The big news this off-season in Nashville was head coach James Franklin moving over to Penn State and taking a number of highly touted recruits with him. These were mostly guys he’d recruited for Vanderbilt but decided to follow the coach to his new school rather than stick with the team they initially signed for. The fallout from a subpar class won’t really be felt for a few years as the Commodores are still stacked with talent from the early recruiting classes produced by Franklin.
2014 Vanderbilt Commodores
The impressive Derek Mason has taken over one of the toughest jobs in college football due to the high academic standards required for Vanderbilt, the unreliable fan-base and the tough schedule they usually face in the SEC. An important season is upcoming as Mason hopes to keep the momentum flowing from the previous regime. As stated previously Mason is well aware of the task having just moved from Stanford who faces a similar challenge with academics compared to their rivals.
They benefit from a home game this Thursday against Temple to settle the early nerves and to gain some confidence before opening their SEC schedule at home to Ole Miss. This team might not be as talented as last year’s but the schedule is more manageable with just four true road games with only a visit to Georgia where they should be big underdogs.
On offence the decision on the starting QB was made last Thursday as Patton Robinette was awarded the start against Temple. He held off LSU transfer Stephen Rivers and redshirt freshman Johnny McCrary in a camp battle this off-season to keep the job after Austyn Carta-Samuels graduated. Robinette completed just 52.3% of his passes last year with four touchdowns and five interceptions. He also struggled to move the ball on the ground as well but reports from camp this year say that he’s more composed and a better leader which is a good sign.
The issue for Robinette this year is that Vandy are without Jordan Matthews and Jonathan Krause at receiver who accounted for over 2,000 yards receiving between them. Replacing them, especially the athletically gifted Matthews, will be a very difficult task for the newcomers. Jordan Cunningham showed promise last year but only made 15 catches so they could really do with a breakout player appearing at receiver.
Vanderbilt figure to be strong in the trenches this year with a stout offensive line with most of the starters returning. Whilst on the defensive line they have a good solid rotation that means they shouldn’t get bullied by the likes of South Carolina and Georgia up-front. It’s in the secondary where key contributors last year like Kenny Ladler and Andre Hal have left for the pros but Derek Mason has spoken very highly of Oren Burks who is converting to safety from linebacker.
A big season is ahead under a new head coach who will be eager to manage at least bowl eligibility in his first season. With four pretty easy looking out of conference game this team should be good enough to find at least two wins in the SEC and push on from there. Mason will be looking to build on Franklin’s success whilst putting his own ideas into the team and has already claimed that he wants to take Vanderbilt to the next level by challenging the SEC East title. It’s certainly an exciting time to be a Commodore fan.
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