Vanderbilt Football Notebook: Injury Update to Offensive Line, Weather Preparation, Clark Lea on Ole Miss Defense – Sports Illustrated

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NASHVILLE — As with every press conference, especially on Thursdays, Vanderbilt football head coach Clark Lea knows questions about the Wednesday night player availability reports are coming. Like always, he is prepared to answer.
This week’s initial injury report featured two key Vanderbilt players. Quarterback Jared Curtis was listed as probable for the Commodores’ matchup against No. 9 Ole Miss while offensive lineman Mitchell Smith was listed as doubtful.
With Curtis, Lea gave another positive update that he likes where his five-star freshman is at as Saturday quickly approaches. It seems like barring any setbacks, Curtis should be expected to suit up for Vanderbilt again.
The more surprising part of the injury report was Smith’s appearance as doubtful. Thursday, Lea provided an update on Smith on why he is doubtful for this week’s game.
“Mitchell is dealing with a little knee [injury]. It’s banged up. It just kept him out of practice this week and could be something we need to address. I think we’re just trying to see how it responds” Lea said. “It’s not a big injury, but it’s enough to slow them down right now and perhaps be something we need to address.”
Smith will remain doubtful for Saturday this week, which suggests he likely will not be on the field for the Commodores.
Smith, a 6-foot-6 freshman, has appeared in every game this season and started Vanderbilt’s season-opener against Austin Peay. Smith has become an important part of the rotation in the offensive line.
As Tropical Storm Isaias gets closer to making landfall off the coast of southern Alabama and the panhandle of Florida, there looks to be plenty of rain in the forecast for the Nashville area this weekend.
The Nashville forecast on The Weather Channel shows a 70% chance of rain during the day Saturday with heavy rain possible with a 90% chance of rain Saturday night with more heavy rainfall possible with winds up to 10 to 20 mph.
Vanderbilt is keeping a close track on the weather and prepare accordingly for what could be a rainy 2:30 p.m. CT kickoff. With how hot fall camp was in August, Lea felt like they were dealing with wet, sweaty footballs for an entire month so some rain Saturday won’t make much of a difference.
During Thursday practice, Lea said that the team used gatorade bottles to spray balls and simulate playing with a wet football Saturday.
“Some of it is making sure they know they’re prepared, but also we’re not going to let the conditions beat us on the field on Saturday. We’ve going to use that to our advantage and play our game through it. And we’ll see what comes,” Lea said
Vanderbilt knows how talented the Ole Miss offense is and how hard of a job it is to defend. On the other side of the ball, the Rebels have looked a little vulnerable defensively at times. It feels like a game where Vanderbilt could establish the run with its tandem of Sedrick Alexander and MK Young.
Lea has a lot of respect for the Ole Miss defense, though. He was complimentary of the team’s front seven guys and the challenges they can pose to Vanderbilt’s offense.
“I think they have a good sound system. They’re well-coached. We’re playing an SEC opponent. And so we need to be on our game. We need to be able to create the run wall offensively to move them, to create space for those guys [Alexander and Young] to get going,” Lea said. “Ole Miss is a team that’s talented. They’re prideful, they’re coming off a bye week. They’re going to have things for us that are going to challenge us.”
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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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