Vanderbilt Safety Room Has New Look, 'More Athleticism' in 2025

Nashville—The story isn’t all that unfamiliar to Vanderbilt’s current safeties if they’ve paid any attention over the past few years. 

Their room has been the CJ Taylor and De’Rickey Wright show over the years and all they’ve been able to do is watch and hope to show that they belong during their limited reps. Their best bet was to watch Taylor and Wright go about their business and listen to their experienced voices. 

“They were the face of Vandy,” Vanderbilt safety Dontae Carter said of Wright and Taylor. “Just coming in as a young guy under that bill, De’Rickey was like nothing but a big bro. He knew the game, he knew everything about the game. It was just one of those things that I had just learned from him because he was really smart. CJ, as well, was a dominant football player. I’d say taking on the role to try to make an even bigger impact than they did, that’s the challenge that we have for the safeties right now.” 

Naturally Carter and the rest of Vanderbilt’s safety room will lose something as a result of not having the combined 90 games of experience that Taylor and Wright provided. Between Vanderbilt’s four safeties, they’ve only started one SEC game as a whole. 

They still feel as if there’s a path to them making up for what Vanderbilt defensive coordinator Steve Gregory lost in Taylor and Wright, though. In some ways, they may be right. Vanderbilt’s safety room will include highly-compensated Florida Atlantic transfer CJ Heard, mainstay Marlen Sewell as well as two of Vanderbilt’s 20 highest-ranked recruits in program history in Carter as well as freshman Carson Lawrence. 

Perhaps there will be more trip ups within the room than there have been in the past, but there’s also a higher ceiling. 

“This is the most talented group we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Sewell said. “In the previous years I’ve been here we had a lot of older guys, it was more of experienced guys, but we’ve got a bunch of younger guys that are hungry, ready to play and have a lot of skill.”

Vandy on SI projects that Sewell along with Heard will start at safety in Vanderbilt’s Aug. 30 against Charleston Southern, but it appears as if there’s a path to Carter and Lawrence’s skillsets giving them a chance to get on the field. 

Perhaps in some ways those two are a microcosm of Vanderbilt’s safety room as a whole. At this stage they’re perhaps its most talented players in the room and signify a step forward in Vanderbilt’s secondary recruiting. 

Heard and Sewell will determine the baseline of the room, but in actuality it’s Carter and Lawrence who likely determine the ceiling. 

“We got that lack of experience, but one thing that we got is more athleticism,” Vanderbilt safeties coach Melvin Rice said. “We’ve got everybody competing at a high level and that’s just elevating the room every day. If you don’t bring it, you’ve got the possibility of falling down the depth chart. So a lack of experience, but I’d say more athleticism in the room.”