Vanderbilt Football Penalty Issues Haunt Commodores in Loss to No. 3 Alabama
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NASHVILLE — Midway through the second quarter, there was a feeling of excitement and jubilance throughout FirstBank Stadium. Vanderbilt cornerback Dontae Carter picked off Alabama quarterback Keelon Russell to set Vandebilt’s offense up at the Alabama 17-yard line.
That drive ended in a 52-yard field goal from Brock Taylor. Yes, a 52-yard field goal.
How did a Vanderbilt drive that began so deep in opponent territory end in a field goal so far away from the goal posts? It was a chain reaction of unfortunate events for Vanderbilt that started before the first snap of the possession took place.
Vanderbilt tight end Maurice Veney committed a false start penalty to push his team back to the 22-yard line. From there, the Commodores went backward on three consecutive plays that ended in Jared Curtis being sacked.
The penalty at the beginning of the possession was one of the many same pieces that formed the story of the game for Vanderbilt’s offense. It was penalty after penalty after penalty. To be a little more specific, it felt like a constant stream of false starts throughout the afternoon.
Veney’s false start was just one of seven false starts Vanderbilt committed in the game. Offensively, Vanderbilt committed 11 penalties. On defense, the Commodores had three more penalties. Do the math and that adds up to Vanderbilt having 14 penalties for 92 yards.
In fact, Vanderbilt had 80 more penalties yards than rushing yards in the game.
“Pre-snap operations have been an achilles heel, but in a game where we needed to be able to control the clock and establish a run game, we put ourselves in tough spots and weren’t able to do that,” Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea said. “We can teach to be fundamentally technically better, but the operational stuff has got to clean up and we control. So, really disappointed in that way.”
Vanderbilt has been plagued by operational penalties for what feels like the entire season. So much so to the point where Lea has had to add in rules during practice. Going into the game against Arkansas in mid-October, Lea told the media that for every operational penalty yard that occurred in practice, the players would have to do up-downs that number of times.
It was put in place as a way to find something to limit the self-imposed mistakes in games. At first, it did help to an extent. That week, Vanderbilt committed just five penalties for 35 yards.
Saturday was not a day where the self-imposed errors were under control.
Vanderbilt is fully aware that penalties have beat itself like it did against Alabama. Lea knows that the issue does stem from a lack of individual focus of players. But Lea also feels like the penalty issues are a part of the challenges with developing a young quarterback like Curtis.
“I think some of it is the growing pains of bringing along a freshman quarterback who’s learning how to adjust the mechanics from the call in the huddle to the line of scrimmage. Obviously, when we’re shifting a motion, before we can motion we have to make sure we’re set. And so some of those are going to be easily corrected and it’s teaching Jared how to slow down and to know to check the field,” Lea said.
Perhaps what hurts the most is the feeling of doom and gloom regarding the penalties. Vanderbilt felt like it had made strides of progress in not committing as many penalties. And for the past month, that was true in the numbers.
But Vanderbilt felt like the loss Saturday was a step back. Not only did that step back hurt the ability to score points and limit points for Alabama, but it leaves Vanderbilt thinking about the what ifs.
“I felt like we made progress in eliminating these and we played cleaner. Today, it really robbed us of a chance to put pressure on Alabama,” Lea said. “We never established identity on offense. Why did we not do that? Because we were constantly behind the chains and hurting ourselves with the operational penalties.”
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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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