NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Fans of the Vanderbilt Commodores danced onto the field, jumping up and down as they tore down a goal post, carried it out of the stadium and rang out sweet sounds of victory.
Then they toted the goal post just over a couple miles and tossed it into the Cumberland River.
Their school’s historic win over No. 1 Alabama deserved to be celebrated this way.
Sedrick Alexander ran for two touchdowns, Randon Fontenette scored on a pick-six and Diego Pavia outplayed Heisman Trophy candidate Jalen Milroe as Vanderbilt stunned Alabama 40-35 on Saturday for the Commodores’ first win over the nation’s top-ranked team.
Vanderbilt (3-2, 1-1 Southeastern Conference) had lost all 60 games against AP top-five teams, according to SportRadar. The Commodores hadn’t beaten Alabama on the field in 40 years, but they snapped a 23-game skid making big play after big play to give coach Clark Lea his alma mater’s biggest win ever.
“This is the dream, right here,” Lea said. “And for the next 12 hours, I’m going to enjoy the dream. We’ve got more ahead of us, but this is what Vanderbilt football needs to be about: Big wins on big stages. We’re going to go get some more.”
The Commodores scored the first 13 points and took a 16-point lead that was their largest ever over the No. 1 team in the country. Only Jam Miller running for his second TD just before halftime trimmed that to 23-14.
Alabama had just moved to the top of the AP Top 25 last week after a win over then-No. 2 Georgia. It’ll be a short stay, and first-year coach Kalen DeBoer said it’s back to work for a team that wasn’t at its best Saturday.
“We’re going to find out really how much we care about each other and what it looks like moving forward,” DeBoer said. “We’ve been tested in different ways really a lot of the games here this season, and this is a different type of test now in our response.”
Alexander capped the game’s opening drive with a 7-yard TD to put Vandy ahead to stay. It marked the first time since 2007 that Vandy had opened a game against Alabama with a TD, the last time being Nick Saban’s second game as coach.
The Tide (4-1, 1-1) helped Vanderbilt pad that lead with too many mistakes, sloppy play and penalties.
Alabama got to 30-28 with Milroe’s 58-yard TD pass to Ryan Williams.
The Commodores answered with 10 points. Of their total, 13 came off Milroe’s two turnovers, the second a strip sack by Miles Capers recovered by Yilanan Ouattara at midfield.
Pavia capped the drive with a 6-yard TD pass to Alabama native Kamrean Johnson with 5:07 left for a 40-28 lead. Milroe tried to rally Alabama, with Williams scoring on an end around on fourth-and-1 from 2 yards out with 2:46 left.
Vanderbilt fans and players started celebrating as Pavia knelt down to run out the clock.
“Games like this change your life,” Pavia said.
Milroe had his second pass of the game tipped into the air by De’Rickey Wright, who committed to Alabama and wound up at Vanderbilt. Fontenette grabbed the ball and ran 24 yards to the end zone for the pick-six and a 13-0 lead at 8:03 of the first quarter.
Vanderbilt jumped out to a 23-7 lead, just the second time in the last 10 seasons that a No. 1 team trailed an unranked opponent by 16 or more points.
Vanderbilt never trailed as the Commodores played keep-away, holding the ball for just over 42 minutes. Alabama had a 312-252 yardage advantage on offense. It didn’t matter with Vandy converting 12 of 18 on third downs wearing down the Tide defense.
“Guys certainly are frustrated about that,” DeBoer said.
Poll implications
Alabama will drop out of the top spot after this loss to the SEC’s perennial cellar dweller. Alabama now is 64-4 against unranked teams as the AP’s top-ranked team.
The takeaways
Alabama: The Tide played sloppy coming off an emotional win over Georgia and hurt themselves with too many penalties. The Tide had six penalties for 57 yards. They also failed to sack Pavia even once.
Vanderbilt: Lea’s numerous offseason changes paid off, and those included bringing in Pavia as a graduate transfer along with his head coach and offensive coordinator from New Mexico State. … Kicker Brock Taylor also got a much-needed confidence boost after missing two field goals in the second overtime of a road loss at then-No. 7 Missouri. After having his second extra point attempt blocked, he came back to make a pair of field goals, including a 51-yarder.
Up next
Alabama returns home to host South Carolina.
Vanderbilt visits Kentucky.
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