Vanderbilt Took A Bunch Of Hits — Now It Has To Start Playing Them

Was it the pair of four-play, zero-first-down, zero-point drives after intercepting Missouri in Tiger territory?

Was it the 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on third down and one?

Was it the absence of Ke’Shawn Vaughn from the game’s three most important plays inside the Missouri 5 in the fourth quarter?

Was it the failure on fourth and goal from the 1?

By Matthew Zemek

Was it Missouri’s 99-yard drive after the fourth-and-goal failure?

Was it the inability to throw past the sticks and thereby conserve time on the final drive?

Yes.

That’s the answer. It was all of the above for Vanderbilt on yet another Saturday which continued to present opportunities to the Commodores, but delivered another loss.

The Notre Dame game teased VU fans this same way. The Kentucky game teased VU fans this same way. The scores and styles of those games were different from this wild contest in Columbia, but the bottom line was very similar: Vanderbilt had multiple chances to break through… and couldn’t seize them.

No one needs to be told how familiar a story this is. What is worth noting is that Vanderbilt did all this (or one could say, DIDN’T DO all of what it could have done) against a team which had similarly struggled to finish games in 2018.

Missouri blew multiple leads against South Carolina and lost in the final minute. Missouri took a 14-3 lead on Kentucky and carried it into the fourth quarter but lost on the last play of the game, an untimed down, after failing to get a single first down in the fourth quarter. Missouri — like Vanderbilt — has a long history of finding remarkably innovative and new ways to lose games on a yearly basis. Mizzou has become an enormously successful program for brief two- or three-year periods of time — that’s where the Tigers are historically different from VU — but for much of the past 50 years, MU has endured a large number of gut-punch losses which looked like victories until the very end.

Vanderbilt CheerleaderThese two largely snakebitten programs both carried their baggage and their insecurity and their inconsistency into CoMo on Saturday. In this battle of burdened football teams, Vanderbilt sagged more under the weight of the occasion, constantly having a portal to victory but refusing to step through the threshold.

This was partly on the coaching staff, partly on an offense which couldn’t finish drives, partly on a defense which allowed a 99-yard march at the worst possible time. Vaughn was spectacular, accounting for 182 yards on fewer than 20 touches, and after a 44-yard run which brought the ball to the Missouri 4 in the fourth quarter, he certainly needed to sit out the first-down play at the 4.

How he didn’t then retake the field on second and third down, however, is a mystery which is hard to fathom.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that Vaughn still hadn’t regained his breath or was still perhaps too tired after his long dash to set up first and goal. Know something? Vanderbilt could have called timeout. The move certainly would have been worth it. VU led 28-26 at the time, meaning that a touchdown would have given the Commodores a nine-point lead. That’s a two-score advantage, probably decisive enough to win the game. Vaughn — if still out of breath — was worth a timeout so that he could get back into the game.

We know what happened on second and third down. We know what happened when Vaughn came back into the game on fourth down. We know what then happened when Missouri took over on its own 1.

That was the sequence which most powerfully defined Saturday’s game, but the sad part is that it was just one collection of events out of several other collections. What about the two possessions which started deep in Mizzou territory and gained zero first downs and points? What about the 15-yard penalty which sabotaged a fourth-quarter drive? What about Vaughn still not getting close to 30 touches, despite his presence as the unquestioned star of this offense and the team’s most electric playmaker?

Vanderbilt took a large number of hits. It took more hits than Missouri did… which is saying something, given the Tigers’ own historically documented magnetic attraction to trainwreck endings.

This is miserable. This is infuriating. This is not the kind of game which becomes any easier to take when the full chain of events sinks in.

The one thing — the only thing — Vanderbilt must focus on in the aftermath of this nightmare: This isn’t the final story or the ultimate verdict on the Dores’ 2018 season.

At the very least, it doesn’t have to be — not if the team insists on authoring a different ending.

After taking all these hits, Vanderbilt has to play the hits in these next two games. If VU can shove aside all this pain and fill its lungs with clarity and resolve, and successfully meet these last two challenges against Ole Miss and Tennessee, the scars of this Missouri misery will be transformed into the sweet sounds of satisfaction.

This isn’t how Vanderbilt wanted it to be. This isn’t how Vanderbilt planned it to be. Yet, if the Commodores do overcome this to win the next two games and make a bowl, they will be able to say that they climbed over a Mount Everest-sized mass of headaches to reach their intended goal, the goal they have set for themselves all season.

As oppressive and wrenching as this past Saturday was, it can still become the prelude to something very special.

It’s time to play the hits instead of taking them for Vanderbilt football. The margins for error are now zero. The number of extra chances afforded this team has dwindled down to nothing.

From this precarious place, a happy ending — which eluded Vanderbilt this past weekend in CoMo — can still be birthed.

Derek Mason needs to show he can guide this team to the finish line. If he succeeds, everyone will know that he will have done it the hard way.

That statement could be seen as a criticism. After this Missouri experience, it might feel like one. Yet, it could merely be the start of a darkness-to-dawn journey this team will try to make.

It will require everything this team has in order to win the battle.

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