NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It is Vanderbilt’s plan, and its sincere hope, that Saturday’s offensive output will become the regular and not the anomaly.
Vandy wowed those in attendance and those who watched on a national television broadcast with an offensive outburst that hasn’t been seen from a Vanderbilt offense in a long time. From points to yards to efficiency, the Commodores went ballistic for 60 minutes in a 63-10 win at Hawai’i.
“First off I thought we played really hard,” Vanderbilt offensive coordinator Joey Lynch said. “We talk about total effort all the time, it’s a staple of one of our foundational programs with (head) coach (Clark) Lea.
“I thought our kids played hard, demonstrated physicality and I thought we did a nice job of taking what they were giving us. It was nice to see a lot of people get involved, a lot of people touch the ball whether they were running it or pass catchers. And we talked about that – everyone has to play complementary football and everyone has to have a piece in what we’re doing.”
Lynch, in his second year with the program, really saw the Vanderbilt offense begin to emerge toward the end of the 2021 season. After a demoralizing loss to Mississippi State in which the Dores scored six points and mustered just 155 yards, Vandy started to show signs of life over the final four games of the schedule in which it averaged 20.8 points per game – seven points more than the previous eight games of the year.
Part of that trend turnaround coincided with quarterback Mike Wright being handed the reigns to the offense while starting quarterback Ken Seals was sidelined with an injury.
“I thought we got better as the year went on, for sure, and then started to get in a rhythm there late,” Lynch said. “Then as we got back in January to build upon what we were forming, we did a great job in spring practice and into fall camp. I think we’ve been a consistent offense through spring practice and fall camp.
“That’s what I challenged our guys with Friday night was, ‘Just be the same offense. Do everything you’ve done to this point through practice and fall camp and everything else will take care of itself.’ I thought, for the most part, that’s who we were and it was good to have some success.”
Lynch and Wright began planning to attack the 2022 season in the days that followed the Nov. 27 loss at Tennessee. All that offseason work culminated, albeit after a slow start, with Saturday’s shellacking of the Rainbow Warriors.
Vanderbilt, which hosts Elon (0-0) at 6 p.m. Saturday, totaled 601 yards of offense, its most since racking up 608 against Tennessee on Nov. 26, 2016. The 404 rushing yards by the Commodores was the most since recording 410 against Presbyterian on Sept. 15, 2012.
Vandy went 6 of 6 from the red zone, its most successful red-zone conversions since going 6 of 8 against Nevada on Sept. 8, 2018. It didn’t allow a single sack in a game for the first time since Nov. 16, 2019, against Kentucky, had its most first downs (28) since making 29 on Nov. 14, 2020, against Kentucky and only punted once – the first time that has happened since Nov. 7, 2020 against Mississippi State.
Wright became the fourth Vanderbilt quarterback since 1996 to record two passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns in the same game and first Vandy QB to do since Chris Nickson did so in 2006.
“Coach Lynch did an amazing job dialing up play calls and put us in the perfect position to have success,” Wright said. “It’s a new Vanderbilt football. Shoutout to coach Lea, he’s gotten a group of guys together and got our head on straight and it’s just a new era – a new era of Vanderbilt football.”
Added Lynch: “From a philosophy standpoint, offensively, we’re never going to pinpoint, like, ‘This is exactly what we do.’ We’re going to have a philosophy of how to attack numbers, leverage and space with our kids’ skill sets. So I definitely think we’re adapting to (Wright’s) skill set, but it’s within the framework of our offense. That’s important as you recruit whether it’s quarterback run game or RPO, it’s basically how you handle the unblocked player, or how you balance the numbers, if you will.
“So we can do that in the run game of the throw game and it’s all about who is playing quarterback and how we want to use them.”
Lynch is no stranger to offensive success having directed the Mid-American Conference’s top attack in 2019 while at Ball State. He also guided Division II Ashland University to 38 points per game in 2008.
Working with Lee Owens, Stan Parrish, Pete Lembo, Rich Skrosky and Mike Neu has helped form who Lynch has become as an offensive coach.
“I’ve been lucky. I’ve worked for some really good offensive football coaches along the way,” Lynch said. “Definitely they have had a heavy influence on me schematically of how we want to attack people. I’ve been fortunate to take a little bit from a lot of really good people I’ve worked for and then it’s about matching it to your players’ skill sets.
“I thought this staff here, the offensive staff that we’ve got, has done a nice job of putting our kids in position to have success.”
— Chad Bishop covers Vanderbilt for VUCommodores.com.
Follow him @MrChadBishop.
