What is the Floor and Ceiling for Vanderbilt Football This Year? – Sports Illustrated

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The upcoming college football season presents plenty of new challenges for Vanderbilt football.
The Commodores face the nine-game SEC schedule for the first time and have one nonference game against a power conference team. On top of that, it is a new era for Vanderbilt’s roster. The program has to move forward without Diego Pavia at quarterback and without Eli Stowers at tight end.
Vanderbilt feels like it has reloaded with new talent with its new freshman such as quarterback Jared Curtis as well as the players the program brought in from the transfer portal.
Within the nine-game conference slate, Vanderbilt has five of the nine on the road in some menacing environments, too. Based on Vanderbilt’s schedule and team this upcoming season, what are the best and worst case scenarios for the Commodores in 2026? Let’s try to answer that question.
What would the 2026 season look like if all the dominoes fell in the right place for Vanderbilt? To better define the best case scenario, it assumes that five-star freshman Jared Curtis not just lives up to the hype, but exceeds expectations to some extent.
Perhaps Curtis having a Heisman-like season would be too unrealistic even in the best of cases, but a best case scenario would look like Curtis being starkly ahead of schedule at running the offense and Vanderbilt’s playmakers following in lockstep. That would mean wide receiver Junior Sherrill elevates to another level, running back Alexander has his best college season, tight end Cole Spence proves he is a pass catching threat and some other skill position player exceeds expectations.
Defensively, a best case scenario would look like safeties CJ Heard and Ricardo Jones being a dangerous tandem in the secondary while linebacker Bryan Longwell and cornerback Martel Hight take their games to another level. Perhaps a defensive playmaker like Brian Allen Jr. has a career-high in sacks and EDGE Miles Capers even comes close to delivering on his goals for this season.
A Vanderbilt team in a realistic, best case imagination probably would still have a difficult time beating Georgia on the road given how rare it is for teams to win in Athens. And a best case Commodores would probably still have a challenge going undefeated at home with opponents such as Ole Miss and Alabama coming to Nashville.
With that being said, Vanderbilt’s ceiling in the regular season is 10-2 with the potential for a College Football Playoff berth. Last season was an extremely competitive bubble and resulted in a 10-2 Vanderbilt getting knocked out, but maybe 10-2 gets the Commodores in this season.
The floor for Vanderbilt is what its record would be in a near-doomsday scenario played out for the Commodores.
That would look like either five-star quarterback Jared Curtis not panning out or the Commodores just never finding a satisfactory answer at the quarterback position throughout the season. Maybe that could look like a quarterback carousel or one starter being the best option, but still not performing well enough.
Offensively, that would look like the offensive line struggling to find communication and chemistry against rugged SEC competition and none of the skill position players separating themselves as a clear threat to opposing defenses. It could also look like Alexander and his running mate MK Young not progressing much on the field.
From a defensive standpoint, a worst case scenario would be if Ricardo Jones’ production takes a significant hit after leading the ACC in interceptions last season. And what if Capers is the only reliable player at getting to the quarterback?
Again, this scenario is probably not going to happen, but the floor is how Vanderbilt’s season would go if it reached a point of high disappointment.
Even in the worst scenario, Vanderbilt would still begin the season 2-0 against Austin Peay. The Commodores still should be able to get wins against Arkansas and Mississippi State. Outside of those four games, it may be difficult to find wins. In a worst case scenario, games against Auburn, Georgia, Ole Miss, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee become a mountain to climb for a win. Games against NC State and Kentucky could be toss ups, but winning both would be difficult and losing both would be possible.
Vanderbilt’s floor, if everything falls off the tracks, is 4-8 with a possibility of going 5-7.
These are not official record predictions in either case, but rather just an analysis of Vanderbilt’s trajectory if everything were to go right or wrong this fall.
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Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.
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