Why Vanderbilt Football Believes Its Defensive Line Depth Is Improved and Can Help it in Late 2025

Nashville–Vanderbilt defensive line coach Larry Black had a front row seat as his defensive line often wore down the stretch of late-season games and had to pay the price as a result.

Black–as well as Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea knew–that if they were going to be competitive late in the 2025 season, they had to be intentional about adding to their defensive line room. As a result, the Commodores landed commitments from BYU transfer Joshua Singh, North Carolina transfer Terry Nwabuisi-Ezeala, Western Michigan transfer Mason Nelson, SEMO transfer Jaylon Stone and Texas transfer Aaron Bryant in the transfer portal.

Now they feel as if they’ve got what they need to hold up when the bodies hurt and the temperatures drop.

“We should be seeing armies of guys roll in,” Black said after Vanderbilt’s practice on Friday. “We’re just trying to build that depth and that’s our challenge right now in camp, like ‘who’s going to show up?’ I know what a couple guys can do, but it’s like ‘who are the guys who are going to show up and keep building?’”

Black likely knows what he has with returning interior linemen Glenn Seabrooks, Yilanan Ouattara, Zaylin Wood–who he called the “swiss-army knife” of his room–and returning defensive lineman Bradley Mann, but he’s now searching for the pulse of his transfer and freshman classes.

As much as Black will praise individual players in his room, he’ll always stop short of saying that their work is done. That wouldn’t be on brand for a guy like Black–who makes his room earn every snap they get.

Perhaps a better indicator of the depth that Vanderbilt has built is the confidence that comes from its mainstays if they go down. Wood experienced that in 2024 as he missed the majority of the 2024 season due to an injury. The Vanderbilt defensive lineman saw the drop off behind him and wished he could be out there.

Now as he looks to prove his “availability” and stay out there for a full season, Wood believes that he can go all in on every snap because of the backup plans that Vanderbilt has in place.

“The depth is gonna be the biggest part of our success as a defensive line,” Wood said. “I got hurt last year and I felt like that made the d-line take a dip, [Bradley] Mann got hurt as well. So the depth we brought in, I feel like we can roll three deep as a d-line.”

Talk of depth around this program has often been met with skepticism over the years, for good reason. It’s often used as a cop out or justification for not having top-end players that can consistently make impacts on games.

That should be kept in mind as Vanderbilt’s pieces continue to rave about the group that they’ve assembled, but this time could be different for it. At the very least, this group has a level of proven production and doesn’t lose much outside of late transfer portal addition De’Marion Thomas.

It also expects leaps from pieces like Seabrooks and Ouattara–who would benefit from an added level of production behind them.

“Last season I felt like I died out towards the end of the season, just physically broke down a little bit,” Ouattara–who Vanderbilt coach Clark deems as an “NFL prospect–said. “Having other guys taking reps definitely will help us put pressure on the opponents to throw out the season into January.”

Ouattara can take a leap in 2025, but if he has to play more snaps than he’s capable of at a position that he says “needs to rotate,” then his effect on each game could be minimized by burnout.

Vanderbilt goes through fall camp each day just trying to take it one step at a time and is focused on itself at this stage rather than preparing for its Aug. 30 opener against Charleston Southern, but as it approaches each day it keeps November–and its ability to compete then–in mind.

“You don’t like looking ahead, but as you see it, you’ve gotta be able to withstand those double teams and those combo blocks in the SEC and you got to have some fresh bodies to do it,” Black said. “If we can continue to build out the depth the way we think we can, we’re hoping to have those bodies ready to roll and continue to dial in there as we get later in the season so we could keep sending those waves out to go attack.”