"We're done talking about Alabama." Vanderbilt tries to quickly move on to Kentucky

Kentucky Wildcats were relaxing on their couches on Saturday when Vanderbilt did something nobody expected. The Commodores knocked off Alabama 40-35 to secure the biggest win in school history.

Days later, people around Nashville are still talking about the surreal scene that resulted in the goalpost in the Cumberland River. Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea is ready to stop the Alabama talk and move on to Kentucky.

“We’re done talking about Alabama. It’s burned and released to our past,” he said during Tuesday’s press conference.

“We’re going to be respectful to the people who want to celebrate with us and our proud of us and happy for us, but we’re letting the lingering conversation around the game go in one ear and out the other. We have to be singularly focused — I’m not telling you something anything y’all don’t know — if you’re not focused week in, week out, you leave it to chance. What we learned from Saturday is when we put our strategy together and play a clean game, we have the ability to compete with anyone. When we don’t do those things, we can get beat by anybody.”

Even though he has “burned” the win, right now it’s what the college football world wants to talk about. They’ll conduct interviews with outlets across the country who rarely want to talk Vanderbilt football. Everyone is patting the Commodores on the back, which is the perfect time to get smacked in the mouth by the next opponent. Lea does not believe the fallout from the Alabama win will be a distraction for his team against Kentucky.

“I’m not worried about where the team’s mind is right now. They want more and they know this climb only gets more challenging because we’re not going to sneak up on anybody anymore. That’s part of having a good performance, you show what you’re capable of. Now it’s out there and we have to continue to level up because we’re playing against really good teams, the first of which is Kentucky,” said Lea.

Vanderbilt has to Play Catch-Up with Kentucky

While the Commodores fought a 60-minute battle, the Kentucky Wildcats were receiving a little R&R. Mark Stoops’ team got in three fully-padded practices during the bye week to get a headstart on Vandy prep. It’s particularly valuable ahead of a matchup with a team that runs an offense you rarely see in SEC play.

“Anytime you have extra time to prepare, you have the chance to create a little deeper understanding with how a team’s going to create answers and adjustments. Some of those can be unique and new. I expect them to be very prepared.”

Lea added, “The week will help them. We need to catch up to them. That’s been my message to the team. Because they had an extra week, we’ve gotta work with an urgency to make up the ground and we’ll take every minute up until the nighttime kickoff to do that.”

Got thoughts? Take advantage of our FLASH SALE and continue the conversation on KSBoard, the KSR Message Board. Use the promo code JOIN50 for 50% off the annual price.