Vanderbilt Football Opponent Preview: Austin Peay

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The Opponent: The Austin Peay State University Governors

When: 6:00 PM CT, September 5, 2026, at FirstBank Stadium

2025 Record: 7-5 (4-4 UAC)

Head Coach: Jeff Faris (3rd season, 11-13)

The last time we saw these guys: Vanderbilt won, 47-7, in 2015. The other time Vanderbilt saw Austin Peay was 2013, a 38-3 Vanderbilt win. Neither of those Austin Peay teams won a game.

There was a time, and this time wasn’t really all that long ago, that you could glean important information about the state of the Vanderbilt football program from an early-season matchup with an FCS team. Yes, Vanderbilt almost always beat that team. But it often was a sign that a Vanderbilt team was either punchy (the 2024 game against Alcorn State, where the stadium actually ran out of fireworks because the offense scored too many points) or dreadful (the sleepwalking performance against Alabama A&M the year before, the last game Vanderbilt won that season.)

Anyway, I don’t want to lie to you and tell you that Austin Peay is going to be a good test for Vanderbilt to open the season, but there’s a slight punchiness here that makes me want to set the expectation at “don’t make me sweat the fourth quarter” and not “the starters better not be playing more than a series after halftime.” That’s because, uh, what the hell, Austin Peay has a good quarterback? In this economy? Yes, Chris Parson threw for 23 touchdowns and 5 interceptions as a redshirt sophomore along with 743 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns and somehow is still playing at Austin Peay. In this day and age, a player like this at the FCS level, particularly one with a bona fide SEC pedigree (Parson started his career at Mississippi State and actually saw the field for the Bulldogs including one start) absolutely does not stay at the FCS level. Somebody generally will come along and dangle an NIL bag at him and get him into the portal. And yet, I did a double take when I saw Parson’s stat line from last season and then found out that he is still on the roster.

I’m not going to spend too much time thinking about a matchup against an FCS team that went 7-5 last season and missed the FCS playoffs. Austin Peay, after all, loses its top running back and top two receivers, as is life at the FCS level these days. But I do want to stem the inevitable freakout when Vanderbilt wins this game by like 42-28. They have a good quarterback. You have been warned.

Okay, fine. Obligatory.

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