NASHVILLE — Being bowl eligible to start November isn’t enough for the Vanderbilt football program after more than a taste of success in Clark Lea’s fourth year as head coach at his alma mater.
No, the 42-year-old Nashville native and former Vanderbilt fullback wants much more for his 24th-ranked Commodores, who are 6-3 overall and 3-2 in Southeastern Conference play with the regular season in its final month.
They can take yet another step toward even bigger goals Saturday by ending a a 15-game skid to South Carolina (5-3, 3-3) in a season when the Commodores already have ended even bigger droughts. They’re eager to see just what they can accomplish now that they’re closer to the top of the SEC standings than the cellar, which is where this program has usually been come November.
“I believe that this team knows that in our conference we can’t have a misplaced focus and expect to get the outcome we want,” Lea said. “And these guys are hungry to take this as far as we can take it.”
The Commodores’ three losses have come by a combined 10 points, including 30-27 in overtime on Sept. 21 at Missouri, which was ranked seventh at the time, and 27-24 on Oct. 26 to Texas, which was fifth at the time. In retrospect, the most head-scratching defeat was outside of SEC play, 36-32 to Sun Belt Conference member Georgia State in Atlanta on Sept. 14, after a 2-0 start built on a 24-27 overtime win against Virginia Tech of the Atlantic Coast and a 55-0 rout of Alcorn State from the lower-tier Football Championship Subdivision.