Lessons in Vanderbilt Football: Preseason

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The Vanderbilt Commodores are coming off a double digit win season for the first time ever. They have been playing 10+ game seasons since roughly 1949 with around 10 seasons between the start of Vanderbilt football and then that were 10+ games. Vanderbilt has had 5 legitimate undefeated seasons. They were 1897 (6-0-1), 1904 (9-0), 1910 (8-0-1), 1921 (7-0-1), and 1922 (8-0-1). I am not counting the 1-0 season in 1890 or the two as WWII got underway (5-0 in 1943 and 3-0-1 in 1944).

A lot of things have changed since the disappointing ReliaQuest Bowl in December of 2025. What has not changed is the top end of the coaching staff. Head Coach Clark Lea, Chief Consultant to the Head Coach and Senior Offensive Advisor Jerry Kill, Offensive Coordinator Tim Beck, and Defensive Coordinator Steve Gregory are all still on staff. A number of high profile players like Junior Sherrill, Sedrick Alexander, Bryan Longwell, and Martel Hight are also back.

With the things that changed and the things that stayed the same, this season is ripe for learning new lessons that could indicate whether the Lea-naissance was really just the Pavia-naissance or if the change in status quo could last. For anyone new, normally, I will go down the things about Vanderbilt football this season that I think are Lessons We Know Well, Lessons We Are Learning, and Lessons for Further Study. The initial edition each season is always just me throwing questions against the wall and opening the comments for you all to add your questions and topics you want me to pay attention to during the game then again on the re-watch. Yes, I re-watch every game no matter how good or bad it goes. Until once or twice a season I do something bad with time management and miss a re-watch.

How different does the offense look? We will get to the Pavia successors specifically in a minute, but Eli Stowers and Tre Richardson are also gone. The offensive line has been overhauled again. And, yes, the QB will be different. It is highly unlikely that either Blaze Berlowitz or Jared Curtis runs the offense exactly like Diego Pavia. Formationally, schematically, and structurally, I am curious to see how Beck and Kill mold to the new talent.

How is the QB situation handled? Part of me wanted to hold this topic to the bottom just to have somebody complain about why it is not front and center. The Curtis/Berlowitz competition is obviously ongoing, and we all think we know where it ends. Maybe not. Maybe Blaze is legit. Maybe Curtis can never adjust to playing the real competition of the SEC instead of tiny private schools. Or maybe by the end of the NC State game Vanderbilt knows who its starting QB for 2026, 2027, and 2028 is as long as the NIL checks keep cashing.

Does the defense actually change? I touched on it in the safeties preview, but the rumors and reporting were that some player movement was due to schematic adjustments. The roster did not show any of the hybrid positions. Then the depth chart came out and had them again. It may just be be clerical.

Weirdly, I feel like I know a lot of uninteresting things about this team. It seems … boring. Average. Maybe I will be wrong. Maybe you have questions. Put them in the comments.

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