Can Vanderbilt Find a Fitting Ending to Magical Era?; Column
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TAMPA—-Somewhere in some alternate reality in which Vanderbilt’s wins aged better than they ultimately did, it’s in a hotel room in Athens or Oregon preparing for a College Football Playoff game and trying to maximize Eli Stowers’ contributions.
What would happen in that reality is all up to the imagination, though.
Vanderbilt likely wouldn’t have drawn it up this way, but its week in Tampa will culminate on Wednesday as it faces Iowa in the ReliaQuest Bowl. It pleaded to the College Football Playoff committee, the Heisman Trophy committee and hoped to have Stowers in action, yet here it is with all three of its wishes crushed. No national championship run, a mortal quarterback and a star tight end on the sideline in street clothes will be the reality for this group on Wednesday afternoon.
Those things don’t have to define it, though. Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea is determined to make sure they don’t. That would be unfair to this group and what they’ve accomplished. That would be unfair to the group that won’t be able to strap it up again at this level following Wednesday’s game. As a result, Vanderbilt is acting as if it’s put all of its previous aspirations behind it.
“It’s an opportunity to go play well. But I want to stop short of trying to prove people wrong,” Lea said. “I think I see the game as a celebration. I want it to be about the group of guys that have come together and made for a historic and special season.”
This thing won’t end in the history that Vanderbilt thought it could make when it initially set out on its climb, but a win on Wednesday would be just the program’s sixth bowl win since its inception. Perhaps more importantly, Wednesday would mark Vanderbilt’s first ever 11-win season.
An ending like that would only be fitting for this core of Vanderbilt players–who have changed what this program can aspire to and how it’s able to go about its day-to-day business.
“This is the last climb,” Vanderbilt running back MK Young said in regard to this Vanderbilt team. “This is team five and we want to embrace that. We want to take in all the memories. So much of this only comes around so often. We’re just taking it all in.”
Perhaps the most noteworthy layer of Vanderbilt’s last climb comes in the form of its quarterback. Diego Pavia is the most important player in this program’s history and is an encapsulation of everything that’s made it successful over the last two seasons. He’s taken it to places that nobody else could’ve, yet this is it for him.
No matter what, this is it for Pavia and the 2025 iteration of Vanderbilt football. When everyone wakes up on Thursday morning, it will be on to 2026. It will be all about the transfer portal and how sustainable this thing is moving forward with Jared Curtis working to earn a job as the Commodores’ quarterback.
For now it’s about this Vanderbilt team and all that it’s accomplished, though. It’s about a core group that made an unpopular decision to buy into something unproven and changed the course of it forever. It’s a time in which team five will work to have one final moment in the sun in which it can live in euphoria as it reflects on everything that it’s done.
"This is a human story. It's a story about a group of people that came together, that were willing to see what was possible and willing to bleed into it and work hard for it,” Lea said on Tuesday. “There is still room for a team that puts a fence around the building, ignores the external perception, focuses on the internal investment, and cares about one another. Over time that can give way to results."
Knowing everything that we do about this Vanderbilt team at this stage, it’s only fitting that it would find a way to end this thing the right way. Everything we know about it indicates that it won’t come out flat as if it’s disappointed about its lack of a College Football Playoff berth and that it will rise with the emotion. This group hasn’t disappointed much and the way for it to end this would be for it to capture one final hurrah together.
If Wednesday is true to Iowa’s brand, it won’t be all that pretty and the odds are against Vanderbilt winning decisively, but Lea’s team believes it can head back to Nashville with a win before dispersing if what we know about it is true. It would only be right for this storybook era closed with a storybook ending.
Time for an encore from the greatest team in Vanderbilt football history. Enjoy it while it lasts.
“This team here has brought a lot of good memories,” Vanderbilt three-way standout Martel Hight said. “It’s just really special and I’m here to cherish every moment of it.”
_(1)-b3e453dfe426b2dd4b83a12540ebdb37.jpeg "Joey Dwyer")
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, Southeastern 16 and Mainstreet Nashville.
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