Vanderbilt Football Drops Game to No. 3 Alabama
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NASHVILLE — Vanderbilt football dropped its sixth game of the season Saturday, losing to No. 3 Alabama 21-6.
Vanderbilt got the scoring going midway through the second quarter. Vanderbilt cornerback Dontae Carter intercepted a tipped pass from Alabama quarterback Keelon Russell and set Vanderbilt’s offense up in the red zone.
Though Vanderbilt went backward, it took a 3-0 lead thanks to a Brock Taylor field goal. With the field goal, Taylor became the program’s all-time leading scorer.
Vanderbilt’s defense played its best half of football it had all season. The Commodores shut down the Alabama offense for nearly the entirety of the first half. But Alabama took its first lead of the game with a few seconds before halftime. Russell threw a nine yard touchdown pass to Marshall Pritchett to put the Crimson Tide in front.
In the second half, Vanderbilt could not get much going. The Commodores defense allowed Alabama to go 75 yards right down the field to begin the second half and take a 14-3 lead.
All was not lost yet, though. The Commodores started the second half with good field position and capped off the drive with a field goal once again from Taylor.
But on the ensuing Alabama possession, the Crimson Tide returned the kickoff all the way to the Vanderbilt 12-yard line and found the end zone for a third consecutive touchdown to take a 21-6 lead.
From that point on, Vanderbilt changed tempo offensively to a faster pace and even made progress down the field with it. The Commodores found themselves in fourth down situation in the red zone, passed up the field goal and decided to go for it. However, Jared Curtis was unable to find an open receiver and gave the ball back to Alabama.
Vanderbilt also had other opportunities to get back in the game. In the early minutes of the fourth quarter, Vanderbilt made its way back into Alabama territory. However, it could not finish the drive off the way it wanted to. The Commodores got to fourth-and-long and Taylor missed a field goal to keep the deficit at 15 points.
Vanderbilt had another chance to get back in the game with four minutes to go. It drove down the field into the red zone once again, got into another fourth down situation and failed to convert again.
Up next, Vanderbilt travels to Florida to take on the Gators. With a 4-6 record, Vanderbilt must win its final two games if it wants to become eligible for a bowl game.
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Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.
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