Here's a deeper dive into what Vanderbilt did on defense in a 24-7 loss to South Carolina.
What went right
For about a quarter and a half, Vanderbilt played quite well on defense.
Tae Daley made a big pass break-up on second-and-9 on Carolina’s first drive. Carolina threw short of the sticks on the next drive—it was incomplete—and punted from its 37. Daley had three of VU’s four tackles (all were solo) on that first drive.
The defense bent on the next drive, as Carolina methodically drove to the VU 9 before linebacker Elijah McAllister forced a fumble, which linebacker Caleb Peart bounced on.
On Carolina’s third drive, inside linebacker Feleti Afemui knifed through a group of players into the backfield to stop receiver Bryan Edwards for a loss on third-and-short to force a punt.
Situational play in big spots was good. Afemui also made a stop to keep Carolina from scoring on a fourth-and-goal from the 1 with about two minutes to play. VU also had another fourth-and-short stop inside its territory.
The Commodores also didn't allow a lot of big plays--just two over 20 yards, that I remember.
What went wrong
The last two games, the Commodores have done much better about not allowing big plays. But tonight, they had issues stopping Carolina's ball-control offense, which had 440 yards, 25 first downs and averaged 9.8 yards per pass.
The shift in effectiveness seemed to happen when the Gamecocks ran a few plays out of the wildcat and also mixed in some up-tempo offense. VU essentially got paper-cut five and 10 yards at a time for most of the rest of the evening.
There were also a couple of blown coverages. Daley was beaten badly to the inside by Xavier Legette, and quarterback Ryan Hilinski found him with a 20-yard throw to the end zone to help tie the game midway through the second quarter.
Cam Watkins got beat midway through the fourth quarter for a touchdown by Bryan Edwards, who's been a handful for anyone to defend lately.
Player of the Game
Inside linebacker Feleti Afemui ranked fourth on the team with eight tackles (three solo) and had the two aforementioned big stops. He had a half-tackle for a loss.
Final analysis and grade
This is a hard one to evaluate; it's never good to allow 440 yards per game, but giving up 5.5 yards a play to an SEC team is respectable--and also points a finger at the offense for not staying on the field longer. Allowing 24 points also usually gives a team a reasonable shot at a win.
Of course, this wasn't anything resembling a win, and it was the type of game VU needed its defense to step up with a special effort if it was going to pull an upset.The Commodores needed a pick-six, or a fumble return touchdown, or some huge momentum-swinging play, and couldn't produce that, either.
In all, the loss was on the offense, but, the defense wasn't special, either. I'll settle somewhere near the middle.
Grade: C-minus
