NASHVILLE, Tenn. — While defensive coordinator Nick Howell will be making his home debut Saturday in what is now FirstBank Stadium, the long-time assistant coach has actually paced the sidelines in the venue once before.
On Sept. 15, 2018, Virginia and Ohio met at Vanderbilt Stadium for a matchup originally scheduled to be played in Charlottesville, Virginia. Hurricane Florence, however, was forecasted to produce heavy rain on the Virginia coast that day, so the two programs met in Nashville instead.
And, at the time, Howell was the defensive coordinator for the Cavaliers.
“I remember we came here in an emergency because there was supposed to be severe weather in Virginia. We met up here and played Ohio and it was like a precursor to COVID-19 because nobody was here,” Howell said. “It was, like, an empty stadium. You could hear the coaches on the other sideline.”
Howell and Virginia won that matchup 45-31. Now the Vandy assistant coach is looking to win his second game on the Vandy campus when the Commodores host Elon at 6 p.m. Saturday.
If his unit plays like it did in Saturday’s opener at Hawai’i, there’s a good chance another victory will unfold.
Vanderbilt scored two defensive touchdowns in a 63-10 triumph in Honolulu. It recorded seven tackles for loss and three sacks, forced two fumbles and was credited with five quarterback hurries.
And after the Rainbow Warriors marched 75 yards in eight plays to go up 7-0 less than three minutes into the game, Vandy allowed just 283 yards and three points from there and stopped Hawai’i all four times it tried to convert a fourth-down play.
“There were no real adjustments,” Vandy senior Elijah McAllister said. “We knew that it was a misfit on our end. That (early) touchdown happened because of us, not because of anything they did. So it was just about communicating with each other and knowing that we just needed to play to our standard, our level as a defense and everything was going to happen.”
Vanderbilt got at least one tackle from 23 different players and was led by senior safety Maxwell Worship’s seven stops. Anfernee Orji and CJ Taylor each found the end zone on fumble returns and Christian James had a team-high two tackles for loss.
The 10 points allowed was the program’s fewest since a shutout against East Tennessee State on Nov. 23, 2019, and fewest against a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent since beating Nevada 41-10 on Sept. 8, 2018.
“I thought they just did a really good job of staying focused throughout the week on what the most-important thing was, which was the game,” Howell said of his defense. “I thought that was great. There was some good effort in that game and some good physicality in that game.”
This week the Commodores face an Elon offense under the direction of coordinator Drew Folmar that scored 24 points and totaled 265.8 passing yards per game in 2021. But the Phoenix will be starting a new quarterback and only have one upperclassman in line to start along the offensive line on the program’s official depth chart.
Wide receiver Jackson Parham caught 57 balls in 2021 for 820 yards and will be a key for the Vandy defense.
“I like them. I like those receivers a lot,” Howell said of the Phoenix. “I think their scheme, their pass concepts are really well-designed. Their RPOs, their runs, the blocking schemes that go with those are really well-designed.
“I think they’re really well-coached. I think they have really capable receivers that are as good of players as you’ll see. Now, with a new quarterback, whoever they decide to go with, we’ve watched tape on both those guys, it seems like they both fit in really well in their system. So it’ll be a matter of who meshed with their wideouts, but I’m really impressed by them.”
— Chad Bishop covers Vanderbilt for VUCommodores.com.
Follow him @MrChadBishop.
