How Vanderbilt Football's Miles Capers Went From Throwing Up To Miracle Maker
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NASHVILLE—It’s been three days since the most viral moment of Miles Capers’ Vanderbilt football career and he still has some business to tend to on his phone. Capers indicates that he’s gotten messages between normal texts, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter over the past 72 hours. He’s gotten so many that he declares he can’t remember the most surprising or noteworthy people to contact him.
Capers has tried to get back with everyone, but it’s been a fools’ errand.
“I’ve got a lot of missed texts right now,” Capers said.
Capers’ body of work as a Vanderbilt football player already included a strip sack that was the difference in Vanderbilt’s program-altering win over No. 1 Alabama, a significant role on the best team in program history, a standout performance in a win when he returned to his home state a year ago and run of ups and downs that he’s endured to give him a case to be considered the program’s most loyal player.
But, nothing Capers has done was quite like this. Nothing else he’s done has made its way to nearly every ESPN talk show, NFL pregame shows, Bleacher Report, Barstool Sports and seemingly every other media entity in the country. Capers has become a foundational piece of Vanderbilt’s build under head coach Clark Lea, but–true to his personality–he’s often worked in silence and flown under the radar.
Even if Capers wants that to be the case, he’s got no choice. On a day when Vanderbilt five-star freshman Jared Curtis made his first career start and Vanderbilt won, Capers was the most heavily discussed Vanderbilt player in Lea’s postgame press conference. Capers likely didn’t have that on his bingo card on Saturday morning, but Lea didn’t appear to have any reservations about making Capers the center of attention.
“There can't be a better representation of this program than Cape,” Lea said. “This is a guy that I care a ton about as a person, but he is a really good football player and I think for all that he's gone through, that we've gone through, that we've battled through, how appropriate is it that he steps up at that moment, makes a play that really changes the course of our season. So, all the credit in the world to him. Love that guy forever and I'm so grateful he's here."
As Capers stands in Vanderbilt’s team room on this Tuesday morning, he remembers six years ago when he sat a few feet away and was rewarded the No. 29 from Lea. 29 is Lea’s old jersey number and was given to Capers under the guise that Lea was awarding it to someone that meant a lot to him. All these years later, Lea appears to get emotional when reflecting on Capers’ impact on Vanderbilt’s program.
Capers doesn’t quite get emotional, but he paused for a moment on Tuesday morning to reflect and was clear that he believes Vanderbilt’s program has taken a clear step forward since he arrived. For evidence, Capers appears to recall a number of preseason workouts in his first summer as a member of the program and the temperament of the team in them.
Those workouts were the same ones that allowed Capers to earn Lea’s jersey number, particularly one in which he threw up during conditioning and bounced back to finish the workout. Vanderbilt was in its last summer workout and Lea had opted to make his team run stadiums. Capers wasn’t working out in the days before the conditioning, and couldn’t keep everything down as a result.
Capers didn’t know it then, but those workouts would prove to be worthwhile. At least, they did Saturday as Vanderbilt executed a goal-line blitz–which Lea jokes is the only goal line blitz ever to happen with over 90 yards between the play and the opponent’s end zone–and Capers punched the ball out of NC State quarterback CJ Bailey’s hands to lead to a stunning game-winning touchdown.
It’s the type of play that Capers couldn’t have dreamt of up when he was a Vanderbilt freshman fighting to get through conditioning and onto the field. But, he’s here and is soaking in a moment that will be remembered for a long time around these parts.
The magnitude of the play, and the idea that Capers is a part of two of the biggest plays in program history, has finally hit Capers—even if it didn’t in the moment on Saturday.
“I blacked out,” Capers said in regard to the play. “It means a lot to those big wins and obviously we want to win, so it means a lot to me.”
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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, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
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