Roanoke’s 2018 Vanderbilt Football Preview

Kalija Lipscomb

Last year – coming off a bowl game appearance and returning a bevy of senior talent – Vanderbilt Football seemed poised for a potential break-through season. Instead, the 2017 squad broke the all-time record for points allowed in an SEC campaign – over forty points per game. The season was punctuated by non-competitive blow-out losses (our seven conference losses were by an average of 28 points per game – only one SEC loss was by single digits.) But then, there was the win over UT to put a bow on the carnage.

By FK Friedman

On paper, this year’s team should not be as good as last year’s model. But games aren’t played on paper and, as noted, last year’s squad under-performed. The real question is: what did our staff learn from last year’s disappointments? And will we adjust our smashmouth mentality to something that might work in an unusually soft SEC East?

The Schedule Provides Opportunity
Last year’s “gauntlet” did us no favors – by the time we had limped through the well-publicized month of games against juggernauts, our confidence was in tatters. We never recovered. This year, no such obvious scheduling minefield appears. In fact, we face a number of SEC teams in major transition: Arkansas, Ole Miss, Kentucky and UT offer question marks. The biggest scheduling snafu is the month from October 13 to November 17 with no home games. In case you were wondering: only Vandy and Texas A&M face three straight conference road games in the SEC this year. Another minor complication: Kentucky has a bye before our visit to Lexington (they also have Benny Snell.) Similarly, our game in Fayetteville is a back-to-back road game – which is never easy. However, in drawing Arkansas and Ole Miss from the West we have clearly gotten a break. (Our neighbors to the East drew Bama and @Auburn.) Our bye before @Missouri is somewhat wasted – and our trip to South Bend is brave, but ill-timed before a very important South Carolina game.

Kyle Shurmur
QB Kyle Shurmur
Nonetheless, there are legitimate chances for conference wins here. Arkansas – under a new coach – should feel growing pains transitioning from smashmouth to spread; UT, also under a new coach, faces a conference gauntlet of Florida, @Georgia, bye, @Auburn, Bama, @South Carolina which would be hard to survive in the best of times. Who knows what will be left in the Vols’ tank in Nashville on the last Saturday of November? UK and Ole Miss, similarly, have lost a lot of talent and should take a step back. For that matter, Florida is coming off a 4-7 season (and 5-game SEC losing streak) themselves. Only Georgia and Missouri seem to be rising. In short, the schedule is a lot easier than last year and offers that eternal tease: hope.

The Offense – Still Thinking Inside the Box?
The 2018 offense offers even more reasons for optimism. Guided by senior signal-caller Kyle Shurmur, there is potential for a free-wheeling passing game. Shurmur threw for a record 26 touchdowns last year – and needs only twenty more to break Jay Cutler’s record for Commodore touchdown passes in a career. Shurmur will be minus three veteran receivers from last year’s receiving corps – Trent Sherfield, C.J. Duncan and Caleb Scott – all lost to graduation. Mainstay receiver Kalija Lipscomb returns – and talented TE Jared Pinkney needs to get reacquainted with Shurmur after a relatively quiet 2017. Several impact freshmen – C.J. Bolar and Cam Johnson – and Ohio State transfer, Alex Stump, will lobby for playing time. Donaven Tennyson, Trey Ellis and Chris Pierce will return with some experience – as does TE Sam Dobbs. Someone needs to step up or Lipscomb will be double and triple-teamed.

OL Bruno Reagan
OL Bruno Reagan
While a lack of receiving experience is a worry, the opposite is true of the offensive line. This unit struggled last year, but gradually improved. Word on the street is that Bruno Reagan has returned to guard where he dominated in 2016 (and the experiment at center is over.) Justin Skule – like Reagan – is a legit NFL prospect. Devin Cochran also has turned heads. Cole Clemens, Sage Young, Egidio DellaRipa and Jared Southers provide talent and depth. This line has the size and experience to make our offense click.

The combination of record-breaking QB and solid O-line has to encourage OC Andy Ludwig. Even in challenging times last year, pass protection was not the line’s primary “problem.” This year the line should provide Shurmur ample time to find receivers. Notably, if Shurmur does get hit – his primary back-up, Deuce Wallace, is suspended for 2018. Any replacement will be sorely lacking in experience. Hopefully, the offensive braintrust will work more quick tosses and screens to running backs into the game plan to reduce the heat of opposing pass rushers. This supposed focus last year never materialized (even after the MTSU opener produced a 70 yard TD to Ralph Webb out of the backfield.)

Webb, who is sixth on the all-time SEC yardage chart, is gone. While these are big shoes to fill, the running game stalled out last year in disappointing fashion. Khari Blasingame returns as a power back and Ke’Shawn Vaugh makes his debut after sitting out a transfer year. There is depth here, too, with Jamauri Wakefield and Josh Crawford in the wings. The O-line was much maligned for its run blocking last year – as Ralph Webb had the tough task of running to darkness up the middle, over and over – trying to move the pile. This lack of success was not entirely the O-line’s (or Webb’s) fault: again, the hope is that we will not continue to run smashmouth football entirely between the hashes and let opponents routinely stuff the box and stop us.

In the first four years of Coach Mason’s tenure, we have grimly fixed on playing smashmouth football, “doing what we do” and telegraphing it. After four years of watching this Samuel B. Morse Football Academy approach fail (at a 6-26 SEC clip), hopefully the revelation will hit: when the opposing SEC defense knows what is coming, it makes it much easier to stop us. Deception needs to find its way into Coach Mason’s vocabulary.

Ironically, we are pretty good when we mix things up (as we did, for example, in Knoxville.) We had success running wide in 2017 – on the rare occasions we did so. We had success rolling out the passer – and in running a hurry-up which Shurmur executes quite effectively. But most of the time we insisted on testing the middle, throwing from the pocket and sticking to our script regardless of what was working. In short, we were often our offense’s own worst enemy.

Deck Chairs on the Titanic – or a Fresh Start?
The defense loses major contributors like Oren Burks, Nifae Lealao, Ryan White, Emmanuel Smith, Jay Woods, Jonathan Wynn, Taurean Ferguson, Tre Herndon and Arnold Tarpley, III from the 2017 depth chart. How we gave away 40+ points per SEC game last year in conference with those players remains a mystery. Losing NFL-ers Adam Butler and Zach Cunningham obviously helped create a void in the middle – but our staff seemed incapable of recognizing the problem or fixing it. We stayed base vanilla, did very little blitzing and did not move linebackers up to protect an exposed middle. By way of example, Florida running backs had not scored a rushing touchdown in nine SEC games when we arrived in Gainesville last year – we gave them the middle, never moved up our linebackers or otherwise adjusted and their running backs ran for five touchdowns that afternoon. It was hard to watch – and a winnable game that was lost on the chalkboard.

Despite losing a number of starters, the defense returns several stars – most notably LB Charles Wright, Safety Ladarius Wiley and DE Bookends, Dayo and Dare Odeyingbo. Louis Vecchio is an all-Ivy graduate transfer from Penn who will help with DE depth. The real issue is who will step up to play nose tackle? The middle is where we were crushed last year. Newcomer Rutger Reitmaier is eligible to play and several other newbies have been mentioned as potential contributors here. Opportunity is knocking for a wide body (or two) to plug the middle. But the absence of a known entity here is the team’s single largest question mark.

Jason Tarver
DC Jason Tarver
Focusing on positives, Wright is a tremendous player – and hopefully new DC Tarver will move him around and blitz him more than his predecessor. It is slightly disconcerting that, in the media buzz introducing Tarver, it was presented as a positive that Tarver and Head Coach Mason “finish each other’s sentences.” If we are going to be successful on defense, Tarver is going to have to be more creative and take more chances than Mason did last year. He is going to have to telegraph less – and find a pass rush. But hopefully their shared philosophy will give Coach Mason the courage to let Tarver put some adventure into our defensive play-calling. Tarver’s NFL pedigree was not earned in base vanilla.

In addition to a star in Wright – the linebacking corps is deep. Experienced veterans Caleb Peart, Josh Smith, Andrew Mintze, Kenny Hebert and Jordan Griffin will be duking it out for playing time. Several new faces, including Michael Owusu and Alston Orji may also enter the linebacker mix. We return corners with experience, too, including Joejuan Williams – but we lost some depth and talent here to graduation and this is a concern. The safeties, including hard-hitting LaDarius Wiley, Zaire Jones and Andrew Rector should be solid.

Giving opposing QBs all day to throw is not a recipe for defensive success in this league. A lack of pass rush has haunted the Mason tenure. The good news is DC Tarver has multiple weapons to get heat on the QB in the Odeyingbos and Wright – if he is allowed to do so.


So Why Am I Slightly Optimistic?

Derek Mason
HC Derek Mason
Derek Mason is a script man. That is particularly dangerous when the head coach is also the defensive coordinator. While Coach Mason’s predecessor was a bit of a mad scientist on game day, Mason himself has proven to be more of a bureaucrat with a blueprint. This has particularly ham-strung the offense which has seemed to woodenly run the “game plan” regardless of intervening events (since the head coach was tied up being defensive coordinator.) Robotically sticking to a script, by definition, means ignoring what is working and what is being stuffed.

It will be disappointing if Andy Ludwig – with a savvy senior QB and an experienced O-line – is not given a little more freedom to open things up this year. As an example, Kyle Shurmur is very good at running a hurry-up offense and a hurry-up wears down opposing pass rushers. We need to find out if the hurry-up is working early – before we are down 20, use it more often if it is working, and throw away the script if the script says we’ll try it for one series only. The same is true for misdirection – and any other tactic that is working.

In handing over the DC reins, Head Coach Mason should be more available to map out in-game adjustments and to authorize deviations from the script. This year’s team is not going to win many defensive struggles. Success will come by putting points on the board – and perhaps taking time off the clock as we move the ball. Coach Mason has had four years of on-the-job training – and anywhere else a 6-26 SEC record would force a coach to seek self-preservation. He should, at a minimum, revisit his failed “between the hashes” smashmouth tendencies. Is it insanity on my part to think this may actually be the year we open things up a little?


What Could Go Wrong?
This team will be one hit away from disaster all year. Shurmur is the offensive star – and his replacements have no SEC experience at all. For that matter, Lipscomb is also irreplaceable. The exodus at receiver is concerning – but there is talent returning (and arriving). Given the DL departures, the middle of the D-line could be weaker this year than last year – and we broke records for being porous last year. Unfortunately, identifying the defense’s main problem and fixing it are two separate things. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned.

And then there are special teams. Rag-tag special team’s play cost the 2017 Commodores repeatedly. A new special team’s coach is on campus – and things can only get better. But consider this: uber-talented punter Sam Loy transferred. Our coverage was so iffy that the staff required a great kicker to focus on spinning Australian Rules knuckleballs. This likely resulted in Loy gracefully moving to a location where he can better showcase his leg. In a microcosm, this is how rich programs get richer – and challenged ones stay challenged. We were, however, extraordinarily lucky to land another all-Ivy grad transfer- punter Parker Thome – to fill the void.

Finally, among major things to worry about – opening night is a game that MTSU likely has had circled all summer long after the Blue Raiders’ surprisingly dismal outing against Vandy last season. MTSU QB Brent Stockstill remains talented and dangerous – and our defense will feature a number of rookies on opening night. For any scenario in which we have a big year, a win over MTSU is imperative – and it is a tough match-up.

Final Analysis
Most pundits pick Vanderbilt dead last in the East. And several pick us to go winless in conference. Not a single Commodore received pre-season all-SEC status. Not first team, second team or third. No other SEC team was similarly disrespected. This outside negativity is sobering. It is also good blackboard material. There is a lot of talent on this team – especially on offense. The schedule offers this staff a legitimate chance to win several SEC games – that is, if anything was learned from last year’s harsh schooling.

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