Vanderbilt faced a crossroads Saturday in Las Vegas and swerved the wrong direction.

As it enters FirstBank Stadium as a 14.5-point underdog against Kentucky, it will have to put together its best effort of 2023 to keep this thing on the road at all.

If not, this thing could start to spiral.

This group's goal has always been bowl eligibility and while that's still the goal, it feels as if that will be largely unattainable without a win over the Wildcats. Heck, it will be difficult even with a win.

That's what happens when must wins aren't won.

Rather than being a chance for Vanderbilt to show its legitimacy and pick up its fourth win, it instead fights to maintain any semblance of relevancy.

Lose big on Saturday and it's even harder to find much reason to believe that 2023 can be anything but a dark season for coach Clark Lea's team.

What if that doesn't happen, though?

After all, Vanderbilt's roster is about as talented as its been in Lea's tenure. That's not to mention that it snapped a 26-game SEC losing streak to Kentucky just last season.

This program isn't meeting its current expectation, but it proved last season that pulling an upset like that isn't impossible.

If you want hope, there it is. Maybe this is the week that Lea's group finally flips the switch and looks like a team deserving of a bowl game.

Expecting that to happen through the first four weeks has felt like the definition of insanity, though.

At some point, Vanderbilt has to prove something is in there.

Can it finally play to an identity? When do the mistakes stop stacking? How does it respond to getting punched in the mouth a few times?

Whether this team takes a step forward on Saturday or resorts to the same old bad habits will tell us plenty about where it's heading.