Column: This Vanderbilt Team Isn't Like The Rest

COLUMBIA, S.C.—Maybe the curse is real, but it has nothing on this Vanderbilt football team. 

Seemingly every Vanderbilt football team has succumbed to the hovering cloud and twisted magic that often becomes the story in this series. It’s almost been a rule of life for those that live and breathe this Vanderbilt football that something is bound to go wrong when it faces South Carolina. No matter how good Vanderbilt is, no matter how bad South Carolina is and no matter where the game is played, this Vanderbilt program hasn’t been able to get over the hump. 

It had lost 16 in a row before Saturday night. It hadn’t won since 2008. It trailed 30-4 in the all-time series. Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea was 0-4 in the matchup as a head coach and 0-3 as a player. The history surrounding this series was enough to believe that something had to go terribly wrong for this Vanderbilt team. 

This Vanderbilt team isn’t like any other, though. 

“This one is about our team,” Lea said. “It's about the belief we have and we're going to celebrate it.”

Instead of letting Saturday night’s events demoralize it and leave it shaking its head wondering how it got away, this Vanderbilt team came in and took care of its business. It took down South Carolina 31-7. It only turned it over once and forced four. It ended its night Swag Surfin in the visitors’ locker room of Williams-Brice Stadium. 

The program that has always been the cursed pushover of this series was the aggressor that made its own breaks on Saturday night. Perhaps a supposed curse like this one could’ve worn down a weaker Vanderbilt team, but this one found a way. 

When it accumulated a seemingly insurmountable amount of yards in penalties on third and one, Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia found star tight end Eli Stowers for a 24 yard gain before a roughing the passer penalty gave Vanderbilt another 14 yards. That type of play hasn’t happened for this Vanderbilt program and got Vanderbilt out of a situation that it’s seldom gotten out of over the years. 

Perhaps the ‘here we go again’ moment would’ve come for teams of Vanderbilt’s past as Pavia followed up that completion with an uncharacteristically careless interception around the goal line. That mindset doesn't appear to have any power over this Vanderbilt team anymore, though. 

Vanderbilt’s defense got the ball right back after that and got a stop as to say ‘we’re here.’

“We got trust in each other,” Vanderbilt EDGE rusher Miles Capers said. “We’re not gonna let each other down. We just played complimentary football, got up. We got their back.”