Syracuse, N.Y. \u2014 Former Syracuse defensive back Steve Gregory recognizes two lessons delivered over the first three weeks of last season as critical to one of college football\u2019s best stories of 2025.<\/p>\n
Vanderbilt opened last year with an upset win over Virginia Tech, a team considered a dark horse candidate to win the ACC at the start of last year.<\/p>\n
Gregory, Vanderbilt\u2019s second-year defensive coordinator, said he believed the Commodores could win big games when he was hired before the 2024 season. <\/p>\n
But while the Hokies weren\u2019t as good as advertised, that game was the start of the entire program knowing, not just believing, that winning big was possible at Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think realizing this program could be turned around started last year,\u201d Gregory said. \u201cWhen I first got here you see the lack of success they had. But then you see how the roster was built. I think the pivotal moment was going and winning that game against a team that was considered to be a playoff-caliber team. That jump-started the belief that the culture is right, what we\u2019re teaching is right, what we\u2019re trying to do is right. You saw a buy-in from the whole organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two weeks later another lesson was learned, this one a more painful version, delivered in the form of a loss to Georgia State, which went on to a 3-9 record.<\/p>\n
The lesson, Gregory said, was a reminder that Vanderbilt is a program that must always get the small details right.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a tough moment but a needed moment,\u201d Gregory said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t win the margins in every moment, if you\u2019re not doing everything right, living the right lifestyle and practicing the right habits, any team in the country can beat you.\u201d<\/p>\n
One week after the loss to Georgia State, Vanderbilt took the No 7. team in the country to overtime in a loss to Missouri. The following week the Commodores beat Alabama for the first time since 1984, and students celebrated by memorably marching the goal posts more than two miles from Vandy\u2019s football stadium to the Cumberland River.<\/p>\n
All of that has carried over into this season, where the Commodores sit at 8-2 and are likely the second-best story in college football behind unbeaten Indiana.<\/p>\n
Vanderbilt, a program that went five straight seasons without a league win in the \u201970s and was the SEC pincushion for the majority of the next four decades, is No. 14 in the College Football Playoff rankings and within striking distance of the first playoff appearance in school history.<\/p>\n
The school has never won 10 games in a season. It hasn\u2019t won nine games before a bowl game since 1915.<\/p>\n
It has a chance to do both this season, and its current run is dotted with Syracuse connections.<\/p>\n
Head coach Clark Lea spent three seasons at SU on the staff of head coach Scott Shafer. Special teams coordinator and tight ends coach Jeff LePak was an analyst under Dino Babers.<\/p>\n
Some of Lea\u2019s abilities were evident under Shafer. Syracuse\u2019s linebackers routinely punched over their expected weight-class during that time with Cam Lynch, Parris Bennett, Zaire Franklin and Dyshawn Davis among those who excelled.<\/p>\n
For 2015, Shafer\u2019s final year, Gregory joined as a quality control coach, his first job in coaching.<\/a><\/p>\n Originally from Staten Island, Gregory played four years at Syracuse, three under Paul Pasqualoni and one under Greg Robinson, before carving out an eight-year NFL career as an undrafted free agent with the San Diego Chargers and the Bill Belichick-led New England Patriots. <\/p>\n At Syracuse he was named a freshman All-American after breaking up 21 passes in 2002. He remains tied for second on SU\u2019s all-time list for career passes defended with 40. He was a special teams standout and occasionally played on offense. <\/p>\n On Shafer\u2019s staff, Lea and Gregory clicked, two football-centric individuals who found they could discuss defensive philosophy for hours.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re both really football-minded guys,\u201d Gregory said. \u201cI think the way we see the game and strive to continue to be curious about the game and how to evolve, to be open to new ideas about how to improve, our thought-process is similar. When we get together and talk ball, defense in particular, the conversations get long and pretty exciting for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Lea went from Syracuse to Wake Forest and Notre Dame before landing a job leading his alma mater. Gregory spent those years in the NFL, where he coached defensive backs with the Detroit Lions and Miami Dolphins.<\/p>\n Lea, now in his fifth season, took over defensive play-calling duties to start the 2024 season. The switch followed a year in which his team finished 2-10 and 129th out of 133 teams in the country in points allowed. He brought in Gregory to serve as his right hand.<\/p>\n This season, he turned over play-calling duties to a mind he trusts. <\/p>\n During Gregory\u2019s first full year calling plays, Vanderbilt\u2019s defense ranks 51st in the country and 10th in the SEC, allowing 22.2 points per game and largely matching its performance from last year when Lea was calling the shots.<\/p>\n There are similarities in the struggles faced by Vanderbilt and the ones that have engulfed Syracuse football for the past three decades, Gregory acknowledged.<\/p>\n Football has been an uphill battle at both private schools, and each of the programs needs to believe again before they can win again. Both have recently invested in facilities after spending years falling behind. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re in a good conference, they play high-level football, there\u2019s an attractiveness for some kids to step in and play early and at a high level,\u201d said Gregory, who noted that the excitement of living in Nashville does provide the Commodores a boost compared to Central New York.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know much about Fran Brown, but from what I\u2019ve seen he\u2019s done a good job adding talent and recruiting and trying to build a winning program.\u201d<\/p>\n Brown has talked this season about wanting to build a program at Syracuse and wanting to do it through high school recruiting.<\/p>\n That is considered a necessity at both schools, where the bidding wars required to create a roster overnight are unlikely to be won often enough to serve as the foundation of the program.<\/p>\n Vanderbilt\u2019s roster includes a number of players from a 2022 recruiting class that was unusually strong by Vanderbilt standards, ranking 32nd nationally, the second-best for Vanderbilt in the recruiting rankings era.<\/p>\n Brown\u2019s initial recruiting class in 2024 was ranked the best for Syracuse in the rankings era. This year\u2019s is poised to be better. The recruiting uptick has provided many Syracuse fans belief, or at least hope, that something similarly special can happen here.<\/p>\n While Lea built the bones of Vanderbilt\u2019s team using traditional recruiting, his portal acquisitions have been excellent, including landing game-changing, dual-threat quarterback Diego Pavia before last season.<\/p>\n The Commodores scoured all levels of college football and brought in 20 transfers as opposed to just 13 high school recruits. <\/p>\n The number of transfers was pretty typical for a Power-Four program, but the high school class was the smallest in the country for a Power-Four program, a testament to the number of players the Commodores retained from last season.<\/p>\n The small high school class served as an early signal that Vanderbilt was all-in on taking advantage of this window, when it had a chance to punch through with a special quarterback.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to have a balance of both,\u201d Gregory said of recruiting traditionally and in the transfer portal. \u201cYou have to have a balance of maintaining your guys that are the nucleus of the team. We wanted to maintain the core group that were important to us winning and then bring in guys that were a culture fit and good football players.\u201d<\/p>\n Vanderbilt\u2019s season shows how historically downtrodden programs have to be prepared to maximize their moments when they arrive.<\/p>\n The Commodores\u2019 leading tackler this season was recruited out of high school in its Class of 2023, but its highest-graded defenders, according to Pro Football Focus, have been pulled from BYU, Southeast Missouri State, Northern Illinois and Tennessee. <\/p>\n On offense, Vanderbilt is led by a quarterback (Pavia) and leading pass catcher (Eli Stowers) who came to Vanderbilt from New Mexico State.<\/p>\n The Commodores\u2019 final two games of the year come against Kentucky and Tennessee, a pair of winnable games that could provide just enough juice for Vanderbilt to continue its unlikely season in the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n It all started the way a rebuild of this magnitude has to, Gregory said. <\/p>\n First, Vanderbilt had to believe.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no reason we can\u2019t win in this program,\u201d Gregory said. \u201cJust come in with confidence and breathe that into your players, get them to believe in the fact that anything is possible with hard-work and determination and the right approach.\u201d<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. 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