Alcorn State vs Vanderbilt Picks and Prediction – 9/7/2024

On September 7th, Cedric Thomas and the Alcorn State Braves will head to FirstBank Stadium to take on Clark Lea and the Vanderbilt Commodores. Get our free College Football Picks all season long!

Alcorn State is missing its key guys from last year’s attack. RB Jarveon Howard is done along with starting QB Aaron Allen, and even with them the offense wasn’t all that explosive or dangerous. The Braves were great at keeping defenses out of the backfield, and that will have to continue against a Vanderbilt defensive front that needs to find a pass rush early on. Vanderbilt will get off to a good start and get up fast, and it won’t be easy for the Braves to make much of a dent to come back.

Vanderbilt is returning 6 starters on offense and 7 on defense, which will be tough for Alcorn to deal with. Diego Pavia transfer from New Mexico State was a blast of an Aggie quarterback who made things happen, and now he’ll likely be running the attack. Eli Stowers went from Texas A&M to NMSU tight end, and now he should be a factor. Leading rusher Sedrick Alexander will handle a bulk of the work. He only ran 96 times for 371 yards and four scores, but he’s dangerous enough to do far more. On defense the Commodores are strong at Linebacker and Secondary. Vanderbilt have to start making things easier on themselves by simply getting the defense off the field. Last year they allowed teams to convert 47% of their chances but should be improved this season. 

Vanderbilt will be great right away. The short-range passing game will dink and dunk its way to a few early scoring drives, and Alcorn State won’t be able to keep up. The Braves offense struggled most of the way and three quarterbacks — Roderick Hartsfield Jr., Xzavier Vaughn and Tyler Macon — combined to complete 9 of 21 passes for 60 yards and an interception in their season opener last week. The Braves will find it hard to score and Vanderbilt will win and cover the spread. Final score prediction, Vanderbilt wins 44-7.