Vanderbilt soccer got here away with a win in its season opener, nevertheless it additionally got here away with a dose of actuality: this protection nonetheless must get lots higher.
Between 9 passing performs of 15 or extra yards from Hawaii, two cross interference penalties and 391 complete yards allowed, the Commodores (1-0) struggled to comprise the Rainbow Warriors regardless of a 35-28 victory. A recreation towards Alabama A&M on Saturday (6 p.m. CT, SEC Community+) will not be an enormous take a look at, however Vanderbilt might want to start fixing a few of these points earlier than touring to Wake Forest per week later.
Like with Hawaii, the Bulldogs shall be taking part in their first recreation of the season.
“We had been able to play,” linebacker/security CJ Taylor mentioned Tuesday. “It was simply, they ran some bizarre stuff, some good things. Coach Timmy Chang, he, an excellent offensive coordinator. … So that they ran some bizarre stuff. And we have seen some stuff within the recreation that we did not see within the scouting interval, which, that is regular. You are used to that.
” … So this week will most likely be like final week, we’ll see some stuff that we did not see within the earlier recreation.”
Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea defined that a few of the massive performs had been technical errors. Whereas one was on Savion Riley, a participant who was taking part in in his first school recreation and as such might have room to enhance, one other got here on BJ Anderson, a sixth-year senior. Each Taylor and Lea described one of many chunk performs the place Jaylen Mahoney was in protection as merely sturdy execution on Hawaii’s half. Nonetheless, Lea believes a few of the points are fixable.
“These are issues to me which might be coachable and correctable and we’re not the place there is not any sense of like, how are we going to cowl, it is, we obtained to get again into the method and also you study yourselves,” Lea mentioned. “We had a 3rd down final yr towards Hawaii the place they ran the drive route, this was 2022, and our nook bumped into the umpire. It was a 3rd down they usually obtained an explosive play, that was early within the recreation. These issues occur, you be taught. You must tighten your programs and buildings down and we should be higher.”
Lea additionally mentioned he needed to see extra rotation amongst defensive gamers. Though rotation was frequent among the many offense, the place eight totally different gamers caught a cross and 7 gamers had a carry, the secondary largely consisted of a gaggle of six gamers − Mahoney, Anderson, De’Rickey Wright, Riley, Tyson Russell and Martel Hight.
ESTES:Scare from Hawaii was a warning that Vanderbilt soccer cannot ignore
On rotation, Lea mentioned his philosophy was to set a script for rotating gamers all through the sport and that each participant who had confirmed themselves in apply deserved to get in a recreation, whether or not for a number of snaps or near a 50-50 cut up with the starter.
“I feel offensively we obtained a very good really feel for what that’s,” Lea mentioned. “Defensively, we obtained to nonetheless work in the direction of that.”
