Clark Lea provides latest on multiple Vanderbilt injuries after Week 6

Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea provided injury updates on some of his players after Saturday’s 38-14 loss to Florida, including multiple starters in the secondary and at the quarterback position.

Lea said quarterback AJ Swann was available to play this week but he instead elected to start Ken Seals.

Seals threw for 276 yards and two touchdowns on 19 completions.

“AJ Swann was available today.,” Lea said after the game. “The choice to go with Ken is just feeling like, again, wanting AJ to get back to 100% but also honoring the fact that Ken did a nice job last week moving the offense.”

In addition to Swann, Lea talked about three defensive backs in Martel Hight, Jaylen Mahoney and De’Rickey Wright.

For Mahoney, the update was not much other than he would be back again this season.

“I expect Jaylen to be back,” Lea said. “He wasn’t available today, obviously, but I expect him to be back. He’s feeling better.”

Wright has been dealing with an ankle injury since Week 1 of the season, but he wasn’t able to finish the game Saturday.

He has 29 tackles and a team-high two interceptions on the season. Wright had two tackles against the Gators.

“With De’Ricky, I’ve got so much respect for him,” Lea said. “This guy’s been battling since Alabama A&M. It was like the first possession in that game, he took a hit to the ankle and he’s been battling a high ankle sprain the entire season. He was sore this week and made the choice today to try to fight through it, just wasn’t able to finish the game out. We’ll evaluate that and see what he is or isn’t able to do this coming week.”

Hight picked up a knock in the game and did not return. He had three tackles in the game prior to the injury.

“I believe it was soft-tissue related,” Lea said. “Took a hit that just something in his hip area. We gotta get more information on it. He wasn’t able to finish the game. And obviously that becomes a concern right. We have a depleted secondary and and it makes it challenging again, particularly when we’re playing as many snaps we’re playing.”

The injury bug hits every team during the college football season but it has been a rough go of it for Vanderbilt in recent weeks.

Lea said the mindset is about getting players healthy and getting the next players up ready to go for the rest of the season.

“We’ll get more information as we get back to Nashville get these guys looked at but that’s where we are right now, and that’s not atypical for this time of year,” Lea said. “It’s about how we recover physically where we can and where we can’t it’s how we have the next man up mentality and get guys in there that are able to play winning football.”