Vanderbilt Football: Immediate Reaction to Dores fall against Florida

Vanderbilt hosted a high flying Florida Gators team that notched back to back top 25 wins over LSU and Mississippi State coming into today’s game.

The Vanderbilt Commodores had a chance to come out of today with a win against a ranked opponent as they hosted Florida, but the Commodores saw a lead slip away late, putting their record at 3-4 on the year now.

The Black and Gold looked good for much of the first half after forcing multiple turnovers against a Florida offense that couldn’t get much going. What killed Vandy’s momentum was Florida’s firepower. Even though the Dores were holding strong with their stout defense in the first half, they left open holes for Florida’s Lamical Perine to run through, and they did not communicate well for their protection in the secondary.

Vandy has a lot to work on going into next week’s game at Kentucky and they will be getting a stern word or two from Derek Mason about their discipline during the game.

The Commodores have come close to big wins throughout this season, but have not been able to finish the job. Shurmur looked solid this week, but he still wasn’t able to produce enough for Vanderbilt in the air due to his 50% completion percentage. This mark, as well as 1 interception, is most likely what caused the Dores to not catch up with Florida.

Even with Shurmur doing what he could do in the pocket, his defense was not up to the task against the Gators rushing attack. Perine and Jordan Scarlett both ran for over 100 yards against a Dore defense that couldn’t seem to find an answer. Even Derek Mason said in the postgame that he was disappointed in his player’s execution for this game.

For Vandy to push forward, they will need to rely more on Kyle Shurmur as he faces a UK defense that gave up 226 yards in the air vs Texas A&M with 2 TDs and 175 yards on the ground with 1 TD. Still, this certainly was not Vanderbilt’s highlight game of the year even though they were trying for it throughout the game, but in the end, the Dores fell flat in the 2nd half.

What will Derek Mason tell his team going into the UK game? My guess is that he will be preaching about communication and keeping the pedal down the whole game. There is a lot for fans to be mad about for this week’s game with the Gators, but the Dore almost beat yet another top 25 teams and seem to be inching closer to a breakout win. The Wildcats will almost surely be sleeping with one eye open going into next week vs Vanderbilt.