Lessons in Vanderbilt Football: Delaware
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Vanderbilt snuck by Delaware with a 9-point win in a game they were favored by 20+. It remains one of the more confusing re-watches that I have had. Somehow, even though I never felt during the game live or while revisiting it that Delaware had the momentum to actually win the game, my feelings about the game swung pretty aggressively. I walked out of FirstBank Stadium trying to piece together 4 more wins from NC State, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Florida and … Auburn? That is a pretty fine margin of error, and Mississippi State and Auburn might actually be figuring out how to play football.
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Then I watched the game again. I did not suddenly start envisioning a trip to Atlanta or even wins over Georgia, Ole Miss, or Alabama. I did feel distinctly better about having a competent football team that can compete with everyone else on the schedule. The difference in assessment really hinged on two things: the defense and the ability to run the ball. Without jumping the gun too much, we can get into the normal order of things around here.
Lessons We Know Well
Brock Taylor, and maybe all of special teams, are going to win this team games. Taylor is 2/2 so far this season with no makes over 37 yards, but we all know the Brocket Launcher is good on basically any snap to the plus side of midfield. We did not necessarily account for how good the punt block/return units would be. Vanderbilt has a blocked punt TD and a punt return TD. Martel Hight also looks dangerous with 5 returns for 63 yards. Cole Adams also had an 11-yard return in his only fielded punt. Having an extra first down per returned punt is a big advantage. This does assume that the protection blunder that led to Delaware having their own blocked punt TD is not repeated. Otherwise, Tyle Ebel is lethal with his 7 punts for a 49.7 yard average and 4 returns for 39 yards. My number crunching only shows returns of 5 and 1 yards, so the punt block must account for most of that yardage unless I missed one.
Lessons We Are Learning
The offense works better with Curtis. It became official on Tuesday that Vanderbilt is turning to Jared Curtis as the starting and primary QB. The competition and controversy are over. Barring a truly awful flameout or injury, the freshman phenom has the keys to the car. The arm talent is obvious. The physical running is nerve-wrackingly impressive. The defense’s reaction is where the money is made though. The running backs suddenly have more room. The defense is suddenly defending from the LOS to about 50 yards downfield. Curtis has shown a calmness in the pocket that I did not expect for a player coming from the level of competition he did. Maybe he is just not exposed enough to know that SEC safeties and linebackers will rip him apart since he keeps trucking defenders and standing in to take hits on throws that are dropped. Curtis is 21/31 for 270 yards and a TD with only 3 sacks in split duty between the first two games. He also has 11 carries for 23 yards (3 of which are sacks). There is much to learn, but he can clearly make throws like the one to Walter Taylor for a TD that was so nice the officials did not believe it initially.
The defense is going to be tricky with pressures. I tried to chart every passing down’s pressure counts, but I ended up 7 snaps short on my tallies. Most of those were plays where the ball was thrown so quickly that you could not see if it was real or simulated pressure OR pop passes on jet sweeps. The simulated pressures are the key here. Defensive Coordinator Steve Gregory was all about having 6-man at the line of scrimmage than making the QB and offensive line figure out which of the 6 were coming. And sometimes would drop 3 of them and bring a DB on a blitz from the slot. It was creative and resulted in 6 sacks and made Delaware’s 2 QBs go a combined 15/32. They did end up with 240 yards, which is only 7.5 yards per attempt but is 16 yards per completion. We will get to that in a bit, and it was generally not the coverage.
The tight ends are showing up even with Cole Spence sidelined. Jayvontay Conner had 6 catches for 87 yards. Former Vanderbilt, Colorado, and Ball State QB Walter Taylor had a highlight reel TD catch that was Curtis’s chance to show off his arm in tight coverage near the sideline, but Taylor made an excellent catch and drug his foot just long enough to have the call overturned from incomplete to TD by replay. Getting 106 yards receiving from your TEs when the best one is unavailable is a luxury. Spence is out for at least one more week, so they get another chance to shine a little more as they each take on more responsibility.
Lessons for Further Study
Does Curtis being in the huddle help the RBs and OL? The assumption preseason was that Blaze Berlowitz was the more quick and mobile QB, so that would help those two groups more while WRs would be highlighted more by Curtis throwing the ball. The problem is the effect from a combination of Berlowitz having less arm talent (but so does 99% of the planet) than Curtis and playcalls not letting him use the serviceable talent he does have. Defenses were crowding the box so much that there was no room to move bodies and not even less room for a ball carrier to maneuver. When Curtis is in the game, teams back out a bit and respect more areas of the field can/will be attacked. Oh, and the 6’3” and 230 pound freshman QB is also showing that he does not mind keeping the ball and running through a safety or linebackers face. I just hope he does not try that TOO many times with SEC opponents.
Can Junior Sherrill reign in the drops? He finished the game with 5 catches for 94 yards but could have had about 10 catches for 194 yards. His history has always been about being sure-handed. There is no reason to mash any panic buttons on WR1. Having the chance to catch passes from just one QB when there is a noticeable difference in the delivery of throws could help. Or maybe Sherrill just had a rough day. It is something to keep an eye on because you want a freshman QB to get all the help possible but not something I would expect to continue.
Will the tackling improve? I feel like this is an early and/or late season issue too often. Early season issues are generally attributed to limits on live tackling in practice per new-ish (last 10-15 years) NCAA regulations. It does tend to be an issue across the sport, even in the NFL, during early season games. Vanderbilt has also had issues late in some of the more painful seasons where attrition seems to make fundamentals wane. It was also only an issue on like 3 or 4 plays, but those plays all went for 30+. Just as Vanderbilt had seemed to grab the game by the throat, defenders got caught a few times go for the ball to strip it free instead of just tackling Blue Hens. No game is ever out of hand enough to let the fundamentals slip. Coach Lea mentioned it directly in media availability and pointed out the technical issues even I noticed, so it was surely addressed with the team and hopefully fixed.
This game feels like the inflection point. Yes, the Jared Curtis is here in all of its glory with no more questions of where the power lies. But NC State does not look like a very good team. Yes, they beat the brakes off Richmond, but Virginia also drubbed State in a 38-4 game where the scoreboard felt insufficient separated. This team has one last chance to tune up for a trip to Auburn that looks tougher than many expected preseason. Any loss today puts a bowl almost certainly beyond reach. A close win would turn the volume up alarm bells that may already be ringing. A big win can make us all breathe a little easier.