Commodore Brunch Week 5: A fighting chance – The Vanderbilt Hustler

Patience is a virtue. A virtue that Vanderbilt players, fans and followers alike must learn. 
I am not exempt from this learning process. In full transparency, after learning that Jared Curtis wouldn’t be playing against Georgia, I set my score prediction to 56-3 in favor of the Bulldogs. 
Needless to say, this was a quick decision without much deliberate thought behind it, and it may have been ever-so-slightly dramatic. But the point remains that the majority of Commodore Faithful was likely expecting its team to go down to Athens, Georgia, and get thrashed by one of, if not the, best teams in the country. 
And that is not what happened. The ’Dores suffered defeat at the hands of the Bulldogs, but in closer fashion than anticipated. Georgia’s 38-14 win will appear to have been a blowout, but that is slightly exaggerated by a late touchdown from the Red and Black. For all intents and purposes, this was a one- or two-possession game. 
Vanderbilt couldn’t capitalize on the chances that it had to close the gap, but there are positive things to take away from this game. Head coach Clark Lea felt the same way. 
“We’re going to look to the positives to continue to build to find out what this team can be,” Lea said. “We didn’t play well enough on the road to win against a good team today and that’s why we feel the way we feel.” 
As Lea said, the Commodores didn’t quite do enough to make history again today. As such, there are a few negative conclusions to be made about the state of the team. With that said, let’s take a look at what was on the menu in Athens. 
Burnt toast 
In what has become one of the more common themes of Vanderbilt’s games this year, the secondary was once again underwhelming, to say the least. Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton torched the Commodores’ cornerbacks, throwing for 295 yards and three touchdowns on a 78% completion percentage. 
Don’t get me wrong — Stockton is a great college quarterback and stands a good chance of becoming an NFL player eventually. But by no means should he be doing what he did to Vanderbilt on a weekly basis. 
The senior from Tiger, Georgia, lit up the likes of Cayden Daniels, Martel Hight, Jordan Matthews and more with a varied air-raid attack.
Stockton went 8-for-8 for 61 yards and a touchdown on Georgia’s first drive of the game, setting the tone early that the ’Dores would need to slow down the passing game in order to stand a chance in this one. Seemingly, that didn’t change Vanderbilt’s defensive game plan very much. 
Elyiss Williams caught a 19-yard pass to gain some momentum a couple of drives later, followed by a 55-yard completion on which Stockton dropped a perfect pass to Landon Roldan with Matthews in coverage. Unsurprisingly, the drive ended in seven more points for the Bulldogs. 
A similar trend persisted for the remainder of the game — the common thread being that Vanderbilt’s secondary lacked the ability to properly contain Georgia’s passing attack. 
This issue carried over from last season. If the Black and Gold cannot orient their defense in such a way that their cornerbacks aren’t getting burned on numerous occasions throughout the game, they won’t find many more wins in 2026. 
Side of fries 
The secondary troubles weren’t the only defensive struggles for defensive coordinator Steve Gregory yesterday. Any time that Georgia found itself in a bind, it could look “outside” the box and aim for the sidelines. 
Whether it was a screen, a short out route, a designed run or any other type of play, the Bulldogs’ success along the sideline in this game was remarkable. 
An American football field measures 120 yards long by 53 ⅓ yards wide. Head coach Kirby Smart’s team made sure to use the entirety of those 53 ⅓ yards in Saturday’s game. 
Dwight Phillips Jr. caught a checkdown from Stockton on the far left side of the field late in the second quarter. He proceeded to pick up 34 yards after the catch, nearly pushing into the end zone after making several Vanderbilt players miss along the way. 
That wasn’t enough for Phillips, though, so he went ahead and did the same thing on the opposite side of the field — albeit only needing 12 yards for the touchdown — and scored the final points of the game for the Bulldogs. 
Dwight Phillips Jr. makes a man miss for the score❗️
📺: SEC Network pic.twitter.com/ugGWQIwH0L
— Georgia Football (@GeorgiaFootball) October 3, 2026

These are just two plays from one player that highlight Vanderbilt’s inability to contain opposing offenses on the outside of the field. Georgia’s spread offensive scheme was unstoppable in the eyes of the ’Dores. 
The sideline motif of this game wasn’t all bad news for the Black and Gold. With 19 seconds left in the first quarter, quarterback Blaze Berlowitz launched the football deep down the left sideline to his alpha wide receiver Junior Sherrill, who inevitably took that pass to the house for a 60-yard score. 
There was more success to be had for the Commodores on the outside of the field, but due to their inability to slow down the wagon that is the Georgia Bulldogs, it didn’t matter much. Vanderbilt must do better in containing short passes to the outside if it hopes to pull off some upsets over the course of this season. 
Blaze Pizza 
Let’s go back to talking about Berlowitz. 
I, along with many of you reading this, owe Berlowitz an apology. No, he didn’t play a perfect game, and no, he didn’t lead the Black and Gold to pull off one of the unlikeliest upsets in college football history. But he stepped up to the challenge after being named the starter about an hour before kickoff, and he performed well. 
So, to the senior quarterback from Cushing, Oklahoma, I repeat to you the wise words of the great Shaquille O’Neal: 
I owe you an apology. I wasn’t really familiar with your game.
I thought I knew what Vanderbilt would be getting with Berlowitz at the helm on Saturday. After spending three years as a backup behind Heisman runner-up Diego Pavia, Berlowitz earned two consecutive starts to open the season for the ’Dores. 
In these two games, against Austin Peay and Delaware, he totaled 178 yards on 14-for-25 passing without a touchdown or an interception. He did, however, fumble the football in a close game against the Fightin’ Blue Hens while playing an overall poor game. This paved the way for Curtis to take over as the starting signal-caller despite being a true freshman. 
But with Curtis sidelined in Athens, Berlowitz got the nod once again. His stat line doesn’t pop off the page — he completed 12 of his 23 passes for 190 yards and a touchdown, along with an interception. He added 37 yards on the ground despite being sacked twice, which factors into his total yardage in the game. 
Several times throughout the game, I found myself pleasantly surprised and impressed with some of the throws that Berlowitz made. Not bad for a guy who everyone was writing off before the game had even kicked off. 
Blaze Pizza, according to a quick Google search, is “a hip counter-serve pizzeria dishing up crispy, thin-crust pies made with creative toppings & sauces.” Berlowitz cooked up a solid order, adding five toppings to the base of his pie, with one topping in particular being his favorite. 
In football terms, the quarterback spread his 12 completions out to five receivers, with Sherrill reeling in 6 of those targets for 97 yards (in addition to another catch for 10 more yards from Whit Muschamp). In that sense, one might say that Sherrill was the “pepperoni” of this pie. 
All things considered, Berlowitz turned the game from something that I was not looking forward to watching into one in which Vanderbilt remained alive for close to three quarters. Lea was impressed with his ability to step into an unexpected situation and make the most of it. 
“Yeah, I’m proud of Blaze [Berlowitz], obviously,” Lea said. “We’re really fortunate to have a guy like Blaze [Berlowitz] who has such character and toughness and believes in himself and believes in the team and knows the system. I thought he played with courage and it wasn’t perfect, but I felt like he gave us a chance to be within striking distance.” 
Kudos to the senior for redeeming himself after leaving a bitter taste in Vanderbilt fans’ mouths following that Delaware performance. 
Weekly specials 
Special teams — a unit that handles kickoffs, punts, field goals and more — is not supposed to be mentioned very frequently. And for the second straight week, it feels as though Vanderbilt’s special teams unit will be an important talking point. 
Tyler Ebel’s first punt went just 25 yards after the Commodores’ offensive drive stalled on 3rd-and-6. His next punt, about six minutes later, only went for 27 yards before rolling out of bounds. 
He got back on track with his next punt, sending it 44 yards before safety CJ Heard downed it inside the 10-yard line. On Vanderbilt’s next drive, kicker Brock Taylor came out to attempt a 58-yard field goal, but it was easily blocked by Georgia’s Jordan Hall due to poor protection. 
So, to recap, that’s two shanked punts and a blocked field goal, just a week after Vanderbilt’s 6-point loss at Auburn — during which it had a punt blocked and returned for a touchdown, failed a fake punt attempt horribly and missed a field goal. 
This comedy of errors simply cannot persist if the Commodores intend to turn their season around after two straight road losses, and Lea knows that. 
“There’s no joy in the locker room,” Lea said. “We’re going to stay focused, but we’re going to stay encouraged, and we’re going to keep moving this forward.” 
Vanderbilt now sits at 3-2 (0-2) on the season with a gauntlet of a schedule coming up, as five of its next seven opponents are currently ranked in the AP Top 25. 
The ’Dores can’t look too far ahead, though, as they prepare to take on No. 9 Ole Miss back at FirstBank Stadium next Saturday, Oct. 10. 
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