Vanderbilt’s offensive line is still the heartbeat of the program, but this camp feels different from the one the Commodores brought into last season.
A year ago, “The Union” was coming off a season strong enough to put it in the conversation for the Joe Moore Award. It didn’t win the award, but Vanderbilt still had one of the best offensive lines in college football in 2025. Now, with camp eight days in and the first scrimmage of the month set for Saturday, the group is working to rebuild that standard with a much different look.
Cade McConnell is the only presumed starter back from last season’s front. The rest of the picture has been reshaped by additions like Beau Johnson from North Dakota State, Lyndon Cooper from Pittsburgh and Micah DeBose from Alabama. Those newcomers are expected to matter right away, and in camp, Johnson and Cooper have looked the part of players who can carry real weight up front.
Offensive line coach Chris Klenakis said Friday that the early part of camp is where the group starts to reveal itself.
“I’ve been doing this 41 years and we’re on day eight. It’s time to push through and start to separate.
I told the guys yesterday that it’s time for us to separate,” Vanderbilt offensive line coach Chris Klenakis said after Friday’s practice. “Everybody feels good on the first day of camp.
Where are you on day eight, nine, 10 and 11? That’s where you start laying the foundation of your season.”
Cooper, in particular, has drawn praise for the background he brought with him from Pittsburgh. Klenakis pointed to the value of having played in a power conference and said Cooper has shown he understands what’s happening at center and how to help steer the offense. He also believes Cooper’s technique has taken a noticeable step forward since he arrived.
“He’s really improved his technique since he got here in January through the spring. He got better and better and better with technique and got better over the summer and he just continues to get better,” Klenakis said.
One of the clearest differences from this point last year is the discipline up front. Vanderbilt had penalty issues at this stage of fall camp in 2025, but that has not been the story so far this time around. The group also looks more settled than it did during spring practice, when the line room was still working through its growing pains.
That adjustment period was made harder by the quarterback competition. With multiple quarterbacks rotating through, the line has had to get comfortable with different cadences and different ways of operating the offense. Klenakis said that was a challenge early, but it has become less of one.
“In the spring we were wearing four different quarterbacks. We could pick four of us right now to read the same sentence out of a book and it’s not going to sound the same when we all read it.
Same with the center hearing the quarterback, the snap count’s not going to sound the same. So, we’re getting used to them all.
It’s really helped,” Klenakis said.
Communication has also become a stronger point. After spring ball, Vanderbilt went back into the classroom during OTAs and put in extra work on blitz identification because the unit had five new players. Since then, Klenakis said the group has continued to sharpen its understanding and start showing the results of that effort.
“I’ve been really pleased with the communication. After spring ball we went back to the classroom with our OTAs and did a lot of extra work on the ID [of blitzes] because we had five new guys. We’ve been on it since June and we can see the fruits of our labor coming out,” Klenakis said.
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