Encouraging signs for Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt coaches and players took no solace from a near-miss at No. 8 Notre Dame on Saturday.
The Commodores lost 22-17, crossing midfield with a chance to go ahead in the final minutes. Receiver Kalija Lipscomb had the opportunity to make a tremendous fourth-down catch, which would have given VU a first down deep in Fighting Irish territory.
Instead, the Commodores turned the ball over on downs, effectively ending the game.
Vanderbilt passed the look test in that game. It out-gained Notre Dame, 420-380, and on a per-snap basis, 6.0 yards to 5.1. But a key lost fumble at the Notre Dame 1 from wide receiver Donaven Tennyson, followed by Tennyson’s drop of a third-down pass near the goal line, cost the Commodores two touchdowns.
In a bottom-line world, that’s all that matters to coach Derek Mason.
“If people feel good about that, great. We don’t,” Mason said on Tuesday. “This isn’t Little League baseball, where everybody gets a trophy.”
The Commodores knew they let a golden opportunity slip away.
“That last (drop) kinda hurt, just because it was the last (meaningful offensive snap) of the game. … I thought if I’d come down with it, we had a shot,” Lipscomb, who had a career-high 11 catches for 89 yards, said.
Vanderbilt had Notre Dame on its heels during the second half as Lipscomb and tight end Jared Pinkney gave the Irish all they wanted. The Commodores snapped a string of seven-consecutive games in which Notre Dame held an offense under 400 yards.
On defense, Vandy allowed just 133 yards of offense after halftime. VU has out-scored teams 59-6 after the break–that six came to Notre Dame–but just 34-33 in the first half.
Some of it has to do with turnovers — VU’s had three combined in the first half of the last two games, plus another on downs — but Mason said there’s more to it.
“If you look at our practices and what it looks like, we get up early in the morning and guys start a little slow, because it ends early, but they end up finishing pretty well,” Mason said. “We’re trying to ratchet up the front end of practice so we can get what we want… so that guys understand from beginning to end, it’s got to be a full body of work.”
