For Vanderbilt Football, The SEC's Last-Place Team, Hope Is Becoming Hard To Come By – Sports Illustrated

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NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt superfan Sal Feldman leaned up against the railing and stared out at the camera lens in front of him. He was stonefaced, refusing to play the moment up to capitalize on the social media fame he garnered a week ago while sitting alone in the Vanderbilt student section. 
Before Feldman could leave his seat, he looked out and saw Vanderbilt edge rusher Edwin Kolenge standing between the hashes and walking slowly off the field as if everything had just hit him in the moments following Arkansas nailing a field goal that all but sealed its 31-21 win over Vanderbilt. 
A few minutes prior, Vanderbilt cornerback Mason Lewis sat there bewildered, knees to the ground and head up to the sky wondering how what had just happened possibly did while Arkansas receiver Jamari Hawkins celebrated and riled the Arkansas crowd up. Before that, Vanderbilt quarterback Jared Curtis jogged off the field quietly in the moments after flipping an eventual game-sealing pass to Arkansas defensive back Miguel Mitchell. 
When it was all said and done, Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea, wide receiver Junior Sherrill and linebacker Bryan Longwell walked into the media room silently, dejected at the thought of what had just happened again. 
“It hurts,” Longwell said simply. 
The moments were all different in nature, but they all represented the same heavy emotions that this group faced as it hit the realization that this was over. None of them–besides maybe Feldman–will admit it, but the moment may have told them that more than merely that Saturday’s game was over. 
In reality, this Vanderbilt loss indicates that this season as a whole may be heading towards a similar fate.
Longwell and Sherrill both indicated that there’s no panic within Vanderbilt’s locker room like there was at this point in 2023, but human nature has to be setting in at this point. It’s getting harder and harder to believe around these parts. It’s getting harder and harder to keep coming back. 
This Vanderbilt team is in last place in the SEC–and, thus, is the worst team in the league. It declared that it could be the best team in program history, but it now represents one of Lea’s worst coaching jobs to date. It believes it can beat anyone on its schedule if everything comes together for it, but nothing is coming together. It’s been saying the same things over and over again trying to cling to a belief that feels more rooted in optimism than any tangible result. 
Vanderbilt sat at a crossroads entering Saturday. If it won, it would be plausible that it could sell hope. It would be sitting with a winning record and would’ve been able to sell the difficulty of the three-week stretch it just underwent–against Georgia and Auburn on the road and Ole Miss at home–as a reason for its recent struggles. It would’ve been able to say confidently that it’s a few wins away from bowl eligibility and that it’s plausible that it could get there. It could sell its resilience and take a victory lap because of the way it responded to its blowout loss to Ole Miss. 
Now that it’s lost, though, all that is off the table. So are this group’s aspirations of making a bowl game. So is the narrative that it’s getting closer to being the team it wants to be. The wheels are falling off this thing and Vanderbilt has to know that. It just lost the easiest remaining game on its schedule and has serious odds of suffering a winless SEC season, which it believed it was well beyond at this stage of the build. Vanderbilt has now lost four games in a row and each of them feels worse than the last. 
Vanderbilt was close to winning at Auburn, but was plagued by a few insurmountable self-inflicted wounds. It played well in the first half against Georgia before getting run off the field in the second half. It was embarrassed against Ole Miss, but at least the Rebels are a top 10 team. Saturday may have been worse than all of those. 
At the very least, it’s possible to spin it that way. Vanderbilt’s leaders didn’t speak on that directly, but they aren’t hiding from the reality here. 
“It’s unfortunate it’s going to be the same story,” Lea said. “Arkansas played a better football game and they won the football game. Our team is not good enough to play the way we’re playing and to win.” 
Arkansas was supposed to be the SEC’s worst team. Its fanbase has already turned on its coach and on its athletic director. There’s already been a boycott of the team, which was presumed to be the league’s biggest candidate to go winless in league play. But, nope. 
Vanderbilt got flat out outplayed by that Arkansas team. The worst part, it was outplayed drastically at FirstBank Stadium as significant favorites. 
Arkansas may not win another league game this season, but that didn’t matter Saturday. It certainly didn’t look that way. It outgained Vanderbilt 187-to-116 on the ground while rushing for more yards per carry. It outgained it 438-to-390 as a whole. It won the turnover battle significantly. It was more on the same page than this Vanderbilt team was and had more reliable quarterback play than it did, too. 
For Vanderbilt, it was a continuation of every trend that’s surrounded it thus far. It shot itself in the foot continually with penalties and turnovers. It couldn’t get on the same page defensively. Lea was up this group’s butt, as Longwell said, all week. This group believes it was receptive to that. But, it didn’t matter. 
Lea would love to stand up on the podium and declare that this is entirely surprising for this group at this stage, but he can’t. Lea’s best teams have built their brand on doing all the things that this group hasn’t proven that it can do consistently. As a result, he stands there and admits the painfully obvious. 
At some point, this just is what this group is. 
“We have to clean our game up, we have to protect the ball and if we don’t do those things we’re not going to win games,” Lea said. “We can’t be surprised when we don’t do them and we lose. We can’t be so entitled to this that we somehow feel like we were robbed tonight, because we weren’t.”
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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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