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Colorado State Football: What Does Vanderbilt Bring To The Table?

The Rams face their third P5 matchup of the 2020 season

Can the Rams take down a struggling Commodore team?

The Colorado State Rams head to Nashville in week four of the 2020 season to take on the Vanderbilt Commodores. This will be their third Power 5 matchup of the non-conference schedule and will be a measuring point for Steve Addazio during his first season as the Rams head coach. The game is currently scheduled to take place Saturday, September 26th. No time or TV schedule has been set yet.

Location: Nashville, TN

Mascot: Commodores

Conference: Southeastern

2019 Record: 3–9 (1–7 SEC)

Head Coach: Derek Mason (Overall 27–47). Mason is heading into his seventh season as the Vanderbilt head coach and has never had a winning record. He has gone to two bowl games, but lost both of them. Every time Vanderbilt seems to turn a corner, progress seems to stall.

Mason replaced both of his coordinators this offseason. Todd Fitch and Ted Roof were hired as offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator. Fitch has his work cut out for him as the offense loses a lot of production. Roof could have an easier time as the defense returns a lot of production.

Series: This will be the teams first ever meeting.

2019 Vanderbilt Season Review:

The Commodores had a rough 2019 season. Finishing the season 3-9 is always rough, but Vanderbilt wasn’t a competitive team last season. All of their losses came by 17 or more points. One of these losses was a 34-10 home loss to UNLV. And their only win by more than 7 points was a 38-0 shut out of FCS East Tennessee State.

The Commodores shuffled quarterbacks throughout the year with poor results. The only bright spot being a surprising 21-14 win over #22 ranked Missouri. The Vanderbilt offense fell off a cliff from 2018. The Commodores went from 28.5 points and 411 yards per game in 2018 to 16.5 points and 296.7 yards per game in 2019.

The defense was the best part of this Vanderbilt team, but still finished a dismal 99th in SP+. The Commodores defense was a young team and it showed at times. They were able to succeed at stuffing the run and shutting down 3rd down and long, but teams moved the ball a lot on 1st and 2nd down. The only bright spot for this team was special teams, which finished ranked 26th in SP+ rankings.

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