No. 20 LSU Football Players, Ed Orgeron Talk About Matchup With Vanderbilt

Commodores feature tough defensive line, run first attack

If there's one thing we've learned from the LSU players and coach Ed Orgeron over the last couple of days, it's that the Tigers don't intend on getting caught flat footed again. 

No. 20 LSU (0-1) travels to Nashville for the second straight year after putting up a season-high 66 points a season ago in its quest towards a 15-0 national championship season. The going will be much more difficult this go around as No. 13 Texas A&M found out the hard way in week one of the 2020 season. 

The Aggies hosted the Commodores and were in a battle all evening, eventually pulling off a 17-12 win. The positive performance from Vanderbilt a week ago was a confidence boost for a program that hasn’t had much to build off in recent years.

LSU now heads to Nashville not looking to add more fuel to the fire.

"We're gonna go down there and try to execute, get back on the right track following this loss," receiver Terrace Marshall said. "We're not gonna worry about last year, we're just gonna go there and handle our business."

The strength of this Commodore team lies in the defense and more specifically, the defensive line. Vanderbilt returns 11 starters from last year's team between the offense and defense. At 6-foot-6, 276 pounds, Dayo Odeyingbo leads the way up front for the Commodores and is coming off a seven tackle, one sack opener against Texas A&M.

"Coach Mason is an excellent defensive guy. I've known him for a while. They're playing great defense. They have two of the best defensive linemen. One of them is one of the best linemen in the conference. They can rush the passer. So I think that's their strength," Orgeron said.

"They have a defensive line playing very well, and I thought they played pretty darn good against Texas A&M. We're plus two in the turnover ratio. They're plus one. They have what we call a pro spread on offense, four returning starters. Only had 12 points against A&M."

It'll be an important game to establish the run early and also work out some of the kinks up front on the offensive line that led to seven sacks against quarterback Myles Brennan in week one. Center Liam Shanahan said Vanderbilt runs a much different defensive scheme than Mississippi State, but one the team will be prepared for.

"They look good, they have a different defensive scheme from Mississippi State but there are unique players across the board and all we can do now is get on the film and make sure we're 100% prepared mentally for what they're gonna be doing," Shanahan said.

For Marshall, this will be a bit of a revenge game as it was the outing that he suffered a fractured foot last season, costing him four weeks of his sophomore season. 

"I'm very confident, I'm always confident that we can go out there against any defense and get the job done," Marshall said. "I don't really look at the other team, I look at us. We go out there and we dominate and treat every opponent the same."

On offense, the Commodores start freshman quarterback Ken Seals, who the coaching staff has praised for his poise as a young quarterback being thrown right into the SEC fire. Seals completed 20-of-29 passes for 150 yards in the week one loss to the Aggies but the passing game is not where the strength of this team lies.

The Commodores will try and burn clock on offense through misdirection and running the ball. On 38 attempts against Texas A&M, Vanderbilt was only able to muster 132 yards, a trend the LSU defense hopes will continue this weekend. 

"We noticed early on how they run two tight end sets and a lot of 12 personnel,” linebacker Jabril Cox said. “They try to do a lot of motions and various situations to get your eyes one way and they throw it the other way. We know after the performance last week that this is a copycat type of league so a lot of people are gonna try to air it out on us. We just have to buckle down and show people you can't do that on us." 

 

The ugliness of LSU's opener is firmly behind the players as the team now sets its sights on picking up win No. 1 of the season. It's a big week for the program to start showing improvements off of last week’s loss and Vanderbilt will be the perfect matchup for those tests.

 

"This is a huge week for our team, we're gonna find out what we're made of," Shanahan said. "We got punched in the face on Saturday so how are we gonna respond? It's gonna be a challenge but we're gonna rise to the challenge."