After a frustrating 23-7 loss to Ole Miss, the Commodores head up to West Point to face the Army Black Knights, who sport the same 2-3 record as the Commodores.

This could be a good time for the Commodores to visit West Point, a place where discipline and concentration are necessary not only on the playing field but in the classroom and battle field as well, because their loss to Ole Miss was defined by multiple mental mistakes where they demonstrated both a lack of discipline and concentration, two tenets of West Point life.

Addressing those issues was a point of emphasis as they prepared for the Cadets.

“We just worked the same thing we do in practice every week,” said Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson. “We try and rep and we do our plays, do it the right way, do it fundamentally correct, and hopefully we won't do that.”

In addition to dealing with trying to fix their mental mistakes, the Commodores will be facing the unique triple option offense, something not seen in the Southeastern Conference.

The best way to deal with the offense?

“Beat the system,” Johnson said. “They have a good amount of running backs they like to rotate in and out, and their quarterback is good at running the offense, so we aren’t focusing on stopping one particular player, but on shutting down their system.”

The triple option offense is powered by junior running backs Patrick Mealy and Kingsley Ehie who have combined to gain 562 yards on the ground thus far this year, and by freshman signal-caller Trent Steelman who has 299 rushing yards and 163 passing yards.

Despite not seeing a lot of the triple option over the past few years, the Commodores have very sure tacklers in the secondary led by sophomores Casey Hayward and Sean Richardson and senior Myron Lewis.

Also, freshman running back Zac Stacy and redshirt freshman receiver John Cole are expected to return for Saturday’s game after a one-week absence, and Richardson will not be as hampered by a torn tendon in his thumb to help the secondary.

Speaking of the secondary, when Army goes to the passing game, it has a unique weapon in 6-feet-10-inch wide receiver Ali Villanueva, who will surely pose match-up problems for the cornerbacks as no player in the defensive backfield measures in at over 6-feet-2-inches. Villanueva has 12 catches on the year, including three touchdowns, but has yet to face a secondary as strong as Vanderbilt’s.

While it is important that the Commodores prepare themselves for the triple option, and for the mammoth Villanueva, the message this week has been fixing their mental mistakes especially since they are facing one of the most disciplined programs in all of college football.

“We need to concentrate better, it’s as simple as that,” said redshirt senior center Bradley Vierling. “We shot ourselves in the foot last game, and when you make mistakes the other team is going to capitalize, and we can’t continue to make mistakes if we want to win.”