Paschall: Vandy ‘cleans house’ in Blacksburg; early UT-UGA topics

Vanderbilt Athletics photo / Vanderbilt safety CJ Heard (8) and defensive lineman Khordae Sydnor (96) celebrate a second-half stop during Saturday night's 44-20 walloping of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Vanderbilt Athletics photo / Vanderbilt safety CJ Heard (8) and defensive lineman Khordae Sydnor (96) celebrate a second-half stop during Saturday night's 44-20 walloping of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.

By David Paschall September 7, 2025 7 min read

There is good news and great news this week concerning Vanderbilt football.

The good news is that the Commodores are 2-0 in the fledgling stages of Clark Lea’s fifth season, having vanquished Virginia Tech 44-20 Saturday night in Blacksburg in the rematch of a contest that went into overtime last year in Nashville. Vanderbilt trailed Saturday throughout the first half before sending the Hokies off to never-never land with a 34-0 second-half shellacking.

For my fellow stat lovers out there, this was Vanderbilt’s largest margin of victory in a game in which it trailed by 10 points since World War II.

What’s the great news?

Lea continues to believe that Vanderbilt is nowhere close to what it can become.

David Paschall

David Paschall has covered sports at the Chattanooga Times Free Press since 1999 and wrote for the Chattanooga Free Press in the nine years before that. David has mostly covered college athletics, with a focus on the University of Georgia from 2000 to 2019 and the University of Tennessee since 2020. He grew up in Chattanooga and is a graduate of the Baylor School and Auburn University. David has received multiple writing awards and has served as a Heisman Trophy voter since 2003. He has also worked in radio in Chattanooga and has been on the SEC Network's "Classic Rewind" series since 2014. David and his wife, Kelly, have three children — Conner, Emily and Spencer.

Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.