Home > News > College Football > Vanderbilt Crystal Ball: Predicting every game for the Commodores in 2025

Vanderbilt Crystal Ball: Predicting every game for the Commodores in 2025

Published: Aug 22, 2025 · 8:00 AM EDT

You can’t say that you saw that Vanderbilt season coming.

By “you,” I mean anyone not named “Diego Pavia” or “Clark Lea.” Nobody could’ve predicted that Lea would squash questions about his future by beating No. 1 Alabama en route to the earliest bowl-clinching victory in program history. Not even the biggest Vandy homer would’ve mapped out that type of a Crystal Ball at this time a year ago.

For years, Vandy’s preseason outlook has been about whether it can win 1-2 SEC games. This year, the offseason conversations have centered around whether the Commodores can run it back. After all, Pavia found a way to stay in college 1 more year and his go-to target, tight end Eli Stowers, made the surprising decision to turn down the NFL for 1 more season in Nashville. He wasn’t alone. Vandy ranks No. 8 in America in percentage of returning production after last year’s breakout season.

So what awaits in the encore? Let’s peek into a Crystal Ball that nobody would’ve believed at this time last year.

For those who need a refresher of what the Crystal Ball Series is, here’s a rundown. Every day, we’ll go through the preseason outlook of 1 SEC team (in alphabetical order). I’ll predict how every game will play out with a final record prediction.

So far, here are the Crystal Balls we’ve done:

Let’s finish with Vandy:

Diego Pavia wants a national title … I just want a healthy Diego Pavia

Lost in the shuffle of Pavia’s loud emergence onto the national scene as the most WWE college quarterback of the 2020s was the fact that 350-pound Deone Walker fell on his leg in the Kentucky game. Pavia still gritted his teeth through the latter half of the season, but he wasn’t healthy. It showed, most notably with his inability to attack downfield. That hamstring injury was something that limited Vandy’s offense.

Now, though, he’s healthy … for now. The wrestling mentality that the 5-10 Pavia brings to the position isn’t fading with his newfound stardom. He’s still going to call his own number and be a physical, take-no-prisoners runner. This is someone who had 194 rushing attempts, and he forced 49 missed tackles (No. 4 in FBS). It’s not like he’s going to start throwing the ball 30 times a game to preserve his body.

The good news for Pavia is that if he does want to air it out, he’ll have Alabama hero Junior Sherrill and the aforementioned Stowers, who became an ideal 3rd-down safety blanket. Where Pavia thrived last year was showing toughness while not getting lazy with ball security. Vandy had the fewest turnovers (7) in FBS. That’s going to continue to be an area that Pavia and Co. have to win.

What Pavia will have to handle is being at the top of every SEC scouting report. Did SEC defenses start to figure out the Tim Beck offense late last season or was it Pavia’s injury that limited the offense? Maybe both. If it’s more of the former than the latter, Pavia will be in for a rude awakening in 2025.

But at this point, betting against him would be foolish.

Clark Lea is going back to being in the CEO role after being his own defensive coordinator

In 2024, Lea became his own defensive coordinator. He vowed to focus on the area that made him a rising talent in the sport. The results were as good as he could’ve hoped for. Vandy improved by nearly 2 touchdowns per game, and it was the perfect complement to Pavia’s ground-and-pound offense. Lea was able to do that with Jerry Kill coming over as part of the New Mexico State-to-Vandy movement.

In 2025, he opted for another change. He promoted Steve Gregory to take over defensive coordinator/defensive play-calling duties. We’ll play the results on this. Either the defense will build on what it looked like in 2024 and we’ll praise Lea, or it’ll regress and we’ll wonder why he made that decision.

Lea made a move like this in part because he’s got experience galore on that side of the ball. Vandy is No. 10 in FBS with 73% of last year’s defensive production back. A guy like Langston Patterson should be able to be more of a coach on the field for a unit that’s not very portal-reliant outside of FAU freshman standout CJ Heard. And it’s worth mentioning that if Lea feels like his veteran group isn’t maximizing his potential, he could always return to the DC post that he manned last year.

But ideally, Lea pushes the right buttons like he did in 2024.

Vanderbilt Over/Under Win Total

Odds (via BetMGM)

Over 5.5 wins: +130
Under 5.5 wins: -155

Game-by-game predictions

Here’s how I have the 2025 regular season playing out for the Commodores:

Week 1: vs. Charleston Southern (W)

There’s no excuse for Vandy to run out of post-touchdown fireworks like it did last year against Alcorn State.

Week 2: at Virginia Tech (L)

In a revenge game for the Hokies, Vandy doesn’t have the answers down the stretch. Two teams that were on complete opposite ends of the spectrum in close games will have a “water finds its level” result with Virginia Tech keeping Pavia and Co. from getting that back-breaking score late. Kyron Drones gets the last laugh on Pavia in Blacksburg.

Week 3: at South Carolina (L)

This is the one that Pavia said he’s got circled. Why? Unlike what we saw against Alabama and Texas, South Carolina was the team that dominated him. A new-look Gamecocks defense relishes the opportunity to give a hostile welcome to Pavia in Williams-Brice Stadium. A rare multi-turnover game from Pavia turns Vandy into a pass-heavy offense, and it plays right into South Carolina’s hand. No revenge is had.

Week 4: vs. Georgia State (W)

This game was the “yeah, but” to any positive thing that was said about Vandy last year. As in, “yeah, they beat Bama, but they also lost to Georgia State.” Facts. Losing to a 3-win Sun Belt team stung enough for it to be avoided in the rematch. Pavia and Junior Sherrill connect early and often in a 2-touchdown win against the Panthers.

Week 5: vs. Utah State (W)

A new-look Utah State squad isn’t prepared to slow down Pavia. He runs wild from the jump with a 3-touchdown day with his legs to earn an early shower.

Week 6: at Alabama (L)

While I don’t endorse Ryan Williams telling Jon Gruden that Alabama will “kill an ant with a sledgehammer,” I do think that the Tide will have a different sense of defensive urgency this time around. Against a coach who hasn’t lost a home game since 2021, Pavia is a touch less comfortable than he was in 2024. Instead of him running it back and pulling off the upset of the year again, a back-and-forth battle early turns into an Alabama rout late. The Tide offensive line fuels a revenge win in Tuscaloosa.

Week 7: Bye

A 3-3 start wouldn’t exactly be living up to Pavia’s expectations.

Week 8: vs. LSU (L)

Part of the challenge with Pavia’s splash onto the scene is that nobody is coming into Nashville and expecting to sleepwalk their way to a victory. That’s evident against an LSU team that’s all sorts of battle-tested. Despite Pavia’s viral mid-week quote that Vandy has “the real Death Valley,” LSU makes itself at home in Nashville. Harold Perkins Jr. picks off Pavia and forces a fumble of him en route to SEC Defensive Player of the Week honors in an LSU victory.

Week 9: vs. Mizzou (L)

There are going to be some challenges with Vandy’s defensive depth this late into the season. Against a Mizzou team that can establish the run as well as anyone in the conference, that proves to be an uphill climb. A very winnable game turns into a frustrating reminder that life in the SEC isn’t for the faint of heart.

Week 10: at Texas (L)

After giving the Longhorns everything that they could handle, Vandy is unable to match that same 60-minute intensity in Austin. In Texas‘s first home game in 6 weeks, Arch Manning leads an attack that’s dominant from the jump. Pavia is overwhelmed by the Texas pass rush and commits multiple turnovers in a lopsided loss.

Week 11: vs. Auburn (W)

Unless Pavia is unable to walk, I’m betting on him to beat Hugh Freeze. Period. And honestly, Pavia could probably find a way to beat Freeze in a wheelchair. In his 4th matchup against the Auburn coach, he enjoys home cooking for the first time. Even after a brutal start to SEC play, Vandy shakes it off by dominating the Auburn offense. Heard picks off a pass late and a scuffling Freeze suffers his most crushing Pavia loss to date.

Week 12: Bye

The good news? Bowl hopes are still alive. The bad news? That means winning out.

Week 13: vs. Kentucky (W)

Oddly enough, the visiting team won this game in 4 consecutive seasons. That finally ends. Why? Unlike last year when Pavia dealt with the post-Deone Walker collision effects on his leg, he settles in and displays more downfield prowess. Similar to the previous week when Vandy handed Freeze a dagger loss, it does the same the following week to the Mark Stoops era in Lexington.

Week 14: at Tennessee (L)

With bowl hopes on the line, Pavia has a chance to show the world that Vandy runs Tennessee … but Vandy’s defense gets run out of the building. The Josh Heupel rushing attack still knows how to keep a defense on its heels. That leads to the Vols getting off to a fast start that Pavia and Co. can never recover from. A bowl berth slips away in Knoxville.

2025 projection: 5-7 (2-6), 12th in SEC

For Pavia and the New Mexico State-to-Vandy transplants, it’s a brutal end to a memorable 2-year run.

12-team Playoff berth? No

Pavia’s national championship dreams are all but dead by early-October, but that’s not to say that 2025 was a dose of reality.

It’s a regression to the mean for a team that won close games galore with an extremely favorable turnover margin. A 5-7 mark with multiple SEC wins would hardly turn Vandy into a laughing stock, though a postseason-less season would certainly have the anti-Pavia crowd out in full force.

On the flip side, Lea has the opportunity to join James Franklin as the only coaches in program history to lead Vandy to consecutive bowl berths. If he does that with a 7-win team that’s No. 2 in the SEC in percentage of returning production, it wouldn’t be the stunner that last year was. That’s a credit to the year he had.

Can Lea make this a multi-year run instead of just a 1-off? That’s still an uphill climb, but it’s far less steep than it looked a year ago.

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.