Vanderbilt Turns Page from “Enter Sandman” to “Sandstorm” Ahead of SEC Clash with South Carolina
One week after surviving the electric atmosphere at Virginia Tech, Vanderbilt football is preparing for yet another hostile road environment—this time in Columbia, South Carolina. The Commodores will enter Williams-Brice Stadium for their SEC opener against the No. 11 Gamecocks, where the crowd comes alive to the beat of Darude’s “Sandstorm” before every kickoff.
Last Saturday, Vanderbilt silenced Lane Stadium by overcoming an early deficit against the Hokies. The Commodores trailed by 10 at halftime but stormed back with a dominant second half to secure a 44-20 win. That resilience is something head coach Clark Lea wants to see again this week.
“It will be different. It is not a copy and paste. There is a different song. It has sand in it. We’ve got to let go of ‘Enter Sandman’ and move on to ‘Sandstorm,’” Lea said Tuesday during his weekly press conference. “Virginia Tech was a great experience for us and challenged us in the right ways, and I thought we handled it well, too. We fed the environment early and made it harder on ourselves than we needed to.
“… South Carolina is as charged of an environment as we have in our league. Playing there at night, it feels like a party. If we play well, we can help water some of that down. If we don’t, it is going to be a party.”
The challenge will be even bigger this weekend, as South Carolina announced that the matchup with Vanderbilt is officially a sellout. Williams-Brice Stadium, which holds over 77,000 fans, is one of the loudest and most energetic venues in the SEC.
To prepare, Lea explained that Vanderbilt will replicate the noise and chaos in practice. Just as they did for Virginia Tech, the Commodores will pump in artificial crowd noise and music to train their players to communicate and execute under pressure.
“What I talked to our team about is the environment is for us and what you want as a player. If you were playing in the pandemic in front of empty stadiums, it was brutal. This is exactly what we want,” Lea said. “That crowd is there for you and they aren’t going to make it easy on you. We can enjoy that part of it and will prepare.
“If we can’t operate, we give them a license to participate. That makes it extra hard. I will let the guys have fun with it and enjoy it. It will be everything it is made out to be.”
The stakes are significant for Vanderbilt, which enters the game riding a 16-game losing streak to the Gamecocks. The last time the Commodores beat South Carolina was in 2008. Last season’s meeting ended in frustration for Lea and his squad, as the Commodores fell 28-7 at home in Nashville.
That defeat left a mark. Vanderbilt came into that contest as a ranked team but failed to carry its momentum, beginning a three-game skid to close the regular season. They managed to salvage their year with a bowl win over Georgia Tech, but the USC loss still lingers.
“It was really painful,” Lea admitted. “It was a learning moment for me and our team. Not to make it about South Carolina. But to make it about the spirit and energy we need to sustain and win games.
“It was very frustrating last year, having a team play us at our home with an identity that mirrored ours and to play better with that identity,” he continued. “I thought they were a more physical team, sustained energy longer. That hurt and it hurt our players. We referenced that feeling a few times in the spring and summer as what the next evolution of our program is—to never have that feeling. … You got to give them credit in last year’s because they did a better job than we did.”
This year, Lea believes his team has grown from that setback. The Commodores will walk into Williams-Brice Stadium not just to battle a Top-15 opponent, but also to prove their resilience against one of the SEC’s most intense atmospheres.
