NASHVILLE, Tenn. — With one-third of the 2021 season in the books, Vanderbilt looks toward the month of October and one final nonconference matchup in which to set itself back on the correct trajectory.
The Commodores (1-3) are coming off one of the worst losses in program history (62-0 to No. 2 Georgia on Saturday at Vanderbilt Stadium) and are in desperate need of some good vibes before ending the campaign with seven straight SEC contests. They welcome UConn (0-5) to Nashville at 6:30 p.m. Saturday for a game televised live by ESPNU.
“Everyone’s frustrated. And everyone’s disappointed,” Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea said. “But Monday we met as a team to move past the game, review the game and then started work on UConn. There’s a bounce-back spirit in the building.
“We had an honest assessment of what happened Saturday of the places that we can get better both in coaching the game and in playing the game and we moved on from it. The belief in what we can do and the energy and enthusiasm toward what this program is capable of hasn’t waned at all.”
Vanderbilt had shown some mild improvements over the first few weeks in games against East Tennessee State, Colorado State and Stanford, respectively. But the bottom fell out in a loss to the Bulldogs in which the scoreboard read 28-0 less than nine minutes into the affair.
Lea has preached this fall about winning the response no matter the outcome on Saturdays. There is no greater time to do that than this week.
“I think it’s just a matter of the choices. Do we want to be defeated or do we want to find a way through it?” Lea said. “What I saw on Saturday were certain individuals that were playing at a high, competitive level. In a losing effort, in a game that really was so frustrating and discouraging in general, you find individuals and individual play that gives you some energy and spark moving forward. You recognize that.
“As we get the program and the team to a point where we’re having the success that we know that we can have, it’s going to be about highlighting team and unity performance, a togetherness that puts us in the best position to win.”
UConn heads to town having lost to Fresno State, Holy Cross, Purdue, Army and Wyoming, respectively. The Huskies, who did not play a 2020 season and who compete as an independent, have dropped nine in a row overall dating to 2019 and are 9-44 in their last 53.
Playing for interim head coach Lou Spanos, UConn ranks near the bottom in the FBS in most every major statistical category. But on Saturday against Wyoming the Huskies held a fourth-quarter lead and were a successful two-point conversion away from sending that game into overtime.
Vanderbilt and UConn have met thrice before with the Commodores winning in 2002 and 2011 and the Huskies winning in 2010.
“We take (the loss to Georgia), we learn from it. Certainly it hurt. It was frustrating. It was painful. Personally painful to each of us,” Lea said. “We grow from it, we evolve through it, we understand it’s representative of where we are and now we flush it and we move on to UConn.
“We got to be better as coaches. I’ve got to be better as the head coach. Our players have to be ready to put forth their best effort this week to have a chance to celebrate in our locker room. UConn is going to put forth a challenge. They played their best football here last weekend and they’re going to come in with the confidence of a team that’s ready to win a game on the road. We’re going to have to play our best and battle all the things that have shown up to hold us back – complimentary football, the psychology of adversity. All that stuff is going to come up on Saturday and we’re going to have to be better from our first four games.”
• Vanderbilt has dropped nine straight home games against FBS opponents.
• Vandy linebacker Anfernee Orji ranks 32nd nationally with five solo tackles per game and 59th with eight total tackles per game.
• The Commodores and Huskies first met in 2002 when Lea was in first season with the program as a junior fullback. Vanderbilt won the matchup 28-24 thanks to a late touchdown run from Jay Cutler.
• Vanderbilt is 10-8 all-time against programs that play as independents.
• Connecticut linebacker D.J. Morgan played at Notre Dame from 2016-18 while Lea was an assistant coach for the Fighting Irish.
— Chad Bishop covers Vanderbilt for VUCommodores.com.
Follow him @MrChadBishop.
