Vanderbilt coach gets real on if they can beat Alabama again

Vanderbilt pulled off one of the upsets of the decade after taking out No. 1 Alabama last year, and now they hit the road looking to do it again.

Gary Cosby Jr.-Imagn Images

Vanderbilt stunned college football with a historic upset against Alabama a year ago, and now the Commodores are looking to make it two straight on the road this season.

Head coach Clark Lea knows it won’t be easy, but he believes the team has grown from what it was before and has the potential to pull off another upset this time around.

“Last season was important for us in terms of getting some of those breakthrough moments to realize, ‘Hey, this is something that we can do,’” Lea said recently.

“I think this season has been about having the confidence to dominate, honestly. To have a dominant mindset when we take the field. That’s a tangible shift that we’ve had here from within.”

Vanderbilt has made some history over the course of its early domination, starting 5-0 for the first time since 2008, ranking fourth nationally in scoring offense, and quarterback Diego Pavia leads the SEC with 13 passing touchdowns thus far.

Vandy’s 245 points scored through the first 5 games are the most for the school since the SEC first started play in 1933, and are the ninth-most points scored by an SEC team in its first five games in the history of the conference.

“At the end of the day, we’re going to play this game, we’re going to play our best football and come what may,” Lea said. 

“It’s just this is the teeth of the schedule and we have all our long-term goals within reach. We’ve just got to keep trying to play that optimal game that allows us to have results.”

Last season’s upset saw Vanderbilt snap a 23-game losing streak to the Crimson Tide dating back to 1984 and was the first-ever win for the Commodores against an AP No. 1 opponent.

Vandy was 0-60 against top-five ranked teams going into that game, and was 0-10 against No. 1 teams until that remarkable day in Music City.

Saturday’s meeting in Tuscaloosa will be the first time Alabama and Vanderbilt square off against each other as top 25 ranked opponents since the 1937 season.

That was also the first year the Commodores beat a ranked opponent -- No. 6 LSU -- and they already have a win against a ranked SEC foe on their resume this fall after beating then-No. 11 South Carolina in a dominant 31-7 result on the road.

Can they repeat it this week against a much-tougher foe in a far-more domineering atmosphere?

“I think that it’s safe to say that our confidence has grown as we’ve experienced some results,” Lea said. “I’m naive at times but not naive enough to believe that you can continue to build if you don’t experience the breakthrough moments. 

“This game became important a year ago because that team was 2-2 and had kind of lost a little bit of that early momentum and needed to regain it... We need that confidence to show up for us on Saturday.”

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