Jerry Kill has brought toughness, swagger to Vanderbilt and it's paying dividends

Clark Lea was in desperate need of help in Nashville. After a 5-win season in 2022, Vanderbilt regressed to 2-10 in 2023 and the heat under his chair was getting uncomfortable. Even at a place like Vanderbilt, where not much is expected outside of making a bowl game every other year or so, it's still SEC Football, and in the new competitive landscape of the league with Texas and Oklahoma joining, the 'Dores could ill-afford to fall down the hierarchy much more.

Lea needed to show tangible signs of progress in year four, or the administration would probaby be moving on. That progress showed in the season opener when Vanderbilt stunned Virginia Tech in overtime. It was the 'Dores first Power-4 win since they beat Florida in November of 2022.

The most surprising part of that win for Vanderbilt is it didn't feel like an upset. There wasn't a lot of fluky happenings that led to the result. Vanderbilt just looked like the better team. And better yet, they looked like they knew they were the better team.

There's a confidence and a swagger about Vanderbilt now that hasn't existed during Lea's tenure. That confidence and swagger has been instilled by Jerry Kill, a long-time college football head coach turned chief consultant to Lea and senior offensive analyst.

Kill was a head coach for 24 years across multiple programs, amassing a 175-115 record. He's no stranger to program building and winning at a place that isn't accustomed to it. He took over at Southern Illinois in 2001 for a program that had been a perennial bottom-feeder in the Gateway Conference and hadn't finished with a winning record in a decade.

By year three, Kill led Southern Illinois to 10-wins and the 1-AA playoffs. They went to the playoffs every year after that until Kill took the Northern Illinois job in 2008. He won 10 games in year three with NIU, propelling him to the Minnesota job in 2011.

Minnesota had become a dormant program under Tim Brewster, going 15-30 in his four seasons at the helm. After a couple of rebuilding seasons, Kill led the Gophers to back-to-back eight win seasons and a berth in the Citrus Bowl in 2014.

Unfortunately, Kill had to retire due to medical reasons related to seizures in the middle of the 2015 season at Minnesota. But Kill is still drawn to the game, and has never left it behind. After a year off, Kill joined the staff at Rutgers, then Virginia Tech, then TCU.

Ultimately Kill took the New Mexico State head coaching job in 2022. Kill took over one of the wost programs in the FBS coming off a 2-10 season. The Aggies had one winning season in 20-years before Kill's arrival in Las Cruces. Kill got them to a bowl game in year one, and last season he led New Mexico State to a road upset of Auburn and a berth in the C-USA Championship Game. They won 10 games, the most the program had won since 1960.

The stress of running a program got to be too much for his health, and he resigned after the bowl game. But Kill still wanted to coach, just in a lesser capacity, and Clark Lea needed someone with program building experience and confidence to inject life into his team.

It was the perfect match. Kill even brought a gift from Las Cruces to Nashville in the form of his starting QB Diego Pavia, who has embodied Vanderbilt's new-found confidence and swagger.

Pavia is right in that this is a whole new team in Nashville. The 'Dores aren't the pushover they were a year ago. Vanderbilt still operates at a significant talent disadvantage to most teams they face, and that'll be especially true on Saturday afternoon with Alabama in town.

But while we all know it, Vanderbilt refuses to accept that reality now. Kill has brought a confidence to Nashville that hasn't been present since James Franklin left for Happy Valley. He's got the team believing and playing tough, hard-nosed football.

It's not likely they'll have enough to upset Alabama, but you can bet they believe they can. And if Alabama comes in expecting a pushover on Saturday, they'll be sorely mistaken by what they see at FirstBank Stadium.