Jerron Seymour ran for a pair of first-half touchdowns to lead Vanderbilt to a 52-24 win over UAB on Saturday night.
Seymour started the scoring with a 7-yard touchdown run late in the first quarter. With just over nine minutes remaining in the second Seymour took a direct snap and ran for a 58-yard score.
It was the first career two-touchdown game for the sophomore, who set a career high with 107 yards rushing.
Vanderbilt quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels ran for a touchdown and threw for two more, completing 23-of-29 passes for a career high 334 yards.
Carta-Samuels’ second touchdown pass went to Jordan Matthews, who tied a Vanderbilt record with his 21st career touchdown reception.
“Today I think we did a really good job as an offense just showing a lot of different things that we do successfully,” Carta-Samuels said.
Ty Long kicked three field goals for the Blazers (1-3). After connecting from 33 yards late in the first quarter, Long hit on a 20-yard field goal with 9:23 remaining in the second and from 37 in the third.
That field goal came after UAB drove 72 yards in nine plays and had a first-and-goal from the Vanderbilt 5-yard line. After the ensuing kickoff, the Blazers were stung by Seymour’s long touchdown run.
“Definitely the momentum shifted after that,” Seymour said. “Whenever you can stop the offense from getting a touchdown and holding them to a field goal, then the opposing offense comes back and scores a touchdown, the momentum has been shifted, and it hurts the other team.”
UAB scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns.
Jonathan Perry connected with Darius Powell on a 29-yard strike early in the final quarter. A Perry pass to Kennard Backman gave the Blazers the two-point conversion.
With just over a minute left in the game, Perry connected with Jamari Staples from 17 yards.
“I think it would’ve been a different game because we would’ve scored more points early,” UAB coach Garrick McGee said of his team’s inability to score touchdowns in the first half. “But we did not play well on offense throughout the game. We made multiple mistakes and our quarterback play was not where I expected it to be. So I think that in the long run the mistakes on offense would have ended up costing us the game because we just weren’t executing on a high level.”
The Commodores (3-2) struck just before halftime when Carta-Samuels ran for a 1-yard touchdown with five seconds remaining in the second quarter. It was the senior’s fourth touchdown on the ground this season.
In addition to his running touchdown, Carta-Samuels threw for two, completing 23 of 29 passes for a career-high 334 yards. He also threw an interception.
Carta-Samuels’ second touchdown pass went to Jordan Matthews, who tied a Vanderbilt record with his 21st career touchdown reception.
Senior wide receiver Jonathan Krause set a career-high with 108 yards receiving, his second-consecutive game with more than 100 yards.
“This week we jumped routes, we were more aggressive, and I thought that was really the big difference in the game across the board,” Vanderbilt coach James Franklin said. “We want to build on that, and we want to continue doing it.”
