The State of Vanderbilt Football’s Morale Following Two-game Skid – Sports Illustrated

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NASHVILLE — Going through the film of its loss to No. 2 Georgia, Vanderbilt football players felt like the mistakes they made were just beating themselves. The frustration from watching the film stemmed from the small mistakes that added up and contributed to the loss.
But within that film watching shows that even though Vanderbilt is currently on a two-game losing streak with still a rough schedule to go, there is no one that has checked out. The mentality and the morale of the team still seems positive.
“I’ll say we’re still very hungry. You just got to cut out the small things, just play all four quarters. Play fast and physical in all three phases,” Vanderbilt wide receiver Ja’Cory Thomas said.
Vanderbilt has never been shy about what it believes itself to be and it certainly has never been shy about expressing its disinterest of what the public thinks about the team. The Commodores are aware of the fact that they have dropped two in a row and they know how tough it is to win in the league.
Regardless of how Vanderbilt has looked the past two weeks, the fight and willingness to get better and back on track looks to be there. The frustration of knowing how small the margins are and how Vanderbilt wants to correct those small mistakes contributes to Vanderbilt’s players continuing to be locked in.
Vanderbilt knows the mistakes it has made the last two weeks are fixable. It is not just miscues due to playing high-level competition. The Commodores seem to feel that they are beating themselves and it has cost them being in a position to win the last two games.
“The mistakes we made that beat ourselves, we just got to capitalize on those and just always have that head-body mentality just to win and respond,” Vanderbilt linebacker Bryce Cowan said. “It’s really the little things. Like, we watched some film earlier, offense and defense, and it all comes down to the small details. Like three inches more of a step for the o-linemen or just simply a miscommunication on the defensive side. That’s pretty much it. We just got to hone in on those small details.”
If there is anything else that shows that Vanderbilt’s mentality has not been derailed, it is the confidence that Cowan and Thomas both showed Tuesday when asked what they saw on film with Ole Miss’ team.
Both Cowan and Thomas, and likely the rest of the Vanderbilt team, feel good about their chances to pull off an upset this weekend. While they know they will be challenged against a top 10 team, there is no shortage of confidence with what Thomas thinks Vanderbilt can do offensively this weekend.
“I see a lot of grass out there. I feel like there’s a lot of plays to be made and I feel like we’re going to make those plays,” Thomas said about facing the Ole Miss defense.
The confidence has not strayed away and nor has the focus on winning. Vanderbilt know it needs to start stacking SEC wins after an 0-2 start. Three would be enough to clinch bowl eligibility. There is no panic amongst the team, but the mentality suggests there is some degree of urgency to start winning.
The back-to-back losses may not indicate that Vanderbilt is playing with momentum and with the wind at its back, but Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea is imploring his team to continue to trust the process, knowing that the attention to detail in film review is going to produce results later this season.
Lea sees the two losses Vanderbilt has suffered in the first half of the season not as something that is meant to destroy the inner belief, but rather as a positive. Seeing the mistakes on film early on in the season and being able to correct for the games to come, hoping those adjustments will produce wins sooner or later.
“We’ve learned about the cost of punt blocks and the urgency and the urgency we need on special teams. We’ve learned about explosive plays and not playing with proper technique in the secondary,” Lea said. “So are we applying those lessons and applying them to our belief and the people we have to advance the team and prepare for all the glory that awaits? That’s the attitude of the program.”
The Commodores’ schedule is stacked with great teams. Perhaps trusting the process could lead to beating one of those great teams this weekend.
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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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