a field goal against Colorado State, a team that finished 3-9, Vanderbilt social media accounts showed a big celebration in the locker room.
That wouldn’t happen in 2024. The victory over Alabama showed that this is a program whose aspirations should be much higher.
“We expect a lot of our team this year,” safety CJ Taylor said.
The Commodores know that a win over Texas, which was ranked No. 1 in the country before losing to No. 4 Georgia 30-15 on Saturday night, is possible. But what happened against Ball State won’t cut it.
“There is never an opportunity where you can come out and play out of focus from your identity or at a low energy level and expect to win,” Lea said. “We did enough tonight to win, and that is a credit to the players, but certainly I didn’t love the energy level and that was something to talk about.”
Potentially getting injured players like Langston Patterson back could help. So could the energy sure to be generated by such a hyped matchup at home. But the next step for Vanderbilt is to bring that same energy level every week. Not just when Alabama or Texas are in town, but when Ball State is, too.
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Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter, @aria_gerson.
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