Sedrick Alexander Paid His Dues. Now He's A Piece of Vanderbilt Football's Golden Era

NASHVILLE—-He’s there a few minutes after 8:00 A.M. with his headphones on, a backpack propped up on his shoulders and a football in his hand as he grins while walking alongside his Vanderbilt teammates as if he’s in his most comfortable state. That very well could be the case for Sedrick Alexander.

The posture the Vanderbilt running back takes with the ball in his Star Walk appearance is one that he’s taken his whole life. He toted the ball around the house. He begged his sister Trinity to play football with him inside until he ultimately found a few friends in the neighborhood to play with. It’s one that Alexander learned to refined as a five-year old when his dad gave him ankle weights to work on his agility and speed with the ball in his hands.

Alexander as well as all of Vanderbilt’s running backs make sure the ball is with them and that they’re “taking care of it” whenever they enter FirstBank Stadium. The gesture embodied Alexander more than anyone, though.

“The way his mind thinks,” Alexander’s mom, Dionne, told Vandy on SI, “He’s so tunnel visioned on what he’s supposed to do.”

Since his days as a kid in Austin, Texas, Alexander has always known what he’s supposed to do. Alexander’s favorite toy as a kid was a football, which he first fell in love with as a two-year old when his father would throw it to him and he would test out different moves with the ball.

Alexander wanted the ball–which was his favorite toy as a kid–in his hands from then on. He chose running back because it meant he could have the ball in his hands often. The Texas native imagined himself in the position that former Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was in, cutting and breaking long runs to achieve NFL stardom.

“He just wanted to be the greatest player ever,” Alexander’s father, Sedrick Alexander–who may be better known as “Big Sed”-- said. “He always kept a football. That’s what he loved.”

Whenever Alexander steps in front of a group of media members he can’t help but stand there and grin regardless of circumstance. At times there haven’t been all that many reasons to crack a smile, but Alexander does it nonetheless.

Perhaps that’s how the then freshman running back got through the Commodores’ 2-10 season in 2023, in which it lost each conference game by over 15 points and saw a mass exodus in the days following its season-ending loss to Tennessee at Neyland Stadium.

Vanderbilt had starters at nearly every position enter the transfer portal that offseason, but not at running back.

“I wasn’t going to let one year change the way I moved forward and go to a different team,” Alexander said. “Once you’re in a relationship, you’ve got to stay with those people. I feel like when you go somewhere else, you never know what can happen.”

The Vanderbilt running back has seen five scholarship running backs leave Vanderbilt’s program, but he’s never wavered. Alexander has been a constant within Vanderbilt football’s seemingly constantly changing roster makeup. The Vanderbilt running back says that his choice to stay is a testament to the “family atmosphere,” but it appears to be just as much of a testament to Alexander himself.

Alexander’s mom says he stayed with the same little league team, middle school and high school “the whole time” and “never deteriorated” in his loyalty to those places. He never quit. He never asked to go elsewhere. He just kept his head down and stayed.

In an era in which players often jump around between programs in search of a perfect situation or the most lucrative deal, Alexander has played three seasons for the same program and has embraced it through its ups and downs.

“He’s loyal, man, you can see it,” Vanderbilt safety Marlen Sewell said. “It means a lot because in this day and age of college football, guys leave after a season like [the 2-10 season] or with the new NIL rule they leave for possibly more money. Sedrick, he’s not a money person at all.”

That’s how Alexander’s family rolls. They’ll all wear that on their sleeve and believe that they’ve backed it up throughout their lives.

Alexander’s parents got a divorce when he was “16 or 17,” but each stood alongside Natchez Trace to watch as he demonstrated his infamous ball security practice prior to Vanderbilt’s matchup with Utah State. Perhaps their relationship has changed, but they haven’t abandoned each other.

Perhaps it’s not quite conventional, but Alexander’s mother describes her blended family as one with “no issues.” She also believes that it’s taught her son something.

“I say that to say this,” she said, “It’s very hard to find these days in young men and young women’s lives. With that, that makes our children feel comfortable knowing that all their family is there, they all get along, they’re all together no matter what.”

It’s likely not how Alexander would’ve drawn it up or expected it, but it was perhaps the most drastic example of loyalty he’d seen in his life prior to college. As the Vanderbilt running back remembered the program that gave him a featured role while he only had one other power-five offer and weighed his options, he remembered what his parents did.

“The family dynamic really didn’t change,” Alexander added. “They were still good co-parenting and I feel like if you can do that, even if something’s not going right with your program you can stick through it. I feel like you can still be successful.”

Alexander and his family dealt with an unfamiliar reality in his first college season, he wasn’t part of something successful. The Vanderbilt running back had always won prior to that season. His dad estimates that he had lost less than 10 organized football games in his life prior to losing 10 in his freshman season.

Alexander’s father says that Vanderbilt’s 2023 season was “shaky,” but that his son was focused on improving rather than whether he should stay or go. They believed that if Alexander stuck it out, Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea’s vision would ultimately propel Vanderbilt to results more comparable to the ones that the Texas native experienced in his past.

“He’s won everywhere he’s been,” Alexander’s dad “Big Sed” said. “I had faith that they could do things better than they had been doing and that the culture Coach Lea put together put together an understanding. That’s what I love about Coach Lea, he demands respect.”

Behind Alexander and Vanderbilt’s core of players that stayed and bought in to what Lea has sold, it’s become a program that demands respect in the way that Alexander’s father says Lea does.

Vanderbilt is 5-0 as it heads to Birmingham on Friday night and eventually Tuscaloosa on Saturday morning. By the time it gets there, College Gameday programming will be underway and ABC’s national broadcast of its game will be nearly completely set up. The Commodores will have the eyes of America on them. So will Alexander.

It appears that as a result of his make up, he’ll be ready for the spotlight.

“He’s got a winning mentality,” Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia said prior to the season. “That’s my guy. He’s a different cat, for sure.”

It’s been Lea and Pavia who have been the figureheads of this program and its revelation of a mentality, but it’s needed Alexander to pay his dues and become a winner in his own right. Turn on a Vanderbilt football game at any point in the last three seasons and Alexander will be lined up behind Vanderbilt’s quarterback ready to make an impact on each game.

He’s not been elite, but he’s been the model of consistency within a program that hasn’t had all that much of it. Now he’s reaping the benefits of it with his best individual season yet as well as plenty of winning.

“I'm proud of Seddy,” Lea said prior to the season. “Seddy is a player that he had to play early for us and it's hard, especially in our league as a running back, it's hard to grind out yards in the SEC. We've been developing in the offensive line, too. But from the very first time we saw him carry the ball on our campus we knew that he had physical traits, mental traits.”

Gone are the days of Alexander having to run behind a subpar offensive line for a team without buzz surrounding it. He’ll take the field on Saturday in Tuscaloosa knowing the depths of where this program has won, in front of a sold-out crowd in America’s biggest game.

Who knows the impact Alexander will make, but he knows the dues he’s paid. He knows his part in this build. He knows how he’s developed alongside people he loves. He knows all of it was worth it, too.

“I made the right decision to stay here,” Alexander said, “Because I’m around my family.”