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There Clark Lea was, in his white quarter zip standing on the Vanderbilt sideline with a smile across his face. Lea would go on to say everything Vanderbilt didn’t do Saturday when he joined the media a few minutes later, but in this moment he was focused only on what it did do Saturday.
And that was enough for Vanderbilt to leave Starkville with a 25-23 win over Mississippi State.
Lea won’t say it, but he had to be wondering if a moment like this would happen in a season that he admits has fallen short of all his expectations. Outside of injury, seemingly everything that Lea worried would go wrong has gone wrong for this Vanderbilt team. Human nature is to assume that more would go wrong Saturday as Vanderbilt went to Starkville as an underdog. It didn’t, though, finally.
In this miserable Vanderbilt football season, it finally experienced a moment of joy. Vanderbilt quarterback Jared Curtis shook hands and smiled. Cole Spence slapped hands and emphasized the win with a first down gesture after catching the onside kick to secure it. Vanderbilt picked up its first win against Mississippi State since 2004, its first win in Starkville since 1971, its first SEC win of the season–and with Curtis as its quarterback–and snapped a five-game losing streak in the process.
It looked like it may, but this Vanderbilt team doesn’t belong in the conversations with Lea’s worst teams. His worst ones didn’t win an SEC game and wouldn’t have won a game like this after undergoing everything that this group has. They would’ve quit. They would’ve tried to deviate from the vision Lea has in place. They would’ve met the same fate that those teams did, even while Mississippi State played a backup quarterback that Vanderbilt is familiar with. The team that AJ Swann–that backup quarterback–opened the season as the starter for wouldn’t have found a way to win this one.
That team was talented enough to get out to the 16-0 lead that Vanderbilt got out to Saturday, but it wasn’t resilient enough to avoid thinking ‘here we go again’ when Mississippi State got back in the game off of two crucial Vanderbilt mistakes–a bust in coverage and a fumble by Curtis right around Vanderbilt’s end zone that was returned for a touchdown. This Vanderbilt team was, though.
This Vanderbilt team had Lea’s fingerprints all over it Saturday.
"We played the way we want to play at Vanderbilt," Lea said postgame with his son sitting alongside him. "We've been talking a lot about three-phase effort and that was a three-phase effort tonight."
Lea's team hasn't embodied his personality–at least the good parts of it–all season. Saturday, it finally did. That group finally looked like it was listening to Lea, like it actually has taken everything he's said to it to heart.
It won the time of possession battle by nearly 20 minutes and effectively played keep away from Mississippi State. It ran the ball for 160 yards on 52 carries, which was enough to keep it in the driver’s seat for most of Saturday afternoon. It wasn’t behind the sticks all the often and was two-for-two on fourth down. It was excellent on special teams and had the most dynamic special teams player on the field. Its defense shut Mississippi State down for the entirety of the first half and had seven three and outs forced total. It forced Swann into turnovers. More than anything, it believed.
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At this point, that may be the most meaningful testament to Lea that’s plausible to conclude on Saturday.
"Obviously we were in a tough spot," Lea said. "It's easy in a tough spot, in the stretch that we've had to to pull back, to withdrawal, to start to protect and these guys haven't done that. I felt like we had a really good bye week. We talked a lot about just the joy of football.
We just having fun playing. And I saw that in the spirit we brought to the field tonight. It's good to get back on the right track."
Lea could’ve lost this locker room a long time ago. He managed a polarizing quarterback battle. He’s had to be harsh in his messaging and actions as a result of this Vanderbilt team’s self-induced struggles. A number of his players–including ones that have significant roles–likely know that their future probably won’t involve Vanderbilt as a result of how this has all gone. But, none of that manifested on Saturday.
Vanderbilt got the big stop on a two-point conversion late to position it to win the game. It picked up the onside kick to seal it. It never let Mississippi State take control of the game.
"That second half was just resilience," Vanderbilt STAR Mason Lewis said. "Not every play is gonna go like how you want it to go, but all you can do is win the response and just keep moving forward and keep playing. And I feel like the guy has really dug into that. Nobody gave up. No one wanted to get off the field, pull up their cleats like we all wanted to be on the field and get another opportunity for our offense and it showed up today."
This Vanderbilt team wasn’t perfect. It let Mississippi State back into the game. It was 4-for-17 on third down. Curtis made his fair share of mistakes and looked like a freshman at times. Vanderbilt dropped interceptions. But, it demonstrated that its foundational level is higher than it was in Lea’s worst seasons as its head coach.
As a result, this group won’t be winless in the SEC. It thinks it can be more than just not winless, too.
“It gets us one game closer,” Curtis said postgame in regard to bowl eligibility, despite Vanderbilt’s difficult stretch of Alabama, Florida and Tennessee looming. “We’ve got to get two more wins. We’ve got three more games on the schedule so we’re going to try to win three more games and we’re gonna fight every week and hopefully come out with [wins].”
Vanderbilt should still be heavy underdogs in those games, but it proved something Saturday. Those teams can’t count it as a group that’s thrown in the towel and doesn’t believe it has a chance.
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Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
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