The Vanderbilt Commodores have had plenty of time to come back to earth after their thrilling victory over South Carolina last Thursday. They need to be fully focused, because their next opponent, Rice, may be more challenging than most would think. Rice is a mercurial team - in 2005 they only won one game, in 2006 they won seven and last year they only won three. By starting off winning their first two games this year, they are already on pace to have a better season than most of their recent campaigns.
The Rice Owls are averaging 49 points a game over their first two contests, a blowout win over Southern Methodist and a 42-35 shootout at Memphis. Those two teams are not nearly up to the level of competition Vanderbilt has faced, but Rice will be entering Nashville with tons of confidence. Now the Owls will see if they can duplicate their success in Nashville after conquering Vanderbilt's counterpart to the west. However, Rice has had no success recently against Bowl Championship Series schools, losing its last 13 games.
Vanderbilt put together an excellent defensive performance last week against South Carolina, led by linebacker Patrick Benoist, whose 15-tackle performance earned him Defensive Player of the Week honors from the Football Writers Assocation of America and the Southeastern Conference.
Although Vanderbilt returns all four starters in the secondary - junior cornerbacks D.J. Moore and Myron Lewis and safeties redshirt senior Reshard Langford and redshirt junior Ryan Hamilton - they have suffered a significant injury that could affect their success on Saturday. Nickel cornerback Darlron Spead, a redshirt junior, sustained a leg injury after an interception against South Carolina that will sideline him for several weeks.
Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson praised his defensive backs, while acknowledging their key loss.
"Our secondary has played well and we expected them to play well," Johnson said. "They had a good group last year, they give good coverage on every play. Losing Darlron will be tough for that group, he's a nickel specialist, has a knack to rush the passer and read the ball - the other night was a beautiful interception, he read it the whole way. We'll figure out a plan we're going to use to replace him, it'll probably be several different scenarios."
As of right now, redshirt senior Jared Fagan has been slotted as the starter at the nickel cornerback position, but Spead's injury will be a factor against Rice's pass-happy offense. The Owls generally play multiple receivers at the same time, meaning the nickel cornerback will have to be ready for plenty of action. Rice's standout quarterback Chase Clement has thrown for 576 yards and seven touchdowns in his first two games. The Commodores must find a way to slow down Clement and his receivers in order to win the game.
"I think the match-up is good for our secondary," Langford said. "It'll be a good challenge for us."
"Rice has a stable of wide receivers that are used to being in the system where they catch a lot of balls and see a lot of coverages," Johnson said. "They have a tremendous amount of confidence now in what they do and they feel like they can score points in bunches. In the fourth quarter you saw that confidence and they got it done."
Vanderbilt's defense will need to be up to the task of shutting down Rice's wide receivers James Casey and Jarett Dillard, who have 261 yards and a touchdown, and 155 yards and four touchdowns respectively on the year. No Vanderbilt receiver has more than 53 yards or more than one touchdown on the season. So not only will Vanderbilt's defense need to keep the Commodores in the game, but redshirt senior quarterback Chris Nickson and the offense must put enough points on the board to give them a chance.
