Exclusive: Alabama Transfer Cole Adams is Looking to Prove Something With Vanderbilt Football

NASHVILLE—-Cole Adams is waiting behind the group of media members gathered on Vanderbilt’s grass practice field as Joseph McVay addresses the cameras and as McVay finishes his meeting with the media, it’s finally Adams turn.

Adams stepping up to the figurative podium and letting his long, surfer-esque hair flow in the wind is almost symbolic. Before Adams stepped up to the podium, he was the subject of comments from Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea, receivers coach Alex Bailey and McVay. For so long, Adams has been working in the background. Now he’s expected to be one of the guys, though, and he knows it.

The graduate transfer receiver caught 13 balls and went for 176 yards in three seasons at Alabama while never eclipsing 100 yards on a season. Adams always embraced the prestige of what Alabama is, but he never was rewarded with a fate that consistently made him one of the program’s go-to guys.

Adams says he never envisioned leaving Alabama because of his emphasis on commitment, but things change. When the Alabama transfer entered the portal, he already had a relationship with Vanderbilt offensive coordinator Tim Beck and had a productive conversation with Lea, but he was going to need more than that if he was going to feel comfortable with a non-Alabama situation.

“I just felt like someone needed to give me an opportunity to show the world what I can do,” Adams told Vandy on SI, “And I think Vanderbilt was that place.”

What Adams can bring to this Vanderbilt team isn’t all that hard to decipher while watching him run the show, even on air, in practice settings. The Alabama transfer is a smooth, crisp route runner, has hands that Bailey lauds and a toughness that Vanderbilt has embraced throughout its first few spring practices.

In a relatively young wide receiver room, Vanderbilt needs Adams to emerge. Whatever Adams has been able to give has always been more house money than essential, but that changes these days. As much as Adams needed Vanderbilt to give him an opportunity, it needs him.

Through a few spring practices, it feels as if it’s getting what it hoped for.

“He loves football,” Bailey said. “He loves to talk ball. He loves to play. All of those things are great and I’m excited to see what he’s going to do this season.”

Cole Adams — Adams feels as if he can unlock his skillset at Vanderbilt. | Vanderbilt football

Whatever exactly Adams experienced in his initial meeting with Lea is unlike anything he’s ever experienced, he says. It was wisdom-filled, insightful and persuasive.

Perhaps it was especially moving because Adams had the path to Lea’s heart all mapped out, even if he didn’t know it. Any hypotheses that Adams would come into the meeting with Lea and act as if he was entitled to anything because of where he comes from was quickly disproven.

The Alabama transfer hit the soft spot of the Vanderbilt head coach.

“He’s a chip on the shoulder guy,” Lea said. “I was blown away with his engagement, his personality and just the feeling that he was a fit for us.”

Those within Vanderbilt’s program have privately compared Adams’ edge and vocality to former Vanderbilt receiver Richie Hoskins. The stories of Adams’ career and Hoskins are different–Adams started his career playing in one of college football’s greatest cathedrals while Hoskins had to grind his way to Vanderbilt as a walk-on after starting his career away from the Division-I spotlight. On the surface, though, the consensus within Vanderbilt’s program is that both entered the program looking to show something.

Hoskins was motivated by the idea of proving he belonged at this level after nobody gave him the chance to do so initially. Adams has already proven that, but he still feels as if there’s a preconceived notion that he’s trying to disprove.

“I'm not the biggest receiver, but I want to show everyone that I can play like I'm a big receiver. I want to show them the plays that I can make on the field,” Adams said. “I can't really talk too much about that. I got to show them, and I'm really excited to just be able to be given that chance.”

The pedigree that Adams already has these days puts him among the most interesting players going through drills at Vanderbilt’s spring football practices on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings. He knows that’s futile, though.

Adams experienced starting games for the first time as a sophomore at Alabama and had the opportunity ripped from him due to injury. When he came back, the opportunity had dried up. Life would look a whole lot different for Adams if he had held on to that starting role, yet here he is going through a seven-minute press conference with the small group of media covering Vanderbilt rather than the masses of Alabama writers on the practice field.

Adams wraps his session with the group and has a message to demonstrate the intensity of what he’s aiming to show these days. May the most consistent receivers win starting roles.

“I’m just a competitor,” Adams said. “I want to get out there and compete. It doesn’t matter who you put me up against, I’m gonna go compete. With that chip on my shoulder, I want to show people that I can do it. Anyone that’s ever doubted me, I want to show them that I can.”

It all appeared to be coming together for Adams. He was finally starting. He had already set what would become a career high in offensive snaps with 82 through eight games. Then, it happened.

At the time it was termed vaguely by Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer as a lower-leg injury, but Adams tells Vandy on SI that he broke his ankle in Alabama’s 2024 win over Missouri. The injury would halt the progress that Adams had made more than he knew at the time.

Adams returned to his role as Alabama’s starting punt returner in 2025 but played just 49 offensive snaps, finishing with fewer receptions and yards than he did a season prior. Alabama’s wide receiver room was loaded enough to indicate that it would’ve been difficult for Adams to get on the field in any case. It was still easy to wonder what this all could’ve been had Adams not been injured, though.

The now-Vanderbilt receiver doesn’t think that way often, though. He believes that this has all happened for a reason, to make him stronger than he would’ve been without the injury.

“The Lord helped me out so much with that, I can’t even begin to explain,” Adams said. “There was times I had tears in my eyes on the field, in the training room, in the weight room, but I just looked up to him and talked to him, and he's helped me so much.”

When asked if his faith is better off for what he’s been through, Adams demonstratively responds with “oh, gosh, yes” as if to indicate that he’s deeply connected to the idea.

Adams says he was strengthened by a program that then Alabama assistant head coach and wide receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard–who is now the head coach at Oregon State–termed Faith, Family, Football and held for a number of Alabama players.

The meetings would start with Shephard giving the players a Bible verse to internalize and discuss and would move on to a player talking about their family as well as what they mean to him. At the end of the meeting, they’d dish on football–although Adams emphasizes that it was regarded as the least important topic in the meetings. Adams says the meetings opened his eyes to a greater faith and that Shephard as well as Alabama receiver Germie Bernard were spiritual models that he benefitted from following.

As McVay takes the figurative podium after Vanderbilt’s Tuesday practice, the fruits of Bernard and Shephard’s labor showed up.

“He’s a really good guy,” McVay said in regard to Adams, “He keeps his faith real strong.”

Adams says his faith has changed his worldview and has been a staple of the leadership that he directs at Vanderbilt’s younger receivers these days. The Alabama transfer says he cares deeply about being a role model for that group off the field and modeling his faith to them.

Perhaps he couldn’t have done that when he arrived at Alabama, but these days he can confidently say that he does. Adams has been through too much and been tested too many times to feel any differently.

“The Lord's helped me to mature and see the world through a different view,” Adams said. “It's not just about doing good on the field or doing good things off the field. It's about being a good person.”

Perhaps Adams was shy about admitting much about the stunning nature of Vanderbilt’s upset of his then No. 1 Alabama team, but he’s an open book in regard to that historical day nowadays.

Adams said he never saw that type of upset coming and was humbled by the ultimate result. The then-Alabama receiver went for two receptions and 17 yards that day–which marked progress for him in some ways–but watched the other, less talented sideline celebrating by the time the evening was over.

“They whooped our butt,” Adams admitted to the group of media that surrounded him on Tuesday. “Not only was I in awe, but I was just like, look at these guys. Like, it was pretty cool from the opposite side of the field to see the relatedness and the brotherhood that those guys had. It doesn't matter who you're playing, you know, you go out there and play your butt off and, you know—who knows what happens between those white lines, and anything can happen.”

Adams says in hindsight that watching Vanderbilt that day forced him for the first time to think that the program had something going on that was worth paying attention to. He says that if that game hadn’t happened the way it did, he may not be a member of Vanderbilt’s roster like he is these days.

Everything happens for a reason and God is good, he says.

If all goes to plan, Adams will be a factor in making sure that Vanderbilt is on the winning end of a few marquee games in a Vanderbilt uniform in the fall. He’ll still have to earn everything he gets–as he acknowledges–but it appears as if he’s on track to do so.

“He’s brought confidence, he's brought that snap experience. He's also a misfit,” Adams said. “He fits in with our environment. And we're happy to have him.”

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