Lessons in Vanderbilt Football: Week 6 NIU

Photo by Frederick Breedon/Getty Images Mason was not happy with the play either, even if he was glad to get the first win of the year.Well, this is a weird and uncomfortable place to be. And I do not mean the fact that this article is going up on gameday. Being awkward late and out of place is nothing new for me or this series. The discomfort here is about the situation of the football team my coverage of it. After spending time talking about the positives in losses for 3 weeks, a win may be the most worrying result of the season. NIU is not a good team. They are probably better than their statistics show since they have now played Utah, Nebraska, and us, but Vanderbilt should still have won that game by much more than 6 points. A 14-0 start made it seem like the game would be a comfortable one, but the offense suddenly stalled, and the defense finally leaked enough to give up 3 scoring drives. Of course, a win is better than a loss in the results column. As someone who gets a lot of heat for talking about things like “process” during losses, the same is true in a clunky win. Learning from winning is a nice change though. These early kickoff games are not great anyway, so you have nothing better to do.

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