Vanderbilt fires head coach Derek Mason

The Vanderbilt Commodores parted ways with head coach Derek Mason on Sunday. Mason had spent the last seven years as the Commodores head coach, and evidently their ongoing futility was enough for the decisionmakers to let him go.

Mason publicly addressed his departure from the Commodores on his Twitter account:

It’s an unfortunate situation when anyone is let go. But things were depreciating the past two seasons to a point of nearly no return. After a 6-7 season in 2018, Vandy went 3-9 last year and has yet to win a game in this truncated 2020 season. Overall, Mason went 27-55 with the Commodores, and finished with a 10-46 record. While facing an uphill battle for a myriad of reasons, the results were what they were.

We wish Derek Mason the best of luck in whatever comes next for him. For Vanderbilt, now they’ll enter a unique situation of finding a football coach during an ongoing pandemic. The program has seen its peaks in this new millennium, and whoever’s next in line will be tasked with aiming to reach those peaks again.