Clark Lea addresses decision on AJ Swann's elbow injury

Vanderbilt quarterback AJ Swann has battled through an elbow bruise that has plagued him since the UNLV game. Finally it became too much to deal with and Swann was lifted from a game against Kentucky last weekend.

Coach Clark Lea explained that Swann simply couldn’t be effective anymore.

“He seemed like he was ready to continue to press through, and we wanted to give him a shot to know what we know he can do back there,” coach Clark Lea said. “Obviously by the time we made the switch the game was out of hand, but felt like there wasn’t more out there for him to prove and needed to get someone in there healthy to try to salvage that last drive and finish the game with some pride and hopefully launching forward into this week.

“So that’s where the decisions came down, and appreciate AJ’s toughness and fight through it. Want him to get back healthy, need to play better at quarterback.”

Swann was clearly impacted by the injury against the Wildcats, turning in his worst statistical performance of the year.

He went just 16-of-40 passing (40.0%) for 189 yards, throwing three interceptions. Two of the interceptions were returned for touchdowns, putting Vanderbilt seriously behind the 8-ball.

“We need to play better at quarterback period,” Lea said. “Whoever’s in there needs to run the offense better, make better decisions with the ball. It’s the burden of that position, the game on that side of the ball runs through the quarterback. We want to be mindful of the fact that AJ’s been battling through this elbow and we want to see that he’s ready to continue through it.

“And if not we want to give the offense a chance to run through a healthy player there so that we can perform better offensively. I think that’s important. That’s how we’re treating the week.”

Swann is questionable to play this week against Missouri.

On the season he has thrown for 1,290 yards and 11 touchdowns in five games, though he has turned it over seven times via interception. He’s thrown at least one interception in the team’s last four games.

But with Swann struggling, Vanderbilt will consider other options.

“We have a lot of trust and faith in AJ and we believe in him,” Lea said. “We believe in his talent. He obviously has made some remarkable plays this season. We really defer to him in the moment of whether he thinks he can push through and be out there and give everything he has. Certainly there were a couple moments where you felt like he was favoring the arm or you felt like it was bothering him or becoming an issue. At those moments we consider all options.”

Lea explained what Vanderbilt will be watching for as far as when AJ Swann is ready to make a return to the lineup.

“It’s a collaborative effort. I mean first we start with conversations with our athletic training staff about what the injury is, what the nature of it is,” Lea said. “Will continuing to play create further damage? Then you look at practice performance to see is he hampered in practice? We have competitive periods daily where we’re, whether it’s two-minute periods or best on best, like run play-action periods, where we’re watching our players play against our best.

“So you’re measuring performance there, you’re seeing if he’s affected or if the player’s affected in those periods. Then it’s obviously conversation with the player too, how they feel, what they feel like they’re able to do and not able to do.”

On the heels of a three-game losing streak, Vanderbilt will be looking to turn things around before it hits the heart of conference play.

No. 23 Missouri begins a stretch of four games against currently ranked opponents, with a road trip to No. 22 Florida, a home date with No. 1 Georgia and a road trip to No. 20 Ole Miss looming.

“Obviously you want to put your best 11 on the field and you want to give those guys a chance to perform at their highest level,” Lea said. “We pulled AJ at the point at which we felt like from his responses that he wasn’t able to push through that pain any longer. That was the decision we made in the moment. Up until then we had no reason to think the elbow was impacting the down-in, down-out play. So that’s how we come to those decisions.”

AJ Swann will play if he’s ready and the best option available for Vanderbilt.