Clark Lea Provides Positive Injury Update on AJ Newberry

Watching a Vanderbilt spring practice in 2025 often provided a look at all the reasons that Vanderbilt football had to be optimistic about what was ahead, but left a question unanswered. 

Instead of providing a look at how Vanderbilt’s running back room would respond to running behind what Clark Lea says is the best offensive line he’s built, most of them were stuck off to the side in street clothes or in AJ Newberry’s case, running up and down the bleacher steps without pads on. 

It appears as if that won’t be the case this fall, though. 

“He looks great,” Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said of Newberry. “He’ll be a guy that will start working back into practice as soon as we get going. Early on that will be in manageable chunks. I don’t expect him to be full go when we start, but I do expect him to be participating at some level.” 

Maybe Newberry won’t be streaking down the sideline catching touchdown passes from Diego Pavia right away like he did so often in 2024. Perhaps he won’t be running in between the tackles like he did at times in Sedrick Alexander’s absence. He’ll be back, though. 

As fall camp rolls on, Lea hopes that Vanderbilt starts to see the bust and open-field speed come back from Newberry–who was on crutches at the end of the season–enough to where he could contribute in week one. 

“”Hopefully within the first few weeks he’s back out there getting ready to play against Charleston Southern,” Lea said. 

Once Newerry is back he won’t be entitled to the backup running back role that he possessed throughout a good portion of last season as a result of the emergence of New Mexico State transfer Mahkylin Young, though. 

Perhaps Newberry’s role will include him working through more reps in Vanderbilt’s thin wide receiver room rather than just at running back. When he is at running back he’ll have more to work with as a result of Vanderbilt’s offensive line improvement, though. 

“I thought we greatly improved our offensive line performance from 2023 to 2024 and yet looking at the numbers it was clear that there was opportunity for us to go further than that,” Lea said, “And I believe we’ve addressed those things. If it’s yards before contact and getting the run game going, moving people to get the tailback going, Sedrick Alexander, MK, AJ newberry, those guys are really talented players.”