Everything Vanderbilt Head Coach Clark Lea Said After Vanderbilt’s Loss to Alabama

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Vanderbilt suffered its first loss of the season Saturday by a score of 30-14 to Alabama.

Vanderbilt kept it tight with Alabama for the entire second half. In fact, the Commodores had a 14-7 before the Crimson Tide tied it with 17 seconds to go before the break. Ultimately in the second half, Vanderbilt just could not get going offensively, with only 119 yards of offense in the final two quarters.

With the loss, the Commodores drop to 5-1. Vanderbilt’s dreams and goals for this season are not totally derailed from the loss though, however, it does make the margin for error much smaller going forward. Here is everything head coach Clark Lea said after the game.

Opening Statement

“I think the first thing you have to do is credit the coach for Alabama for the way they played. I mean, they took it to us, and they left no downs in that second half. So hats off to them. We knew coming in that this would be a game won on third downs and won in the red zone, and those are two areas we've been really good at keeping on offense, and I think on both sides of the ball, we struggled on third down tonight. I think you got to give Simpson a lot of credit for extended plays and conversion downs. Obviously the first fourth and seven conversion was huge in the first half that led to a touchdown. But he's a good player, and they made more plays than we made tonight on third down. Offensively, we just seemed to never get rhythm, especially in the second half. Too many three and outs, and that allowed them to take the time of possession. I'm not sure where that ended, but that was not close. We felt the effect of that late, they were able to establish a run game, and ultimately wore us out and came away with the win. And also, the red zone performance was a challenge too. We had two turnovers down there. I felt the defense I didn't always love the way the ball got down to the red zone, but I felt like the defense fought for every blade of grass and forced field goal attempts and put us in position to kind of stay within one possession until the end there. But we weren't able to generate enough offensively to make that matter. So tough, tough afternoon. And I told the team, we don't like the feeling, but we earned the feeling. So now we have to understand why it's meant for us. What we need to do is learn from it. We don't feel like there were any mistakes, and so the plays were out there to be made, and we didn't make them. And so we're gonna learn from it, and we'll move on.”

Coach, just nine rushing yards in the second half. 119 total yards in the second half. From your vantage point, do you attribute that more to Alabama's defensive adjustments or maybe a lack of rhythm? Or what did you see from that?

“I felt like space was hard to come by. We weren't able to generate the separation in the front that we were. Obviously, we had early success with a big run, but they played really well up front. I got to watch the game film to know exactly why we weren't able to create the space. I thought we had good plays that the space got collapsed in the line scrimmage. So that was a challenge. There were some critical drops on conversion downs that I think again when you're playing three and out, and I don't know how many snaps we had in the second half, but it did not feel like many. When you're playing three and out, you're not giving yourself a chance to be explosive. And so it's gonna, it's gonna feel like you can't move the ball right, because you're not getting to that second set of downs, and you're not able to extend and you're not able to get up and feel the defense on the heels and get the ball up and in the air. So we'll look at the film and learn from it. But obviously, the inability to move the ball in the second half kept us from really keeping the game within reach, and ultimately kept us from winning.”

You mentioned the red zone performance that some of you guys have been really good at before today. What do you attribute that to, and how uncharacteristic is that of your group?

“Well, I attribute it to the turnovers. One was on a rush and one was on a throw.

I’ll have to look at it. We're going to make mistakes. Obviously, in a game like today, those mistakes become critical errors. But we got to protect the ball down there. We get a couple more points, and I think we're going to be just fine. I don't want to sit here and overanalyze it, because ultimately, it wasn't our night, and we didn't play well enough down there. But the turnovers, to me, killed our red zone performance and other turnovers. I thought we got down there. We were able to score a couple times. But we got to be smart with one.”

What did you see specifically from Diego today, and how costly were they to your mission of playing in front in the game?

“Well there's going to be some good and obviously some plays we want back. And I just told Diego in the locker room, there's no one else I wanted to play at quarterback taking snaps. So the one turnover, the fumble, we're going to look at the ball security element of that. He extended that play. I believe that the defender came from the blind side, was able to get his hand on the ball the throw. To me, it felt a little forced and trying to make a play. We got everything we wanted out in front of us. We have a good team, and that team held the line, just didn't play well enough to win tonight, and obviously that last score burns because it just feels bad. But at the end of the day, we like our team. We got to learn from tonight. Tonight was meant for us, so we accept the pain of it and we learn and move on. And man, am I glad Diego is our quarterback, so that hasn't changed.”

Would you like to see more of a commitment to try to run the ball there?

“Well, the end of the half score was tough, to your point. And I felt like we had just gotten back rhythm offensively. From the first turnover, I think we were stalling out a little bit. Defense held the line for us. But, we got to score to go up 14-7, and it's almost like there's an opportunity there for us to drain the clock out, maybe. But we scored quickly. They were out of timeouts at that point, and so we scored quickly. A minute 30 left, and I felt like we absorbed some yards through that. Obviously, the touchdown pass was a chunk play. We needed to get a chance to get them off schedule without timeouts and with pressure on the quarterback or a sack makes it really hard for them to function. We just weren't able to do it. That was a big moment. But again, to me, you come into half in 14-14. With possession coming out in the second half. We had done what we needed to do to hold serve there. It's our game coming out. We got to go drive and score. And in that drive it was one first down right, and then it was four and out. And I believe there was a drop in there too. And so I think they were able to load the box up, and they made running space really hard. We needed to hit some of those plays that we missed on to be able to kind of loosen the box up and give us a chance. And then once we got two scores behind, we had to commit to throwing the ball. I was not pleased with the penalties at the end, too. I thought that it was dumb football. We got to play smarter than that. And so you look at all those things and and, hey, we have a good team, but we're not good enough to play the way we played on third down, particularly offensively, to play the way we played in the red zone. And there are real lessons for us in that those are things we can correct too. because those are execution areas. What is our leverage defensively? How are we covering the routes? I think on one of the conversions, our inside leverage player fell down and they completed a dig. That shouldn't happen. We'll study it and we'll find ways to get better.”

Felt like you guys were kind of owning the line of scrimmage effectively in the first half. How do you feel like that changed?

“Space was hard. The play was made from the backside, and it was someone who won their point of attack, and they were able to get the backfield. So I think you have to credit Alabama for the way they played up front. I think that's the first thing. Those guys beat us on both sides of the line of scrimmage, particularly in the second half. And then we got to look schematically and tactically, what were the ways that we needed to get the ball in space, and how could we have found the play that could unlock some rhythm offensively, that allowed us to get the ball again in the air? But a credit to them, and we'll know more about the specifics of the play when we watch the film.”

What did you see on that overturned scoop and score play that y'all had?

“I saw that he was down. I thought that was. I appreciated the fact that they let the play go. But it was, they got it right when they overturned it. You bring that one up. I mean, you feel like they were able to get two turnovers. We really want one turnover short. It's just like everything was just a little short of where we needed to be to win a game like that. And we have a good enough team to win a game like that. We did not play well enough tonight to get it done.”

Coach, what did your defense show you tonight? Obviously, Simpson had some chunk plays through the air. But what did you like positively, negatively, especially heading into a bye week, specifically on defense?

“I mean, I love the way we fought. I thought again, they had three field goals in the game and missed one. That’s going to win you games when you're able to force field goals that end drives. I felt like sometimes we conceded some space to them, and they were able to find the space again. I credit their quarterback for staying alive in the pocket. Sometimes those are rhythm throws where we're in zone coverage, and as the play extends, because our rush has been negated, someone's going to run open on his own. And so you have to give him credit. I think that's what makes him a really good player. And he's been kind of stepping into this rhythm and chemistry here lately. It's helping them perform at a high level offensively. But he played better than we rushed tonight, and we'll have to look at those things. And finally, some improvement, whether that's adding someone into the rush. How are we attacking protections? We'll look at that. I love the resilience of the defense outside the last touchdown. I did not like that, but I don't think it was for lack of effort. I thought they were resilient tonight. I thought they kept us in it when we were stalling out offensively and we just didn't have enough there to finish, to get a score and to make it interesting.”