Vanderbilt

Commodores · SEC

Head coach Clark Lea Year 5 with Vanderbilt

Season Projection · 2026 W0

10,000 sims

8.4

Expected wins

8-4

Proj record

5 to 11

Win range (90%)

#13 (4–26)

Final rank (90%)

53%

Make playoff

15%

Win conference

Path to Glory

Tap a win or a loss on each pivotal game to see how the playoff probability shifts. Leave any game unset to average across both outcomes.

Make the playoff

53%

Baseline projection.

at Florida

Away · Nov 21
at Kentucky

Away · Oct 24
vs Tennessee

Home · Nov 28
at Mississippi State

Away · Nov 7
vs Alabama

Home · Nov 14

Pivotal games are the 5 with the largest playoff-probability swing, ranked by the model. Math: chained Bayesian log-odds update from the conditional simulation set; gets the directionally right answer but won't perfectly capture cross-game correlations until the full Monte Carlo pipeline lands.

Returning production · 2025

62 PCI

Quarterback 71% (5/7 players)
Offensive line 52% (11/21 players)
Skill (RB/WR/TE) 59% (20/34 players)
Front 7 (DL/LB) 65% (20/31 players)
Secondary 63% (12/19 players)
Special teams 38% (3/8 players)

PCI weights returning production by position group (QB/OL heaviest). 70%+ is healthy continuity; 45-70% is a normal rebuild; below 45% is a meaningful turnover.

Situational efficiency · 2025

FBS percentile rank

3rd-down conversion 45.7% 94th — elite
Red-zone TD rate 18.2% 80th — strong
4th-down aggression 42.9% 78th — strong
Late & close 4.8 yds/play 42th — below avg

Percentile is across all FBS teams with play-by-play data for the season. "Late & close" is yards per play in Q4+ with a one-score margin — a proxy for clutch offensive performance.

Schedule

Full 2026 slate. Tap a row for the matchup breakdown.

Latest Stories

Stories about Vanderbilt will appear here as they're published. Check back during the season for analysis, hot takes, and game write-ups.

More coming

Per-team pages get the full treatment in Phase 3: current rating, season projection histogram, schedule with win probabilities, and live overlays on Pylon stream days. For now, this page exists so stories and news have a permanent home as content rolls in.