SEC Season Grades: Vanderbilt Commodores
01/28/2025
By Chris Marler
Season in a sentence
What else is there to say besides Vandy is (redacted) turnt!
Three Highs
- The Alabama win
Alabama came into Nashville coming off a huge win over Georgia and a new No. 1 ranking. They left Nashville more upset than a maid of honor who found out two girls in the bachelorette party didn’t bring their matching shirts to Nashvegas.
- Owning the state of Alabama
If the win over Alabama wasn’t enough, Diego Pavia went into the state of Alabama and planted his proverbial flag in Jordan-Hare Stadium. Pavia beat Auburn as a starting quarterback for a second straight season after beating them in 2023 with New Mexico State.
- Did we mention the Alabama win?
Seriously, the win over Alabama was incredibly significant. It was their first win over the Crimson Tide since the Reagan administration. Make no mistake, this was not a miracle win or an unexpected upset. Vanderbilt controlled possession for 42 minutes and dominated Alabama.
Three Lows
- The loss to Georgia State
In a year when Vanderbilt beat Alabama, made a bowl game, and won seven games, how in the hell did they manage to lose to Georgia State?
- The loss to Missouri
Vanderbilt had an impressive season, but the loss to Missouri will still sting. Despite being on the road, falling in double overtime to a then-top-10 team was tough to swallow.
- The month of November
Vanderbilt entered the final three weeks of the season with a 6-3 record, but managed to lose three straight games to finish 6-6. It was still a success, but the way they lost against South Carolina, getting blown out at home was tough. Even worse was the way they lost to Tennessee, after taking a 14-0 lead in the first quarter.
The Offense
Looking at Vanderbilt on paper, it’s difficult to see how they had any offensive success this season. The Commodores ranked 13th or worse in scoring, passing, rushing, and total offense. That includes finishing dead last in total offense with just 318 yards per game.
What Vanderbilt did better than every team in the country was protect the football. Vanderbilt finished the 2024 season with only seven turnovers. That’s tied for the lowest of any team in college football since 2021.
The other thing Vanderbilt did really well was execute their game plan and control the clock. Vanderbilt averaged the second most plays per second in FBS, averaging one play every 31.2 seconds.
The other bright spot for Vanderbilt was watching everyone’s favorite giant slaying, NCAA suing quarterback Diego Pavia. Pavia finished the year with over 3,000 yards of offense, 28 touchdowns, and just four interceptions. As great as he was, the most impressive piece on the offense was his tight end Eli Stowers. Stowers finished with 49 receptions for 638 yards, five touchdowns, and was the best tight end in the league in 2024.
Offensive Grade: B-
The Defense
Similar to their offense, the defense is also underwhelming on paper. At least statistically, it was underwhelming. Just like their offense, the Vanderbilt defense ranked 13th or worse in total, rushing, passing, and scoring defense.
They were also last in the SEC in third down conversions at over 47.5 percent. Vanderbilt did only allow one team to score over 30 points on their defense in the final eight games. Other than that, there weren’t a ton of huge takeaways that were necessarily great.
Defensive Grade: C+
Overall Grade
It’s hard to figure out what made this Vanderbilt team so successful this year. That’s mainly because the things this team had like toughness, grit, and competitiveness don’t show up on the stat sheet. They had all those things and they had them in spades.
The most impressive part of this Vanderbilt football team wasn’t a big win, the bowl game, or storming the field on October 5th. The most impressive part of this Vanderbilt team was the leadership it had and how hard the players played for Clark Lea. The level of buy-in Lea was able to get from his team was incredible. Vanderbilt came into the season with a projected win total of just 2.5 games. They finished the year with seven wins and their first winning season since 2013.
Overall Season Grade: A+