Inside Vanderbilt Football’s Miraculous Comeback Victory Over NC State

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Sep 19, 2026; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Vanderbilt Commodores stand in front of the band to celebrate the win against the NC State Wolfpack during the second half at FirstBank Stadium.

Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect NASHVILLE — With 64 seconds remaining in Vanderbilt’s football game against NC State, it looked all but over for the Commodores. Vanderbilt five-star freshman quarterback threw a heartbreaking interception to a NC State defender on a drive that was on the verge of starting the Curtis era off with some incredible lore in his Vanderbilt career. But evidently, it was not.

The Commodores looked down for the count with only two timeouts remaining, enough for NC State to get a free 45 seconds or so off the clock without the Commodores having the capability to stop it. But even with all that, there were still six seconds on the clock for NC State to run a fourth down play. The options for NC State to run out the clock with a 31-28 lead felt limitless.

The one thing that could not happen for NC State? A play gone so unbelievably wrong it may never happen again. NC State quarterback CJ Bailey took the snap, ran forward in an attempt to get out of the end zone but suddenly lost the ball. Vanderbilt EDGE Miles Capers punched the ball out and it was recovered by cornerback Cayden Daniels in the end zone for a Commodore touchdown and a Vanderbilt win.

Long before the play that can only be described as a miracle even occurred, Vanderbilt was down 17 points. At many points in the game, the Commodores looked simply lifeless. Bailey was doing whatever he wanted to Vanderbilt’s defense for the majority of the day. In just about every moment where it felt like Vanderbilt was going to make a big stop on defense, Bailey would make a clutch throw.

Vanderbilt was down 17-0 before Curtis led a touchdown drive going into halftime. During the jog into the locker room, Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea was reminded of a very similar situation his team was in nearly a year ago to the day.

“What I said to the team at halftime is a year ago we were in this same situation at Virginia Tech. We’re down 10. We wanted to come out in the second half and control the game,” Lea said. Where Vanderbilt’s second half effort Saturday differed from last year’s comeback at Virginia Tech was that the Commodores did not come out of halftime guns ablazing offensively nor defensively.

In fact, NC State held a 24-7 lead at the midway point of the third quarter. Not only had it not made any progress on its halftime deficit, the deficit was larger than what it was after two quarters. But in Lea’s mind, he sensed a weird rhythm to the game for whatever reason. One that left him feeling optimistic about his team’s chances of coming back to win the game.

“You realize it’s a steep climb. But it was just the way the clock worked today that was interesting to me because I kept looking and was like ‘We have a ton of time left,’” Lea said.

“And it’s just can we generate a turnover? Can we get an extra possession? Can we go down to score? ” Lea’s feeling about the clock looked justified.

Teams have made two-score comebacks with just one quarter remaining plenty of times. What’s a three-score comeback with a quarter-and-a-half still left to play? Regardless of how much time was left on the clock, Vanderbilt kept playing. It responded quickly to NC State’s penultimate score.

Curtis hit wide receiver Tristen Brown for a 33-yard play to set up running back MK Young for a 6-yard touchdown run. Before the third quarter ended, the Commodores got within a field after a six-play, 80-yard drive that ended in Jared Curtis finding the other half of Vanderbilt’s running back duo, Sedrick Alexander, for a wide open touchdown pass.

For a few minutes, it felt like Vanderbilt was going to put on a performance replicating its 2025 win at Virginia Tech, which ended in a Commodore runaway. But NC State threw one more punch to go back up 10 points with 9:35 to go. That time is greater than no time left, though. Within three-and-a-half minutes, the Commodores answered back with another touchdown drive, this time with Curtis connecting with Sherrill on a 43-yard dime.

“We had some chunks there offensively and that gave me hope that we had enough time to make a comeback we needed to make. So, we got it done,” Lea said. Even without the miracle that was, Vanderbilt still had the ball in the NC State red zone with a chance to win it on offense. Lea’s constant clock-watching gradually created more hope as the second half went on.

Vanderbilt never quit. It found a way to win despite how sloppy and perhaps fortunate it was to win the game. As Lea said, his team may have cheated the football gods by winning despite all that went wrong for the Commodores. But it’s a win nonetheless.

“Credit to the guys. They were able to reset themselves and find a way to get stops, find a way to score points and find a way to punch the ball,” Lea said. Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports.

He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.

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