Here are some immediate thoughts following VU's 21-14 upset of 22nd-ranked Missouri.
Coach Derek Mason cited “RTI” as a factor today, and he’s basically correct.
RTI--which stands for "relentless, toughness, intelligence'--has been one of Mason's catch-phrases throughout his Vanderbilt career. That phrase had been the butt of jokes in VU's horrible 1-5 start--especially as VU led the country in penalties earlier in the year.
Mason's the one who gets to chuckle tonight.
The Commodores were certainly relentless on defense all day, especially as it came to coming at Missouri quarterback Kelly Bryant with pressure. On offense, there was running back Ke'Shawn Vaughn, who scored two of the team's three touchdowns and helped VU run out the clock by sheer force of will as the 'Dores killed the last six minutes to preserve a win.
Toughness applies for sure. Nothing screamed "same old Vandy" than when starting quarterback Mo Hasan got knocked out with a 14-7 lead in the third quarter and replacement Riley Neal threw an interception on his first pass, an interception that set up a touchdown. Missouri got a touchdown on the ensuing possession (which started at the Vandy 6) but Vandy answered about a half-quarter later with Neal's touchdown to Cam Johnson, then, Andre Mintze's third-down sack, which set up Tucker McCann's field goal miss to precede Vaughn's running out the clock.
Intelligence? Well, that waned at times; Vandy was penalized seven times for 72 yards, including a couple of personal fouls. But the Commodores also drew Missouri offsides twice on the drive that ran out the game, didn't turn the ball over other than Neal's one miscue, and didn't have any clock or situation errors that I recall on Saturday.
So, hats off to Mason and Vandy for executing the formula to a high degree Saturday.
Defensive coordinator Jason Tarver was upstairs in the press box today. Mason credited that, and better execution, as essentially the sole factors in holding Missouri to season-lows in points (14) and yards (293) Saturday.
Mason has been adamant that schemes aren't the problem, and that execution has been. Whether that's the entire truth or not, one notable change was Tarver being in the press box as opposed to on the field.
Mason called it Tarver's "best game" as a defensive coordinator at Vanderbilt. I'd have to agree. Players seemed to be in position almost all day. Blitzes and stunts seemed to throw the Tigers off time and time again.
Whatever anyone would have reasonably considered a "best-case" scenario for the defense today, this beat that. Whether it's as simple as Mason described it or not, one thing's certain: VU needs to bottle what it did today and use it again.
The Mo Hasan experiment was effective.
Let's start with this: VU gained 315 yards and scored 21 points Saturday. With the way the defense played, that's usually nowhere good enough; you can't run a ball-control offense when you're giving up 30-plus every week.
But today, it worked exactly as anyone could have hoped. Mason said Hasan gave VU "energy" and certainly, that took pressure off Vaughn.
Third-and-long scrambles from quarterbacks are also back-breakers. And Hasan's 21-yard dash on third-and-15 from the 22 was maybe the key rushing play of the day.
VU offered no post-game diagnosis, but Hasan appeared to get knocked silly late in the third quarter. Hasan has had concussion issues before, and let's hope this isn't one. Otherwise, Hasan deserves another shot when VU tees it up again in two weeks.
Today was one of the strangest footnotes in Vanderbilt history.
I said last week that the UNLV loss ranked up there with the 1990 defeat at SMU. The follow-up was also the same.
Well, not exactly the same: In 1990, VU beat a miserable LSU team the next week. Today, in one of the odd footnotes of Commodore football history, this team, too, followed an all-time stinker with a win--except this time, against a Missouri team that had smacked opponents by a collective 144-point margin of victory the previous five weeks.
That game, too, went down to the wire.
You can't make this stuff up, and don't ask me to explain it.
Missouri helped a little, too.
The Tigers had a whopping 12 penalties for 120 yards. They were chippy all day, got their starting safety ejected for a senseless targeting foul and frankly could have been assessed another personal foul or two along the way.
Worse than that was jumping offsides twice on Vandy's final drive, when that was the one thing the Tigers couldn't afford to do.
Hats off to Vanderbilt. It earned this one in precisely the spot in which it's gagged this kind of game up more times than I can count. Credit it for not doing that today, and taking advantage when the opponent lent a helping hand.
