'Statement Game,' Vanderbilt Has Opportunity to Step Towards Its Goals With Saturday Win

“This is a special one,” Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said of Vanderbilt’s Saturday matchup at Virginia Tech. “This is a neat college football fanbase and a neat experience. I talked to the team this morning, this is why you’re doing this at this level. It’s so much fun. You’re gonna have a full stadium of people that really care about what’s going on.” 

The crowd on hand on Saturday night will care more about Virginia Tech getting on the right track and righting the ship after a 24-11 loss to South Carolina in week one. They’ll be watching closely as they evaluate whether they believe it’s the beginning of the end for head coach Brent Pry, too. 

Vanderbilt has the chance to make just as much of an impression on those in the building, though. If this Vanderbilt team comes in, drowns out the talk of a potential Virginia Tech step forward and the inevitable thrall that Enter Sandman will have over the stadium it will be hard to ignore. 

It won’t be as loquacious as the stands will be as it walks on the field around 6:55 on Saturday night, but by the time it’s over this Vanderbilt team has the chance to make the loudest statement of anyone in the building. 

That statement could say ‘we’re here’ and ‘we weren’t a one-year fluke.’

This Virginia Tech team has set out since July to make sure that this Vanderbilt team doesn’t walk into their stadium and give it a haze of uncertainty as it goes throughout its day-to-day routines. Since then, it’s had a players-only meeting. It’s lost a game. It’s still motivated. 

Of course they’re going to be. Of course they’re going to answer questions that way.  

That’s what good teams do. That’s what motivated groups do. If they didn’t, then you may as well have chalked up the result of Saturday’s game before Vanderbilt or Virginia Tech even took the field. If this Virginia Tech team doesn’t remember what happened on the field at FirstBank Stadium last season, then they may as well admit that they’re too jaded to believe in themselves. 

So, this response shouldn’t be any surprise. 

“Definitely a revenge game,” Returning Virginia Tech quarterback Kyron Drones told On SI’s Graham Dietz in an exclusive interview that was obtained by Vandy on SI. “Definitely a Redemption game.” 

Looking at Virginia Tech’s personnel walk around on the sidelines at FirstBank Stadium as if they’d just seen a ghost following last season’s 34-27 Vanderbilt win was as jarring as any Vanderbilt football moment in recent memory. When something like that happens, it leaves an impression on everyone involved. 

As Vanderbilt takes the field on Saturday it doesn’t have to take any of its opponents’ feelings into account, though. 

“We never consider what other people think,” Vanderbilt linebacker Bryan Longwell said sharply. “It only matters what we think and our process and how we’re doing our every day and getting in and doing our work everyday. It doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks.”

This Vanderbilt team knows what it thinks about itself and that those outside its building might call individuals inside of it crazy because of what they think. They’re okay with that, though. 

Whatever Virginia Tech says doesn’t matter all that much when Saturday comes around. This Vanderbilt team has an opportunity to shut down any semblance of revenge that this Virginia Tech team could pick up while simultaneously asserting itself, though. 

Perhaps this one means more for Brent Pry’s Virginia Tech team than it does for Lea’s Vanderbilt team, but Vanderbilt’s players don’t believe that they’re the side characters here. They also know what a win could do for them. 

“We got a lot more games to go, but as far as the beginning of the season it’s a type of statement game,” Vanderbilt cornerback Mark Davis told Vandy on SI. “We definitely need this game for the rest of the season.”