

Derek Mason granted 247Sports exclusive access as he heads into Year 3.



NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It's 6:00 a.m. on the Vanderbilt campus. There's a military-style cadence echoing through the football facilities.

"One … back … two … back … three … back …"

It's the eighth day of Vanderbilt football training camp and the first lifting group of the day is already 15 minutes into warm-ups. Following three consecutive bowl appearances under James Franklin, Derek Mason kicks off Year 3 with a Thursday clash against SEC East foe South Carolina (7 p.m. CST, ESPN). Mason and the Vanderbilt staff has granted 247Sports behind-the-scenes access to their fall camp on this day — from the weight room, to the practice field, to positional meeting and team meetings. The only things off-limits are a daily staff meeting and offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig's sessions.

Mason's tenure started with a disastrous three-win season in 2014 followed by a much more promising four-win campaign last season. As 2016 gets going, the weight room is a fitting place to start a day with the program.

Since Mason's ugly first year, his coaching staff and support staff has turned over almost entirely. Maybe no change has been more significant and impactful than the change at head strength coach.

The warm-up cadence continues: "leeeft peck … riiiight peck …."

James Dobson came to Vanderbilt from Nebraska tasked with transforming the roster into a stronger, more physical, more SEC-ready bunch. In two offseasons, he's worked wonders.

Through the years Vanderbilt has had some rosters that have looked decidedly un-SEC. The 2014 roster probably fits into that category. No more.

In front of me stands Darion DeBrossard, a redshirt freshman that showed up at Vanderbilt at 360-plus pounds with a 500-pound bench press. This morning he's repping out 325 pounds on the bench press with ease in his new 290-pound frame.

A few racks over is Vanderbilt's quiet All-American candidate, linebacker Zach Cunningham. Six-foot-4 and 195 pounds when he arrived at Vanderbilt in the class of 2013, Cunningham's long arms have added some mass and his current 230-pound body has him looking the part of all his preseason accolades.

LB Zach Cunningham

The transformation is happening but only because the players are buying in.

"The best type of discipline is discipline within the team," Dobson tells me. "We're only around these guys maybe two hours in a day at best. If your teammates know what you are, and you're not buying in, it's hard to be that way. When guys start disciplining each other then things start clicking. It takes time. It's not like it happens over night."



It's 6:37 a.m. and Marc Mattioli is running the defensive meeting room. He's reviewing special teams film from the previous day's practice.

"We have got to have ass-kickers on special teams," he says to the players.

He finds one in true freshman JoeJuan Williams. The film shows Williams fighting through a gauntlet-style special teams drill. His effort earns him the "savage of the day" award.

It's not likely to be the last award for Williams. Not many true freshman show up as physically prepared as Williams at Vanderbilt. At Alabama or Ohio State, sure, but not here. He's what an SEC recruit should look like.

Williams is expected to contribute right away for Derek Mason's defense and that is no small feat. This group is expected to be good and this group expects to be good.

On the walls in the defensive meeting room some goals are written out on the dry erase boards. Among them:

"Top 3 total D in the nation"

"#1 rush D in the nation/SEC"

"#1 scoring D in the SEC"

"5 shutouts"

There are others, all just as lofty. These aren't arbitrary benchmarks set by the coaching staff. They're goals established without provocation by the players during a players-only meeting.

"It wasn't the coaches, it was us," says safety Ryan White, one of the defensive leaders. "We've got a bunch of vets in the room who know the standards and what to expect so we feel like we can meet those goals."

White was a James Franklin recruit and has seen the ups and downs in the program over the past four years. His coming of age along with the others in his class have Vanderbilt on a different footing than two years ago, or even last season.

"You can tell the difference," he says. "It's a big difference. On defense, there's a bunch of older guys. A lot of guys know the stuff so the coaches don't have to go back to day one like we have in the past. For the most part everybody is older so we can lead the young guys and bring them along. If somebody doesn't get something, we can work with them so that the coaches don't have to do that."



It's 6:45 a.m. and inside linebacker coach Chris Marve is starting his position meeting.

On the walls are posters tracking progress of the linebackers. One poster tracks strictly GPA and weight. Another poster tracks summer gains in GPA, weight, squats and vertical.

The GPA emphasis poses a fitting backdrop to the proceedings below. This is much less a meeting than it is a fully-interactive, continuous pop quiz.

Chris Marve

Marve calls his inside linebackers up two at a time and has them stand in front of a big screen that hosts the projection of the practice tape. As the tape rolls, the linebackers are in their stances, making their calls, positioning themselves pre-snap and taking their initial steps post-snap.

Around the room, whether standing or sitting, everyone is on call for a potential cross-examination from Marve. There is no hiding in this room. Zach Cunningham and the commanding presence of fellow veteran Nigel Bowden have a firm grip on their assignments. Some of the younger guys are swimming.

But not Josh Smith.

Smith is a former U.S. Army All-American four-star recruit and one of the jewels of Derek Mason's recruiting efforts. He's also an engineering major and extremely sharp. Every question fired his way, Smith has an answer.

"Is that question for everyone?," Smith asks his coach at one point when a teammate is slow to respond. When told the question is fair game, Smith quickly has an answer.

Marve knows a thing or two about learning quickly. Following an all-SEC career as a linebacker at Vanderbilt, Marve was out of football for two years only to return to Vanderbilt in 2014. He was a defensive quality control coach in his first year at Vandy. Last year he moved over to a graduate assistant role where he had his own position room coaching outside linebackers. In his first year as a full-time position coach, he looks like a star in the making.



It's 8:27 a.m. and it's time for breakfast. I run into one of the key pieces of Vanderbilt's recruiting department, Donielle White. She's part of a team headed by director of player personnel Austen Everson that melds together some unique, complementary skills.

Everson was the director of player personnel under Bo Pelini at Nebraska and came to Vanderbilt after a short stint with the Tennessee Titans. Also on his team are Eric Lammers, who has experience recruiting to Vanderbilt back to the James Franklin era, a former local high school coach and player named Corey Phillips that has strong ties to local prospects and coaches and Andrea Poole Cain, who has been a part of the Vanderbilt football operations since 1990.

White comes to Vanderbilt from Valdosta State where she was an assistant women's soccer coach. Passion for recruiting brought her to Vanderbilt.

Her quick takeaway from her time recruiting to the Vanderbilt football program?

"High school boys football players are a lot more high-maintenance than girl soccer players," she says.

Given my background following recruiting, I'm not remotely surprised.



During a mid-day lull in activities, I'm doing some work in Vanderbilt's McGugin Center. This is a building that has undergone facelifts in recent years — most notably to the locker room and training room — to keep pace with the rest of the SEC. It looks out onto a practice field with brand new turf that sits in the shadows of a beautiful two-year-old indoor practice facility.

Vanderbilt is starting to look like an SEC program in more than just the weight room. And expectations are beginning to rise.

Growing up and now living in Nashville, I've witnessed many of the low points in Vanderbilt history. I was even recruited and took an official visit to Vanderbilt during the unremarkable Woody Widenhofer era. Since 1975, only two coaches have had winning percentages higher than .400 for the Commodores: Gerry DiNardo parlayed his 19 wins in four years into the head job at LSU. More recently, James Franklin's three straight bowl seasons earned him the Penn State gig.

With a .250 win percentage, Mason sits in the middle of the spectrum for modern day Vanderbilt football. His seventh-place SEC East finish in Year 1 looked like "same old Vanderbilt." Vandy's fourth-place SEC East finish in last season looked like something different. Year 3 will tell us where the Derek Mason era is heading.



It's 2:05 p.m. and Derek Mason is holding the first full team meeting of the day. Staff meetings, lifting sessions and lunch peppered the late morning on this one-practice day.

In Mason's meeting, he hammers home the point that this is "training camp" and he emphasizes the word training. "It's not supposed to be easy," he says.

Mason also talks about the "next man up" mentality Vanderbilt needs to have. He doesn't state it directly at the time but I find out later following practice that he was likely referencing the loss of expected starting offensive tackle Andrew Jelks. That news went public later in the afternoon.

Jelks is one of the most talented offensive linemen on the roster. In years past, his loss would've been a crushing blow. It clearly carries some sting, but Mason's "next man up" message plays much less like rhetoric and more like reality.

A conversation earlier in the day with Mason reveals some of that confidence.

"This is a line of scrimmage league," Mason said. "When I was at Stanford we had six guys that could play on the defensive line. This team has 10 guys that can play."

Vanderbilt's quarterback outlook has inspired a new confidence, too. His commentary on the position was telling.

"The competition is crazy," Mason told me.

That's not a line you usually hear from a coach that has already named his starter.

Kyle Shurmur, a sophomore who was thrown into the fire as a freshman, is that guy. He competed in camp with Wade Freebeck, who was part of a four-man revolving door of struggles two years ago when he was a true freshman. At that time, Freebeck was a talented but green first-year player. Now both guys are battle-tested and both have had outstanding preseason practices.

While the confidence is growing, it's still a group with plenty to prove. When I ask Mason about some new expectations for the team and the two first-place votes that Vanderbilt received from the SEC media, Mason almost unconsciously redirects to a USA Today ranking that slots Vanderbilt at No. 113 in the country.

Back to the team meeting, where Mason has called up the seniors to teach the underclassmen the Vanderbilt fight song. The seniors are animated and enthusiastic singing the song that echoes in the locker room after a win.

These seniors have been to a bowl game before. The redshirt seniors have won two. They know what big wins feel like.

It's 2:31 p.m. and Marc Mattioli is running the defensive backs meeting room. The group is preparing for its first practice of the day and going over some looks that they expect the offense to give them.

Mattioli joins Marve, defensive line coach C.J. Ah You and wide receivers coach Cortez Hankton as part of a young but talented core of coaches on Mason's staff. Before being hired at Vanderbilt, none of those four coaches had a single season of experience as a full-time position coach for an FBS program.

That youth movement blends with a veteran staff. Mason's other five assistant coaches average 23 years of coaching tenure and all have coordinator experience. One assistant, new special teams coordinator Jeff Genyk, has FBS head coaching experience at Eastern Michigan.

Mattioli was hand-picked by Mason. After a graduate assistant stint at Stanford under Mason and a quality control job at Stanford during Mason's first year at Vanderbilt, he came to Nashville last fall to coach the safeties. His role has extended to include the entire secondary in his second year.

Mason and Mattioli work hand-in-hand. Mattioli runs the meeting as Mason sits in the back of the room chiming in regularly with comments, additional questions for players or adding emphasis to Mattioli's teaching points.

One staffer tells me a story during the day about Mason and Mattioli taking a trip to study film with an NFL coaching staff during the offseason. By the time they left, Mattioli was being offered a job. That's the kind of young talent Mason has accumulated.



It's 3:49 p.m. and players begin trickling onto the field. It's hot and the only practice of the day is going to be a physical one.

As I walk onto the field, I see a hovering scout of the Arizona Cardinals. NFL scouts are regular visitors to Vanderbilt. They're checking in on the seniors on the roster primarily but they always come away asking who No. 41 is as well. While they may have to wait another year for Zach Cunningham, there should be plenty of other seniors next year that will make the return trip worthwhile.

Twenty minutes into practice the defense is already flashing. One of those players that may catch some NFL traction next year is junior defensive tackle Nifae Lealao. He gets skinny at 312 pounds and blocks a field goal in a live special teams session. It's the first of many times Lealao shows up during practice.

I can see why there is excitement in the building over the quarterback play. There is more command under center than Vanderbilt has seen in two years. Shurmur is crisp and accurate. Freebeck unleashes some monster throws.

Offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig coaches the tight ends but spends a healthy chunk of his time working with his quarterbacks along with quarterback coach Gerry Gdowski.

Ludwig is another key piece of this Vanderbilt rebuild under Mason. He came to Nashville after setting school records at Wisconsin, averaging 34 points per game and more than 460 yards per game in his two years in Madison.

Highly respected among opposing coaches, Ludwig has a bit of a mad scientist reputation. One person within the program told me they've never seen any coach spend more time watching film than Ludwig.

Two years into his system, two years working with his quarterbacks and all the major offensive pieces returning, Ludwig has the building blocks to move the offense forward in 2016. To do that, he'll need playmakers on the outside. Aside from quarterback, that has been perhaps Vanderbilt's most glaring hole since Mason's arrivals.

There is no secret on this team that it's time for the offense to take a step forward.

"The defense showed strong last year so as an offense it's kind of on us to produce," said tight end Nathan Marcus. "I think that we have that feeling as an offense and that's really pushing us to do the best that we can do."

The running game is already on track. During a team period that starts with the offense backed up to their own one-yard-line, Khari Blasingame takes the first carry of the series and races 99 yards for a touchdown. Blasingame adds depth and size to a backfield headlined by Ralph Webb.

Throughout camp the defense has been impressive but today the offense is getting the best of them. In a typical preseason scuffle, senior linebacker Ja'Karri Thomas throws a punch. Mason promptly kicks him out of practice.

As much as coaches can be encouraged by fighting at practice, Mason doesn't have time for it. He kicked out starting offensive tackle Will Holden a day earlier. In the SEC, Vanderbilt can't win with personal fouls and can't win with starters getting ejected.

"We can't leave any meat on the bone," Mason told me earlier in the day. "We've got to pillage every bit of practice we can get."

Freshman WR Donovan Tennyson gets in work after practice.



It's 6:13 p.m. and wide receivers Darius Sims, Caleb Scott, Trent Sherfield, C.J. Duncan and freshman Donovan Tennyson walk off the practice field. Practice ended 23 minutes ago and the group has been working the jugs machine ever since. They only stopped after the machine crapped out on them.

Four hours earlier these guys were teaching Tennyson the Vanderbilt fight song. Now they're teaching him work ethic.

A few minutes earlier, veteran cornerback Tre Herndon was walking off the practice field with true freshman Elijah Hamilton talking to him about the things he needs to do off the field to continue to learn the defense.

Redshirt junior outside linebacker Oren Burks comes over to say hello. I ask him how the team feels heading into the season compared to his last three preseasons on campus.

"We got a taste of it last year," Burks said. "We're looking for more."



It's 7:03 p.m. and offensive guard Bruno Reagan is laying on the floor of the offensive line meeting room watching an iPad. I half-expect the iPad to be scrolling Facebook or sneaking in some Netflix during his brief downtime. Instead, it's the practice film from just over an hour earlier.

Reagan was 57-0 as a wrestler during his senior year in high school. He was also nationally recognized as a judo competitor. Now he's trying to win a starting offensive guard spot on Vanderbilt's offensive line as a redshirt sophomore.

I ask if he's been able to watch any of the Olympic judo or wrestling matches. He laughs it off as an impossibility in the midst of camp.



It's 7:25 p.m. and offensive linemen are trickling in to their evening position meeting. As good as Vanderbilt's defense can be this year, it’s the offense that will decide the season. It's meetings like this that will determine the pulse of this team come November.

Offensive linemen are a different breed. Starting left tackle and NFL prospect Will Holden walks in wearing what looks like some freshly sheered jorts. True freshman walk-on David Floyd has found his voice already and is instructing the room on how to make chocolate milk healthier (just mix it with skim milk, of course). As the bass of rap music booms from the other meeting rooms, someone suggests turning on some Hank Williams.

Norcross

Leading the group is offensive line coach Cameron Norcross. Originally from Nevada, Norcross has a gruff demeanor that somehow is all things Southern country boy, Midwestern farm boy and Northeastern city boy. He's a non-denominational ass-kicker.

Norcross is a new hire for Mason. He affectionately referred to him as a "wheat-chewing, dip-in-his-back-pocket country boy" and Norcross is the man that Mason's relying on to get the Commodores' offensive line to the next level. Since his arrival in Nashville, Mason has been trying to turn this Vanderbilt offense into a force, Stanford-esque in its physicality.

He's found that task difficult in the SEC but he's getting closer. In Year 2, Mason tried to get Vanderbilt stronger with the hiring of Dobson as strength coach and more creative with the hiring of Ludwig as offensive coordinator. In Year 3, with the hiring of Norcross to coach the offensive line, he's hoping he's solved another puzzle.

Tonight's meeting has a positive vibe to it. Today was a good day for the offense. It's not easy to have a good day against Vanderbilt's defense. It's talented and it's complicated but the offense won this Thursday.

Still, as we get into the film study, Norcross finds so much still to improve upon from the day's practice. Some of it is technique. Some of it is effort.

"Right now I want to err on kicking the shit out of people," Norcross says at one point in the meeting. "We'll fix that other stuff."

Midway through the nearly two-hour meeting, Norcross yells through his beard following a dominating run:

"You starting to get some f****** swagger? You should. You kicked their ass today."

He might as well have been talking to the entire team. After two years of "same old Vanderbilt" seasons, the Commodores are talented enough and battle-tested enough to have authentic belief that Year 3 could be the turning point.

Guys like Will Holden and Torren Mcgaster that came to Vanderbilt in the class of 2012 have seen two bowl victories. They've seen two losing seasons, too. They know what that victory tastes like and they know how hard it is to get back.

I walk out of the Vanderbilt football facilities at 9:30 p.m. "Training camp is hard. It's not supposed to be easy," Mason said earlier in the day.

My 16-hour day has me sold on that sentiment. The laughing echoing across campus as the players walk to their dorms is less convincing. Sure it may be hard, but this team is embracing it. With the long grind of an SEC season ahead of them, that may be the best sign you can ask for.

Barton Simmons is a national writer and the Director of Scouting for 247Sports. Simmons was a four-year starter at safety for the Yale Bulldogs from 2000-04. He resides in Nashville.