Nashville, TENN--Time for an encore.

Vanderbilt shocked the country a week ago by picking up the biggest win in program history and becoming the story of college football, now it's time for it to prove it's not a Cinderella story.

It's time for it to prove that it's not a one-hit wonder in SEC play.

Vanderbilt is in uncharted territory as a program as it currently sits. It's never had a hit like this. It's never had momentum like this.

Momentum is fleeting, though. It could easily be zapped from Clark Lea's team if it turns in a lackluster performance as 13.5-point underdogs Saturday in Lexington.

As a result, Vanderbilt has no time for an Alabama hangover. This is about something bigger than one game for Lea's team. It's about where they want to go.

It's about turning this in to more than a memory. Vanderbilt wants to follow it up with something that changes its program forever.

"I texted everyone on the football team 'This is the most important game of the football season," Diego Pavia said. "We're 3-2. We're in the middle of the SEC. If we want to get to the top and compete for a national championship, we got to win out from here."

A mindset similar to that that allowed for Vanderbilt to pull off college football's most remarkable win of the young 2024 season, now it has to carry it through the hangover effect that seems to pop up anytime this program takes a step forward.

Whether Vanderbilt goes into Kentucky flaunting its proverbial stuff or embracing the mindset that got it to this point will determine how it moves forward.

Lea's celebration finished days ago.

"Internally we're done talking about Alabama, It's burned and released to our past," Lea said on Tuesday. "If you're not focused week in, week out you leave it up to chance."

Lea doesn't want to take a chance like his team did before it went into Atlanta and got beat by Georgia State a few weeks back.

Since Sunday it's been onward and upward for Vanderbilt's program. It's also different than it has been in Lea's mind.

"I'm not worried about where the team's mind is," Lea said. "They want more and they're gonna go after more and they know that this climb only get more challenging because we know we're not gonna sneak up on anybody."