Atlanta, GA--Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea alluded to it on Thursday, but his team had to see it to truly realize its effects.

In Lea's mind Vanderbilt set itself up to perform like it did in its 36-32 loss to Georgia State on Saturday.

"I did not like our discipline off the field," Lea said of the week of preparation. "We need to learn some important lessons about what kind of team we are and what it’s gonna take for us to win."

While lauding the chip on his team's shoulder, Lea noticed a lack of preparation bubbling under the surface in McGugin Center.

That all came to the surface on Saturday.

"We lacked discipline off the field and everything leading up to training this week and we paid the price for that," Lea said. "We weren't disciplined and we didn’t show the respect for the game in the way we played."

That was evident in a mental-mistake induced safety that occurred on a kick return by Steven Sannienola, a penalty that came as a result of two players wearing the same jersey number and a Vanderbilt loss that could've been avoided.

Vanderbilt tight end Eli Stowers knows things could've and should've been different.

"I don’t think it needed to be [a wake up call] because we could’ve just prepared the right way and this outcome shouldn’t come close to what happened but it’s definitely a wake up call because I think we got complacent," Stowers said. "We didn’t approach this week with the amount of preparation we needed to and it showed on the field today. It’s just unfortunate."

It didn't have to be this way for Vanderbilt, but it happened in a way it too often does around West End.

Stowers understands why it did.

"This one, it’s on us," Stowers said. "We didn’t prepare well enough for Georgia State, they played a better game than us by far."

Georgia State knew the environment better, it knew what it had to do better and as a result came out with a better outcome.

Its preparation was better, too. This one was coming from a mile away.

"We knew we were gonna come into an environment that didn’t bring a lot of energy and we needed to step it up ourselves and we weren’t disciplined early in the week and it showed on the field," Vanderbilt linebacker Langston Patterson said.

As a result, Lea knows he needs to change his tune. He needs a different mindset.

"I need to build a more disciplined team," Lea said. "How you do anything is how you do everything."