Vanderbilt, one of those programs people worry about falling off the face of the hundred-yard earth in the future rich leagues now forming in dreary boardroom imaginations, has surged from 2-10 in 2023 to 6-3 this fresh November. Its grinding 17-7 win at Auburn means it has beaten both Alabamian behemoths for the first time since 1955, when it clipped the Crimson Tide 21-6 in Nashville and bested Auburn 25-13 in the Gator Bowl, of all places.
Its celebrated quarterback, Diego Pavia, just notched a transfer-portal coup just about unrivaled in the standings of the motley. Within 350 days, he piloted New Mexico State to a stunning win on the hallowed Auburn ground, then helped steer Vanderbilt to a suddenly less stunning win on the same hallowed Auburn ground. Then he dispensed this pearl: “A lot of people didn’t take a chance on me. They’re just another team that didn’t so I just want to make them pay for what they did.”
Aw, every coach must fumble some roster calls, even if Hugh Freeze of Auburn (3-6) seems to be fumbling amok. But not every coach gets to be 42-year-old Clark Lea, an “old” Vanderbilt fullback retaining some of those old fullback shoulders. Now he coaches Vanderbilt for a fourth season already, and he’s looking back 11 months to that 2-10 finish and saying to reporters in Auburn, “I don’t know that anyone will actually understand what December was for us, except for that (inner) circle.”
He called it “rock-bottom,” but now after such football wonders as the 14-play, 78-yard, almost-nine-minute, fourth quarter drive that clinched merriment at Auburn, he’s getting to say, “I never lost any belief in what we could do, I just think at those moments you just kind of look at the climb ahead and it can, you know, it take your breath away a little bit. But again, I believe in Vanderbilt. I came back because this is such a special university, and it’s such a special city. It’s my home. It’s my alma mater. And I just believe that the world needs a strong Vanderbilt football program. And part of my responsibility is to deliver that.”
