What to know about Vanderbilt before Alabama football’s 1st SEC road game of 2024

Alabama football is set to make its first SEC road trip of the Kalen DeBoer era on Saturday, when it faces Vanderbilt in Nashville. The Commodores enter the game 2-2, while Alabama is coming off a thrilling win over Georgia at 4-0, and is the newly crowned No. 1 team on the AP media poll.

The game is scheduled to kick off at 3:15 p.m. CT Saturday in Nashville. The game will be aired on the SEC Network.

Before that, here’s what to know about Vanderbilt.

The coach

Weirdly enough, Clark Lea and Kalen DeBoer go all the way back to South Dakota. While DeBoer was running the show at Sioux Falls in the NAIA, Lea took his first full-time coaching job at South Dakota State, as linebackers coach in 2007.

“I think we’re both still pretty young, if I can say that, but we were certainly young then” Lea said Tuesday. “Kalen had already built a great reputation as a head coach and I used to see him at clinics. It’s been a lot of fun to follow his career, because I admire the way that he worked his way up through the ranks.”

Lea returned to Nashville to coach at his alma mater in 2021. The Commodores have continued to struggle throughout his tenure, largely due to the innate disadvantages Vanderbilt faces in the SEC.

His best season at VU came in 2022, when the Commodores went 5-7 overall, winning two SEC games.

Prior to joining Vanderbilt, where he played football from 2002-04, he worked as the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame under Brian Kelly, a role he was promoted to after Mike Elko left for Texas A&M. Lea’s career also includes stops at Wake Forest, Syracuse, Bowling Green and UCLA.

The quarterback

After struggling to a 2-10 record in 2023, Lea and company went looking in the transfer portal. VU found quarterback Diego Pavia.

Pavia joined the Commodores after spending the past two years of his career at New Mexico State, having started at New Mexico Military Institute. He won Conference USA’s player of the year award last season with the Aggies, helping them knock off Auburn in the process.

He’s been a bolt of lighting for the Commodores this season. Pavia, listed at a dubious 6-feet tall, 207 pounds, has thrown for 721 yards and six touchdowns so far, and has rushed for another 279 yards and two scores.

The Commodores scored a unique challenge for opponents in Pavia, who they often use in the option game. He’s the key to Vanderbilt’s offense this season, and a change of pace from anything Alabama has seen so far.

The season

Vanderbilt, as is customary, wasn’t expected to do much this season. The Commodores exceeded those expectations in their first game, beating Virginia Tech 34-27 in Nashville.

The next week, VU took down Alcorn State 55-0. After that, things took a turn.

The Commodores lost to the Sun Belt’s Georgia State on the road in Week 3. Then it took traveled to Columbia, Mo., where Missouri was expected to crush Lea’s group.

That didn’t happen. Vanderbilt led much of the way, before the Tigers pulled off the win in double overtime due to a missed VU field goal.

Vanderbilt enters Saturday’s game off a bye week.