Takeaways From Vanderbilt Football's Third Day of Fall Camp

Nashville–Vanderbilt’s appeared to take advantage of a cooler morning on Thursday with an abundance of live periods that provided a look at what it really has.

The Commodores have an off day on Saturday and appeared to empty the tank prior to a potential recovery day.

Here’s some takeaways from Vanderbilt’s third day of camp.

Vanderbilt’s defensive install is in while its offense is not, that was pretty clear on Friday

The defense appears to be ahead of the offense at this stage, but that’s not necessarily an indictment on its offense.

Nearly every Vanderbilt player making plays is a returner who hasn’t had much of a learning curve to this point while Tim Beck is looking to phase in a new offensive line as well as a few new receivers.

Vanderbilt’s secondary and linebackers are flying around as if they know exactly what their assignments are and are getting their hands on the ball.

This happened last year as well and Vanderbilt’s offense was fine, but it’s worth noting how in live periods the Vanderbilt defense looks better and is making a significant amount of impact plays.

Vanderbilt’s linebackers appear to be some of the stars of camp thus far

Perhaps Vanderbilt’s practice structure lends itself to strong linebacker play, but its surplus of potential impact players there is on display each day at practice.

Nick Rinaldi continues to be Vanderbilt’s swiss-army knife and get his hands on the ball while Langston Patterson made a few plays in the box. Bryce Cowan stood out on Wednesday, as well.

Perhaps that group can make a difference in the fall.

Miles Capers and Khordae Sydnor really stood out on Thursday

In one-on-ones and team periods, Sydnor and Capers each jumped off the page as standouts. Sydnor used his physicality to run through a projected starting offensive lineman in a one-on-one while Capers did something similar, but not to the same effect.

Capers’ speed really stood out on Thursday as he appeared to be able to shoot in to the backfield against prominent offensive players.

Trent Hudson is sneakily having a nice start to camp

Hudson isn’t making the standout plays that Richie Hoskins is, but he’s consistently involved and appears to be one of Diego Pavia’s favorite targets.

It appeared as if Hudson was more of a red-zone guy when he committed, but he’s been able to make plays as a downfield pass catcher and looks a bit leaner than he did in his time at New Mexico State.

Pavia says he’s happy that Hudson redshirted last season and appears to be intent on taking advantage of it.

Brycen Coleman and Cole Spence update

Each of them were off to the side throughout Thursday’s practice while Eli Stowers was full go and appeared to be making plays like he normally does.

Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea says he already knows what he has in Spence so his absence isn’t a needle-moving one. Coleman starred in last season’s fall camp.