Alabama simply cannot withstand yet another Vanderbilt miracle
By David Wasson
Published:
There was a time, not so long ago, that the Vanderbilt Commodores were not much more than a glorified open date for the rest of the Southeastern Conference – a program that certainly helped the cause when figuring a league-wide GPA average but was just a speed bump for the big boys.
That would include Alabama, which pretty much since the Korean War has owned the Commodores on the football field to the tune of 46-5-3. There is lopsided, and then there is Alabama-Vanderbilt history lopsided.
But a funny thing happened in 2024… Vanderbilt figured out how to play football.
Not given much more than the annual prayer’s worth of hope last season, which included the 10.5 points our friends in the desert were giving the Commodores as home underdogs against the nation’s top-ranked team, the bottom dwellers of the SEC did the strangest thing on that crystal-clear October afternoon.
Vanderbilt took down Alabama – the big, bad Crimson Tide. The Commodores shocked the world.
That was a year ago this week, and plenty has changed since. Coach Clark Lea and quarterback Diego Pavia might have snuck up on Alabama last year at precisely the moment the Crimson Tide were the thinnest of paper-tiger No. 1s in recent memory, but Vandy ain’t sneaking up on anyone anymore.
First, Pavia successfully sued the NCAA to get another year of eligibility, which means he is back for a return engagement against an Alabama team that for the second-straight season is feeling itself after beating Georgia a week prior. Pavia returned in 2025 as the most proven dual-threat quarterback in the SEC, as he accounted for 3,094 total yards and 28 touchdowns while throwing just 4 interceptions in 2024.
Second, Lea recruited well enough out of the portal to stay relevant – especially getting guard Mike James from NC State. That combined with a returning unit that included All-SEC tight end Eli Stowers, who became the first Vanderbilt offensive player to earn first-team All-SEC honors since 2013 after catching 49 passes for 638 yards and 5 touchdowns, made Vanderbilt a team to keep an eye on in the insanely deep SEC.
Still, few predicted the Commodores would be 5-0, ranked No. 17 in the country and rolling into Saturday’s matchup against Alabama quite like they are. Yes, the non-believers got their eyes opened in a big way when Vandy went to South Carolina and beat up the 11th-ranked Gamecocks 31-7 on Sept. 13. But it also the way the Commodores are whipping teams – with an offense that has piled up 49 points per game (6th in the country) and a defense that ranks in the nation’s top 40 in scoring as well.
All that is to say this: Alabama has literally never seen a Vanderbilt team like this before. Not last season, not ever. Which means Saturday’s game at Bryant-Denny Stadium (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC) is arguably the most pivotal Crimson Tide game against the Commodores in history.
Alabama has successfully rebounded from a disastrous start to the 2025 season – a 31-17 loss at Florida State – to get back into the top 10. Beating Georgia yet again was key to that, though so too was simply getting up out of the dirt to regroup after the busted trip to Tallahassee. Still, a second-straight loss to Vanderbilt – this time at home – would deliver the kind of doom that makes coaches quickly call real estate agents.
Tide coach Kalen DeBoer can’t afford a loss to Vanderbilt this time around like he could in 2024, because that 40-35 setback – Vanderbilt’s only win against a top-5 team in school history and the first time they beat the Tide on the field in 40 years – came in more or less DeBoer’s honeymoon period in Tuscaloosa. Of course, said honeymoon came crashing to an end later in the season with losses to Tennessee and Oklahoma that careened Alabama out of College Football Playoff contention.
DeBoer’s stunned look while Pavia took a knee on the final play to close out the upset victory and as Commodores fans started tearing down goalposts simply cannot be replicated this time around. The Crimson Tide’s false bravado and surety that Vanderbilt will always be Vanderbilt, falsely figuring that just wandering out onto the turf at FirstBank Stadium in their crispy white road uniforms is more than enough to win, won’t fly in 2025.
If the Commodores waltz into Bryant-Denny Stadium – with the whole world watching this time instead of simply an SEC Network viewership of not much more than family and friends – to shock the Tide again, it would upset the balance of power in both directions like no other regular season game in either program’s history.
Alabama cannot withstand yet another Vanderbilt miracle. But do the Crimson Tide have the goods to keep it from happening one more time?
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
