Vanderbilt Football Got Closer to Closing the Gap, It Needs to Put the Pieces Together – Sports Illustrated

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ATHENS, Ga. — A week ago, Vanderbilt football safety CJ Heard sat before a group of reporters in the basement of Jordan-Hare Stadium following Vanderbilt’s 21-15 loss to Auburn. In a game that the Commodores had their chances to win, it was the best performance their defense had looked.
“I feel like we just got closer. We just got closer,” Heard said as he talked about the defensive performance. “We always say it's a player’s game so we just took it upon ourselves to meet more as players and show us for us. We just kept playing hard for each other.”
The concept of getting closer and closing a gap is something that can be attributed to Vanderbilt’s team as a whole for this season. A team that lost a lot of key pieces from last season and is learning the process of how to win games all over again. 
It is true the way Vanderbilt looked as a team from the first game through last week against Auburn, the Commodores did take small strides that have added up to some visible improvement over time. Saturday, it felt like that gap from where Vanderbilt is as a team now to where it wants to be closed a little bit more.
The Commodores went down to Athens to take on No. 2 Georgia with backup quarterback Blaze Berlowitz having to start for an injured Jared Curtis. On paper, it looked like a game that could get ugly. But in reality, it did not really get out of hand until the late stages of the game.
Vanderbilt was within a touchdown of Georgia going into halftime and the game was still just a two-score game at the start of the fourth quarter. That was when Georgia fully ran away with the game and sent the Commodores home with a 38-14 loss.
There was no moral victory in the Vanderbilt locker room postgame. The Commodores are long past that mindset now. However, that does not dismiss the fact that head coach Clark Lea was still encouraged by some of the things he saw, where if they continue to show, then his team may come away with a big down the road this season.
An example of that? The play Vanderbilt had in the trenches against Georgia.
“[It’s about] addressing the things we’re frustrated about, but also being encouraged by the things we showed today,” Lea said. “I felt like the run game had more room. Obviously I believe in our running backs, but I also want to credit our offensive line. It just felt like there was cleaner play up front.”
The numbers from the first half support what Lea said. Vanderbilt outgained Georgia in the first half 234 yards to 215. The Commodores were doing a solid job moving the ball against a team that will almost certainly be in the College Football Playoff.
So, to some extent, Vanderbilt did close the gap a little more and performed in a way that shows real week-to-week improvement.
For the second week in a row, CJ Heard sat before the media, answering questions after a loss. The first question he answered was a follow up to his statement he made at Auburn a week before. Heard seemed to agree Vanderbilt is continuing to get closer, but it still needs to put it all together.
“You just got to learn how to play four quarters, But the first half, I feel like we did. We’re still finding out who we are,” Heard said about whether he feels the Commodores closed the gap of where it wants to be. “Like we talked about after the game, we just have to find a way to stay together for four quarters, not two quarters.”
Vanderbilt still has a gauntlet left to play. The Commodores still have to play five more teams that were ranked in the top 17 of the AP Poll entering this weekend. The improvement is there and will likely continue to be. There is no telling when the team the Commodores believe they are will show up this season, but the belief that they will reach their full potential at some point has not gone away.
“Ultimately, throughout the year, we just have to keep getting closer and it’s going to show up for us sooner or later,” Heard said.
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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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