How Vanderbilt Football's Band of "Misfits" Has Found Success
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NASHVILLE—In the moments following Vanderbilt’s football roster splitting up and sharing their respective stories with each other on a summer Saturday, Bryan Longwell uttered a few words that would eventually become a battle cry for Clark Lea’s fifth team.
“God,” Longwell said at the time, “We really are a bunch of misfits.”
Lea jokes that Longwell—a traditionally undersized linebacker that was often underrecruited for that reason despite playing on winning Lipscomb Academy teams—is a “pretty glaring misfit himself,” but is right.
Nobody recruited Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia as a high schooler, Pavia says star tight end Eli Stowers is a “washed up” quarterback, starting receiver Richie Hoskins came to Vanderbilt as a walk on after starting his career as a Division-III, its offensive line is mostly constructed of non-power five transfers, Longwell was denied by Auburn on Christmas.
It’s a group of players that nobody wanted. A group of underdogs. A group that has repeatedly been told that they aren’t good enough on an individual and team level. Instead of letting that discourage it, it wears it on shirts.
Fresh off of an 80-yard run–which was Vanderbilt’s longest play from scrimmage on Saturday–MK Young walked into Vanderbilt’s media room with a team-issued black shirt with “Misfits” inscribed on it in gold letters.
“What it means to me is just a bunch of scrappy dudes who just find a way,” Young said of the phrase on his shirt. “A bunch of dudes who don’t belong, who've been counted out, written off, who everybody has looked past, who nobody really wanted and they just found a way, had a chip on their shoulder, that’s what misfits is.”
Young is a misfit himself as much as anyone else on Vanderbilt’s roster. The former New Mexico State running back was lightly recruited out of high school and wasn’t given a chance to make the move up to the SEC until Tim Beck and Jerry Kill–his offensive coordinator and head coach, respectively–joined Clark Lea’s staff. The transition between schools forced Young to take a year off from football, which included him scrubbing toilets at his local church in Midland, Texas, while the Commodores took the field.
The misfit turned Vanderbilt running back had his moment in the sun as Vanderbilt took down Missouri to move to 7-1 season and subsequent rise to a No. 9 ranking in the AP Top 25 with an 80-yard touchdown on Saturday. It’s one of a long string of standout moments for this group along the ride of its meteoric rise. The idea that this program could be here appeared to be asinine a few seasons ago, but here they are.
They had to be different to do it. They had to believe when nobody else did. They had to take on the identity that’s come with that. They’ve checked all of the following boxes. As a result, they believe they’ve earned their collective nickname.
“We call ourselves misfits,” Lea said. “All of us have scuff marks. There's not one of us that was wanted anywhere else. It's just just who we are, man. And it's the chip on our shoulder, and I feel so lucky to be in a group that embraces that.”
The motto T-shirt has become a college football staple over the years, it’s often used more as a tactic to motivate than a true piece of apparel. More times than not, it’s used as a tactic for a coach to get his players to take hold of his messaging by—literally—giving them ownership of it.
Lea believes this one is more significant because it’s not only his initiative, though. This is more about his players acknowledging where they came from and taking pride in how they’ve defied the odds to get to where they are. Lea can identify with them as a former Birmingham Southern baseball player turned walk-on fullback. As a result, they feel this is real.
“It’s galvanizing to us,” Lea said. “This isn't something that I've slapped on a T-shirt. This is something the players recognize within themselves and within each other and it's important to us.”
The archaic definition of a misfit is “something that does not fit or fits badly.” Another definition states that it’s “a person whose attitude or behavior sets them apart from others in an uncomfortable or conspicuous way.” Whether they’ve liked it or not, Vanderbilt’s players have long been viewed as that around college football.
It’s happened on an individual level as well as a team level. That’s stood out to it.
“We’ve been doubted, we've been counted out,” Vanderbilt STAR Randon Fontenette said. “I feel like everybody from the front of the depth chart to the back has been counted out at one point in their life.”
On the offensive line alone, this Vanderbilt team has three rotational players that have been to at least three schools, every lineman that sees the field is a transfer. That group, in particular, appears to fit the term.
In a way, they’re a microcosm of what this program has built itself around. It’s bypassed recruiting rankings to find the right guys that are bought in on the principles that it believes will help it fulfill its “mission” of winning.
“I think it really defines us pretty good,” Vanderbilt lineman Isaia Glass, who played at BYU and Oklahoma State prior to arriving at Vanderbilt, said of the statement. “A lot of us weren't five or four stars out of high school or anything. A lot of us, including myself, transferred multiple times. We have a lot of really unique stories and how we got here. And I think it's a good thing that defines us and kind of keep us hungry because we don't really fit in with everyone else.”
Fitting in has never been a concern for Lea’s program. If it did, it would still be a bottom feeder in the nation’s most powerful football conference. Instead, it’s opted to be different.
It’s said from the spring on that it’s wanted to win the national championship and has scoffed at any suggestion that they’re wrong for thinking they have an opportunity to. It has prided itself on being unique enough schematically that it’s difficult to prepare for. All of that has happened while this place has still embraced the academic tradition that it’s built itself on.
Those around this place want to prove that their method can work.
“Guys who were slept on and I feel like we all got that chip on our shoulder,” Pavia said. “[We] really just don't care about what the people say. We just want to go out there and play.”
_(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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