Clark Lea wants to see AJ Swann clean things up after season opening game

Vanderbilt got the win, but not the satisfaction. After the Commodores’ narrow 35-28 victory over Hawaii on Saturday, Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea evaluated quarterback AJ Swann‘s performance.

“We got fortunate. He was sloppy,” Lea said during the postgame press conference. “He needs to clean his play up a little bit, and that’s going to be about being on time and in location with the ball and getting it out of his hands faster. Some of those sacks, to me, were more poor protection than him holding the ball too long.”

In the win, Swann completed 19-of-30 passes for 258 yards and three touchdowns while giving up zero interceptions. Nonetheless, Swann’s QB rating was a mere 61.5 due to suffering three sacks.

When looking at advanced statistics, Swann’s shortcomings become more apparent. According to On3’s Clark Brooks, 16.7% of the 6-foot-3 quarterback’s passes were uncatchable. Further, nearly 7% of Swann’s passes were labeled as interceptible.

Despite Swann’s tumultuous season opener, Lea has faith in his sophomore quarterback.

“We have good players around him, so his ability to get out in rhythm and get the ball in space. I felt like we were doing that early on,” Lea said. “At times, we just seemed to get out of sync. Game 1 is always a learning experience and he’ll grow and get better. But, obviously, he was enough to have production to win the game and I think we need to celebrate that.”

AJ Swann’s progression isn’t rushed

Even with his faults, Swann certainly looked better on Saturday night than he did in his limited time last season. In nine appearances last year, Swann’s completion percentage (58.1%), yards per attempt (6.4), passing success rate (37.6%), and explosive pass rate (13.6%) were among the lowest in the SEC.

For Vanderbilt to carry its momentum forward, it will need Swann to step up. Lea won’t be quick to jump ship. He knows patience is key.

“We won’t compromise what we want long-term in what we want right now in our program,” Lea said at the SEC Spring Meetings earlier this year. “That’s important because part of our design is about compounding results.”

“Compounding decisions, actions and behaviors,” Lea said. “It’s important for me as the leader of our program to carry that message every single day. I’m not going to back down from that based on what other people feel about it because I owe it to the people in our building to stay true to that vision because that’s the position I’m in.”