The Offseason is Over. Time For Vanderbilt Football's Most Important Season In Awhile.

Nashville—Here we go. Your move, Vanderbilt football.

Time for the grind of fall camp to subside and the light at the end of the tunnel to be a tangible place. Time for the talk to turn into tangible results. Time for the improved depth and more capable bodies to show up in uniform. Time for Vanderbilt football to start building off the momentum it’s built.

That momentum matters and is indicative of the growth within Clark Lea’s program as well as what Vanderbilt achieved in 2024, but it’s time for something different. It’s time for a clean slate and Vanderbilt’s players to scratch and claw for everything all over again.

“I’m just ready to play football,” Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia said. “I think we start here on August 30. It is, but I know we're really excited as a team to go out and compete, but we've been working towards this and we obviously have some big goals set in front of us.”

When Pavia says big goals, he means it. He’s not thinking of the goals that this program has always—like bowl eligibility and a day or two of regional relevance—had, either. He’s thinking national title.

Everyone knows that, though. It’s the worst-kept secret in the southeast at this point. It’s the identity that this Vanderbilt team has embraced.

Time for them to play like it. Time to make sure all of this doesn’t blow up in their faces.

That requires this Vanderbilt team to do what so many others haven’t been able to do, what last season’s wasn’t able to. From now on, it can’t have any days in which Clark Lea leaves McGugin Center or FirstBank Stadium disappointed in the effort his team showed.

Up to this point it’s been ancillary. It’s been ‘if Vanderbilt football keeps this up, it may end up paying for it down the line.’

Well, down the line is here.

The days of analyzing each rep freshman quarterback Jack Elliott and receiver LeBron Hill take in practice are over. So are the days of everything being taken with a grain of salt.

This is the old guys’ show now. For many of them—like Pavia, Stowers, Langston Patterson, Miles Capers, Cole Spence, Jordan White and potentially Randon Fontenette—it’s their last show at this level. They’ll be desperate to make it count. As a result, it’s Vanderbilt football’s most important season in a long time.

It’s not a matter of job security for Lea like last season could’ve been had it gone astray, but it’s his window. He’s got 77% of his offensive production and 78% of his defensive production back from last season’s bowl team. He’s got his quarterback and a future NFL tight end to run the show as well as nearly his entire coaching staff back. After this, he’ll have to start from scratch.

If Lea is going to have a Vanderbilt team that wins big at the level that he believes it can, it’s going to be this team. All the stars line up for it to be special, it certainly feels special. Now it’s got to go do special things.

If it can, then this program has a chance to become a consistent winner. The belief will only come if this group of believers can produce the way they think they can, though. This group has already changed the perception around Vanderbilt football, but now it’s got a chance to change the program’s course.

If it underwhelms on its second go around, Vanderbilt won’t be back to where it was ahead of the 2024 season. It will have to find a way to generate its own buzz and retool without the momentum that it’s been accustomed to recruiting on the back of, though. It will be at the risk of losing its appeal and the perception that what it did last season is sustainable.

The only way to keep—or increase—it is to win.

“We have a national championship to win,” Vanderbilt receiver Richie Hoskins said. “We really don't care what the externals say. A lot of people said ‘7-6, that's a great season’ but at the end of the day it kind of was a stepping stone, but it was not the standard.”

Time to back that talk up. Time to play football.