A tale of four quarters: Vanderbilt wins the Compass Bowl, 41-24

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IMG-20140104-00049As reported, we went to watch Vanderbilt and Houston play in the Compass Bowl on Saturday, and from the start, my first trip to Birmingham did not disappoint. Arriving into town, I had my first new experience of the day: a traffic jam of cars decked out in Commodore regalia trying to get into the game. Some people complained about logistical failures surrounding the game, but I saw none, and this traffic jam was a good sign of the growing support of the program.

Once inside, we quickly found our seats, or some seats anyway, which happened to be on the Houston side of Legion Field, the site of soccer matches during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. I didn’t know if anyone from Houston would come for this game, and while the crowd (reported attendance 42,717) was probably two-thirds Vanderbilt fans, Houston’s band, cheer squad, and Texas rangers were there in full force. (I’m using the term “Texas rangers” to describe the male students shown in the picture above in the light brown longcoats and matching hats. Click the photo to enlarge it, or see a closeup here.)

The festivities really got underway when something called “Black Jack Billy” sang the national anthem as two men using American/POW-MIA flags as parachutes and emitting thick clouds of USA-colored smoke circled and landed on the field. (Video.)

After all of that, some football started happening, for one team, anyway. While Houston netted twelve yards of offense and no first downs in the first half thanks to an ineffective passing strategy, Vanderbilt moved the ball relatively easily, particularly on the ground, and went into the locker room at halftime with a 24-0 lead. Continue reading →

Is James Franklin leaving Vanderbilt for Penn State? [UPDATE: Yes.]

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This is the most reliable news in days on a story ALDLAND has been tracking closely. We will update this post as more information becomes available.   Click for all updates on this story…

2014 BCS National Championship Preview

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The final BCS National Championship Game is tonight at 8:30 pm on ESPN between Auburn and Florida State. The Seminoles, behind Heisman winner Jameis Winston and a robust defense, are heavily favored, but that’s no reason to think the Eagles/Tigers/Plainsmen can’t win. When I previewed all the bowl games last month, I wrote of this one:

Florida State and Auburn round things out in the final BCS National Championship Game before the implementation of the College Football Playoff next season. If this game was being played this weekend, I’d have an easier time picking Auburn to win. Although the Eagles/Tigers/Plainsmen have beaten Alabama, Missouri, Texas A&M, and everyone else on their schedule with the exception of LSU on the road, I think all of the time off will allow Florida State to better prepare for Auburn’s packaged offensive scheme. I can’t help being reminded of Auburn’s last national championship, in a game in which I also thought they were severely overmatched. Auburn’s giving up forty-two points to Missouri in the SEC championship game worries me, but they’re still my tentative pick to win it all on January 6.

I don’t know that anything has happened since then to make me feel more confident that Auburn can win, so I’m going to leave my prediction as it is. Feel free to add yours in the comments below.

(Sidebar: Picking bowl games is a little bit difficult. This year, my picks were pretty scattered, none worse than picking Rice to beat Mississippi State in the Liberty Bowl, which ended up being one of the few bad games this postseason. Still, I would like to note that ESPN the Magazine went 0-fer in its BCS bowl predictions. They had Alabama by 14 in the Sugar (Oklahoma by 14), Baylor by 20 in the Fiesta (UCF by 10), Ohio State by 6 in the Orange (Clemson by 5), and Stanford by 15 in the Rose Bowl (Michigan State by 4).)

For your pregame reading, I offer the following selections:

  • The Making of a Modern-Day Guru: How Gus Malzahn went from high school defensive coordinator to college offensive mastermind, and took Auburn to the brink of championship glory in the process – Grantland
  • Florida State: Unbeaten and Untested. In contrast to Tigers, Seminoles Took the Path of Least Resistance – Wall Street Journal
  • Equal Justice Under College Football Playoff: College football will take a big step forward when it adds a two-round, four-team playoff, but it will take a step backward when it replaces the BCS ranking system with the College Football Playoff Selection Committee – ALDLAND

Enjoy the game tonight.

Monday Morning PR Quarterback

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wwwThe rise of the internet fad, such as it is, presents a challenge to the viability of traditional print media. Nowhere in the world of sports media is that clearer than with Sports Illustrated, the onetime king of the written sports word.

SI hasn’t necessarily shied away from the Worldwide Web, but it hasn’t exactly been fleet-footed about it either. Here‘s the earliest archived version of SI.com, Continue reading →

ALDLAND goes live to the Compass Bowl

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cbFor the third consecutive year, Vanderbilt is playing in a college football bowl game, and, I am fortunate to be able to say, for the third consecutive year, I will be in attendance. (My usual bowling companion is unavailable this time, but ALDLAND’s own Physguy will be joining me.) After two games– the Liberty and Music City Bowls– inside the state of Tennessee, Vanderbilt achieved their goal of playing a bowl game outside their home state when they accepted an invitation to play in the Compass Bowl in Birmingham.

My preview post of all of this year’s bowl games has been called “Pulitzer-worthy,” and while my prediction record has proved middling at best, I stand by my prediction for the Compass Bowl:

Vanderbilt will make it three bowl appearances in a row when they play Houston in the Compass Bowl on January 4 in Birmingham. Considering they’ve only played in six bowl games ever before this season, that’s a pretty remarkable achievement. This is their fourth bowl game since 2008, and they bring a 2-1 postseason record from those games into this one. Mobile backup quarterback Patton Robinette will start the game for Vandy on account of starter Austyn Carta-Samuels’ season-ending injury. Carta-Samuels played his last three games this season– all VU wins– with a torn ACL. Another Vandy note: Commodore players donated their bowl per-diem stipends to a children’s charity. Houston has had a resurgence in recent years, but they aren’t the same without Kevin Sumlin, Case Keenum, Clyde, and Olajuwon. The Commodores should register another nine-win season.

The Compass Bowl has been known as the Birmingham Bowl and the PapaJohns.com Bowl, and it has been played annually in Birmingham since 2006. (Birmingham’s bowl history long predates the Compass Bowl, though, as it has been the host of the Dixie Bowl (1947-8), the Hall of Fame Classic (1977-85, now the Outback Bowl in Tampa), and the All-American Bowl (1986-90).) Pittsburgh has appeared in the Compass Bowl three times; no other team has appeared more than once.

Vanderbilt’s opponent, Houston, also finished the year with an 8-4 record, posting wins over Rutgers and South Florida, as well as a shutout win against SMU. The Cougars struggled in the second half of the season, however, while the Commodores finished strong. Tomorrow marks the first-ever meeting between these two teams. It also will be the last-ever game for SEC-leading receiver Jordan Matthews in a Vanderbilt uniform.

As always, keep track of our coverage here and on Twitter. The game starts at 1:00 Eastern on ESPN.

Jordan Schafer is Highly Questionable

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Jordan Schafer returned to the Atlanta Braves as an outfielder this past season, and he has himself a very nice condo at the Downtown W. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a slideshow out today showing off Schafer’s residence. All’s well until you see how he’s decided to use his dual-mounted flat-screen televisions. This stopped me in my mouse-clicking tracks:

The man can watch anything in the world, and this is his selection? It doesn’t even make sense: these are the ESPN and ESPN2 simulcasts of two radio shows. Having both on TV at the same time seems at least impractical; at worst, that mirror thing offers more insight on the world than both of those TVs combined.

I love radio, and I love TV broadcasts of radio shows. Having done radio in the past, I love seeing the studio setups and silent communications that make a radio broadcast work. Maybe Schafer and I are alike in this way. If that’s true, though, he really ought to be watching the Dan Patrick Show, which has better content than either Mike & Mike or The Herd and offers a much richer viewing experience. Patrick’s show is a radio show, but it’s designed with a television audience in mind as well; with ESPN, the TV aspect feels like an afterthought.

Winter Birthday Jam

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Stephen Stills is one of my most favorite musicians and, like with Steve Winwood, I’ve enjoyed tracing his career through different ensembles and solo ventures and musical styles and phases. Somehow lesser-recognized today than bandmates David Crosby and Graham Nash, Stills was the guitar and vocal muscle that drove and textured CSN’s harmonies. Even though it eventually left him, relatively speaking, Stills’ songwriting muse burned bright in those early days too.

I could write another essay just on Manassas, my favorite Stills band, and their two albums, the first of which has been called “a sprawling masterpiece akin to the Beatles’ White Album, the Stones’ Exile on Main St., or Wilco’s Being There in its makeup.” Stills also played a critical role in bringing to life Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield’s Super Session, which, like Sgt. Pepper’s, “ushered in several new phases in rock & roll’s concurrent transformation.” Even before all of that, he had penned one of the most lasting 1960s protest songs, “For What It’s Worth,” for Buffalo Springfield.  While Crosby and Nash were off on one of their collaborations, he got together with Neil Young for the underappreciated Long May You Run, a quiet offering that ultimately failed to hold Young’s interest, as Winwood and Blind Faith ultimately failed to hold Eric Clapton’s. Although the strength of his later solo recordings wavered over the years, I enjoy his self-titled solo debut, which coyly hides guitar offerings from Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. I also enjoyed his 2005 solo-comeback-of-sorts, Man Alive!, with its cameos from Nash, Young, and Herbie Hancock. In 2007, Stills issued one of the few truly insightful and valuable archival releases in recent memory, and if you’re still with me at this point, you’ll want to read more about Just Roll Tape.

For all this, though, there’s no better Stills winter record than 1975’s Live, a somewhat brief offering with an electric A side and an acoustic B side. (And by “winter record,” I mean a disc to which you repeatedly turn when you’re trying to use the CD player to kickstart your Blazer’s chronically dysfunctional heater core in January in Michigan.) Today is Stills’ sixty-ninth birthday. Here’s the meat of that A side:

Michigan State wins the 100th Rose Bowl

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Fourth-ranked Michigan State beat #5 Stanford in the 100th Rose Bowl yesterday, 24-20, and finished the season with a 13-1 record, having gone undefeated in the Big Ten. The Spartans are Rose Bowl champions for the first time in twenty-six years. MSU was balanced in the victory, their top-in-the-nation defense leading the way and securing the win by allowing only one offensive touchdown, while unheralded quarterback Connor Cook and his receivers posted a career passing day by recording 332 yards through the air, including two touchdown passes. The Spartans’ defensive numbers are ridiculous, but this puts the win in perspective:

Following the game, Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis silenced rumors that head coach Mark Dantonio might be a candidate for the Texas job by extending Dantonio’s contract, making Dantonio and his assistants among the three highest-paid head coaches and coaching staffs in the conference. Here’s to a fantastic Rose Bowl win and many more for this great team.