Vanderbilt Football Adds Another Secondary Piece From the Portal – Sports Illustrated

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Vanderbilt football added another defensive piece to its roster Wednesday morning with the commitment and signing of former Oklahoma State cornerback Jaylin Davies, per On3's Pete Nakos.
Davies is a former four-star recruit that went to Mater Dei High School in California before beginning his collegiate career at Oregon in 2021, where he redshirted his freshman and appeared in just two games.
Davies then left Oregon and took his talents to UCLA, where he played for the Bruins for three seasons. His first season at UCLA was his breakout season, where he grabbed three interceptions, including one pick six and had 32 total tackles that season.
In 2023, he appeared in all of UCLA’s 13 games and started in 12 of them, where he came up with 43 tackles, one interception and deflected six passes. A year later, he appeared in all of UCLA’s games again as he had 21 tackles on the season and 0.5 sacks.
This past season, Davies transferred to Oklahoma State, but in the one game he appeared in, Davies was carted off the field with a leg injury in a game against Houston in October that ended his season.
Now at Vanderbilt, Davies is hoping to revive his collegiate career in his sixth season, where he hopes to be a key piece in Clark Lea’s defense.
When he has been healthy, such as during his time at UCLA, Davies has served as a solid player in the secondary and proven to have the ability to intercept opposing quarterbacks and make tackles. Davies’ arrival in Nashville also helps strengthen the depth of Vanderbilt’s secondary. 
Davies is the third secondary transfer piece Vanderbilt has gotten this offseason. Vanderbilt also added former Clemson safety Ricardo Jones and former Texas A&M cornerback Cobey Sellers through the portal.
Vanderbilt lost one of its key pieces of the back end of its defense to Colorado in safety Randon Fontenette, but Lea and his staff have worked to bring in pieces to make up for the loss.
In the transfer portal this offseason, Lea has helped address the depth in the secondary, brought in a few offensive lineman and two wide receivers to reconstruct his roster in a post-Diego Pavia era.
The Commodores are coming off their best season in program history, going 10-3 and making an appearance at the ReliaQuest Bowl against Iowa. It was the first time that Vanderbilt got to 10 wins in a season.
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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