Vanderbilt football stock report: Defensive players up, offense down halfway through SEC play

Vanderbilt football enters its second open week with the same number of wins it had going into its first: three. The Commodores (4-5, 0-4 SEC) have since lost to Ole Miss, Georgia and Missouri, the third a 17-14 heartbreaker.

With conference play now halfway over, here's who and what has raised and lowered their stock since the beginning of the season:

Stock up: CJ Taylor

Taylor was No. 1 on the "SportsCenter Top 10" for his strip sack against Missouri in which he hurdled a running back attempting to block, stripped the quarterback of the ball and returned it for a touchdown all in one motion.

But Taylor had been breaking out this season even before that play. After racking up just three total tackles last year, now Taylor has 29 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, three pass breakups and two fumbles returned for touchdowns.

Stock down: Ball security

Vanderbilt has fumbled 11 times this season and lost seven of them; the Commodores' number of lost fumbles is 11th in the SEC.

Part of this is bad luck — it's widely believed that whether a fumble is recovered by the offense or the defense is largely random, so a team losing over 50% of its fumbles is unlucky. Still, the ball security needs to improve, particularly with wide receiver Jayden McGowan, who has fumbled three times this season.

Stock up: Devin Lee

Lee missed the first three games of the season with an undisclosed injury suffered in the spring. He returned against Northern Illinois but was somewhat limited at first. As he goes further along in his recovery, though, Lee has become the disruptive defensive line presence Vanderbilt has lacked. He has eight tackles, three tackles for loss and one sack. His tackles for loss are sixth among the Commodores' defenders despite playing three fewer games than most of them.

Missouri was Lee's best game so far, recording four tackles, two tackles for loss and one sack. If Lee can continue an upward trajectory as he gets healthy, he could be a big boost to the defense.

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Stock down: The offense

There's not one particular player or coach to blame for Vanderbilt's recent offensive woes, but after taking a 20-10 lead on Ole Miss shortly before halftime, the Commodores have scored just 15 offensive points in 2.5 games.

Against Missouri, there were multiple problems: Quarterback AJ Swann often bailed on throws early, then left the game midway through the third quarter with an injury. Receiver Will Sheppard struggled to hold onto the ball. On the final fourth-and-1, a Tigers defender hopped in the neutral zone, but Vanderbilt didn't snap the ball, then got stuffed on the subsequent play.

Whatever is the root cause of the issues, the Commodores need to fix them fast. Even if the defense continues to show improvement, this is a team that will need to score to win.

Stock up: The (non-kicking) special teams

After rating poorly in just about every metric last season, this year's specials team unit has quietly been much improved. The kick and punt coverage are both much better — Vanderbilt ranks seventh in the SEC in kick return defense, 10th in punt return defense and seventh in net punting, compared to 13th, 14th and 12th in those three statistics a year ago. Linebacker Langston Patterson and running back Cooper Lutz have both made their share of big plays on special teams, with Patterson recovering a kickoff deep in Missouri territory on Saturday.

Punter Matt Hayball has been a revelation, ranking first in the SEC and fourth nationwide with 46.3 yards per punt.

Stock down: Joseph Bulovas

Bulovas has missed his last three field goals, including two against Missouri that, if converted, could've led to Vanderbilt tying or winning the game. Perhaps he gets a pass against the Tigers, as winds that afternoon were very gusty and just one of four total attempted field goals in that game was converted. But the Commodores have such a low margin for error that every missed kick has a large win probability swing. Bulovas needs to get back on track quickly for Vanderbilt to have a chance.

Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vanderbilt football: Stock up and down halfway through SEC play