Vanderbilt Football Stock Exchange After Loss to No. 9 Ole Miss – Sports Illustrated

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If Saturday evening’s score in Vanderbilt football’s loss to an AP Top 10 Ole Miss team says anything, it is that there is plenty to clean up on both sides of the ball for the Commodores.
Vanderbilt was crushed in a way it has not experienced in three years, losing to Ole Miss by a score of 52-17. The game was not close after the first 10 minutes of the game. The Rebels went up 14-3 early on and extended that lead to 42-3 by halftime. It was a bloodbath and Vanderbilt was on the wrong end of it.
There were a couple bright spots for Vanderbilt despite the disastrous day. Here is the Vanderbilt football stock exchange after the loss to Ole Miss.
It was not a great day for the Vanderbilt offense, either. But if you had to pick one player from the Vanderbilt offense to have a good outlook going forward, it would be wide receiver Ja’Cory Thomas.
Thomas was quite active for the Vanderbilt offense yet again, finishing the game with three receptions for 60 yards and a touchdown. That is a season-high in receiving yards for Thomas, who is now slowly emerging as an intriguing target in the passing game.
Last week at Auburn, he showed progress with a 43-yard day on a few catches. Saturday, he showed more of that growth. That is a growing trend week-to-week. Vanderbilt has been looking for its No. 2 wide receiver all season and now it seems as though Thomas is more cemented in that role as the weeks go on.
How about a bounce back day for Vanderbilt punter Tyler Ebel. The start to conference play was filled with miscues on special teams, including Ebel’s short punts against Georgia a week ago. But this week, that did not occur.
On Ebel’s three punts, he had 171 total punt yards, which is good for 57 yards per punt. His longest punt went for 64 yards. A coaching staff cannot ask much more out of its punter than what Ebel did.
At times during Vanderbilt’s game against Ole Miss, Ebel was the best defense the Commodores had when he pinned Ole Miss back as much as he did. At least the special teams are showing signs of cleaning things up.
Vanderbilt’s defense had a terrible day. There will be more on the Commodores defense in the next section. But there has to be some credit given to the individual performance of Vanderbilt safety CJ Heard.
Although Heard only had two tackles, he was heavily involved on defense. Heard had a tackle for loss, an interception and two pass break-ups. If anyone raised their stock on defense, it would be Heard. Of course, his performance was nowhere near enough to make much of a difference.
One should expect Heard to continue to be an important part of Vanderbilt’s defense the second half of the season.
Nobody had a worse day than Vanderbilt defensive coordinator Steve Gregoy. Though he was not on the field, he is the defensive playcaller for Vanderbilt. And as the scoreboard, box score and the eye test would indicate, the Commodores defense was in the wrong positions all night long.
Whatever plays Gregory was calling for Vanderbilt, it did not work. Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss was doing anything and everything he wanted to. It was a nice opening drive for Vanderbilt’s defense, but that was about all the good it Gregory and his defense had.
Chambliss went on to score a touchdown against Vanderbilt’s defense on four consecutive touchdown drives. Even in the second half, Ole Miss sliced right through the Vanderbilt front for a 25-yard touchdown. 
Entering the day, Vanderbilt was the 57th ranked defense in college football and No. 77 in the nation in pass defense. Those numbers are already not to the standard this program has told the world it holds itself to. After Saturday, those numbers only got worse. Whether it is defensive playcalling or the scheme Gregory has his unit running, something is not working. Lack of execution is part of that, but so are the plays that are called.
It is easy to go further in depth on how discouraging the performance from Vanderbilt’s defense was in terms of what Chambliss was able to do. But the place to start is the penalties.
The personal foul penalty from defensive lineman Jaylon Stone after a third down stop was very costly and demoralizing. All the work the Commodores did to force Ole Miss into a field goal attempt was wiped away. And lo and behold, Ole Miss ended up scoring a touchdown a couple plays later. Instead of being down a manageable 17-3 with still some life, Vanderbilt was down 21-3 and the game felt out of reach from there.
On the possession where Ole Miss went up 14-3, Vanderbilt had its chance to hold the Rebels to a field goal, but cornerback Martel Hight was called for pass interference in the end zone. Granted, a strong case could be made that Hight did not deserve to have the penalty called on him, but it was nonetheless another moment where the defense made a play that contributed to the loss.
In total, Vanderbilt gave up 409 total yards and allowed Ole Miss to score every trip it made into the red zone on top of a 5-for-11 conversion rate on third down. Costly penalties were made and costly plays and mistakes in the execution were made by Vanderbilt’s defense. To say execution needs to be better going forward is an understatement.
Plain and simple, Vanderbilt running back Sedrick Alexander was a total nonfactor in the game. He had six carries for 13 yards and just one catch for seven yards.
Yes, Vanderbilt was playing from way behind, but to give your top running back on the roster seven total touches in the game is still mind-boggling. Averaging 2.2 yards per carry is never going to help win games. Maybe some of that falls on the playcalling decisions, but Alexander has to do more with the opportunities he is given.
In fact, Alexander has only gotten more than nine carries in a game twice this season. Against Austin Peay, he had 10 carries and had 11 carries against Auburn. It is surprising to see how few carries Alexander has gotten this season. Alexander’s stock is down because of that.
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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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