Megan Turner
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Vanderbilt Football updated its official roster this week, and now no one has a jersey number.
SB Nation reports that this isn’t necessarily breaking news, though. People talked about it during the spring when confused reporters showed up for practice and had no idea who was on the field because there were no identifiable numbers.
First-year head coach Clark Lea explained it as something that’s earned.
“We are going to earn everything in this program,” Lea shared when asked why his players didn’t have numbers on their jerseys. “Until we understand that we rent those numbers, we don’t own them, until we are ready to work within them, leave them better for the next person to wear them, that will come. I don’t want to put a timeline on it.”
Lea, along with sophomore offensive lineman Bradley Ashmore and junior defensive lineman Daevion Davis will represent Vanderbilt at the 2021 SEC Media Days this week.
Vanderbilt will join Alabama, Mississippi State and Texas A&M at the event on July 21, so maybe Lea will provide some long-awaited answers about how this numberless season will work — or at least how they will be earned.
I kind of like the idea. A program in the gutter with no pride needs to do something drastic to get player attention and change bad culture.
Mario Cristobal did something like that at Oregon. He took the single digit numbers away, and they had to earn them back. He also limited their uniforms to 3 mostly boring ones and they had to earn back the rest.
Take the mask off Clark. I know it’s Davidson County but give me a damn break….and this is Vanderbilt. Don’t give that EARN THE NUMBER shit. You had a girl kicking extra points last year. You have bigger fish to fry.
Just like Vanderbilt should be from the SEC.
Who cares, its Vanderbilt. You guys at Outkick shouldn’t feel obligated to report on Vandy just because Clay went to law school there. Vandy is as important to college football as Kansas and Oregon State.