Why Clark Lea, Tim Beck Feel Vanderbilt Offensive Line is "Close" To Finding Its Five, It's Identity

Lea told Vandy on SI this summer that Vanderbilt has its best offensive line in his tenure. Now he's putting it to the test.

Vanderbilt's line looks to be improved and is coming together. | Vanderbilt Athletics

Nashville–As Vanderbilt goes through each day of its fall camp, it appears to be getting more and more intentional about who it’s giving an increase in reps to and why it’s doing so. 

Vanderbilt’s offensive line is perhaps its most noticeable offensive example as it looks to find its best five, but also to develop continuity so that it’s moving in sync as a unit when it takes the field on Aug. 30 against Charleston Southern. The Commodores are still toying with some things, but there seems to be a pecking order forming as it sits 21 days away from the season opener. 

“We’re pretty close,” Vanderbilt offensive coordinator Tim Beck said in regard to figuring out the week one rotation. “We’re still moving a few people around, just for instance, we flip-flop our offensive line, we try to train some guys to play guard and tackle on the same side at times. But, we’re seeing a group of guys where several of them have a lot of experience, they just haven’t played together very much so it will take a little bit of time for them to get that cohesiveness.” 

If the season were to start today, it appears as if Vanderbilt would start Jordan White at center, Chase Mitchell at strong guard, Cade McConnell at quick guard, Isaia Glass at quick tackle and Bryce Henderson at strong tackle. 

Nothing is set in stone yet, though. Particularly because Vanderbilt still has 11 fall camp practices left to go and of the five projected starting linemen, four of them would be first-year starters at Vanderbilt. 

Perhaps Vanderbilt’s bigger question comes in regard to the potential rotational linemen that could complement those starters. That appears to be more up for interpretation. 

“I think we’re close to kind of figuring it out,” Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said after Saturday’s scrimmage. “I think we’re close to knowing who the first five are and as long as we’re staying healthy, we’ll be in good shape there. Then it’s about who are those two or three guys that are going to come in.”

As of right now, all of Vanderbilt’s offensive linemen are lumped together as Lea and Beck refer to the progress of the unit as a whole. At this stage, it feels as if they still believe there’s room for plenty of that. 

For all the praise Lea gave that unit this summer–when he said that he believed it would be his best offensive line yet–he’s not going easy on them now. Lea publicly called out Vanderbilt’s presnap, procedural issues that have resulted in penalties after a practice earlier in the week and while those issues have left the limelight, there were still four presnap penalties on Vanderbilt’s offense on Saturday. 

Lea knows that issue will minimize the margins for his team and could alter its chances late in games, as a result he challenged his offensive line to be better privately in the same way he did publicly. Despite the penalties on Saturday, he’s sensing some improvement. 

“I guess it was the last time we went live, I was disappointed,” Lea said. “It’s almost like the adversity was galvanizing and they’re starting to come together. I think they’ve done a better job playing five as one and creating space for the run game. Obviously it’s been imperfect, I want to see us eliminate some of those self-imposed negatives.” 

Perhaps Vanderbilt’s path to doing that more consistently will come as a result of a more steady group of five being out there consistently. 

Now it appears to be close to having that. 

“It will take a little bit of time for them to get the cohesiveness that an offensive line needs,” Beck said, “But I love their attitude and love some of the things that they’re doing.”