Tag Archives: vanderbilt

Midseason Monday

Posted on by
Reply

We’re into the meat of the 2012 football season with heavy games for most teams from here on out. It’s also the time when teams’ reputations for the year become solidified. One such team is Auburn, which fell to 1-6 on the season, 0-5 in conference with a 17-13 loss to Vanderbilt in Nashville. Four years ago, I watched these teams play under the lights in the same stadium. In 2008, Auburn was 5-0 and highly ranked, but the game outcome was the same. This year’s win over the TIgers/Plainsmen/Eagles won’t do as much for the Commodores’ strength of schedule, but it does push them to 2-3 in the conference, and it’s an important win to kick off the second half of a schedule that should be easier than the first.

While Vanderbilt took a necessary step in the positive direction Saturday, Michigan State took another step toward a lost season with a 12-10 loss to Michigan in Ann Arbor. More on that game later in the week. Back to the SEC for a moment, where the Eastern division is one of the most power concentrated and confusing divisions in the nation. Florida swamped South Carolina, 44-11, to go to 7-0 (6-0), while Georgia escaped Lexington with a 29-24 win over Kentucky. If Florida’s going to lose a game this year, it will be next week when they host Georgia, because the rest of their schedule is soft cake (Missouri, Louisiana-Lafayette, Jacksonville State, and Florida State). In the SEC West, LSU and Texas A&M renewed their rivalry in a compelling game featuring early Aggie control and a Tiger comeback win.

Elsewhere in the top 25, Alabama and Oregon rolled. Two quick notes on Oregon: 1) I’m worried that Florida’s #2 rating in the first BCS, together with their easy finishing schedule, will mean that we don’t get to see Alabama and Oregon in the national championship game, a matchup that feels very compelling and intriguing; and 2) the ALDLAND staff is still waiting on it’s autographed Oregon cheerleader calendar. Jog back to the SEC West, where Mississippi State is the most unheralded undefeated team in the country. After beating MTSU Saturday, though, they’re unlikely to stay that way, finishing with Alabama, Texas A&M, LSU, Arkansas, and Ole Miss. Of course, nothing is more perennially unheralded than the Starkville Dogs, and that schedule only has something to do with it. Most of the rest of the top 25 won, including Clemson, Oregon State, and Stanford in important conference games. The upstart Texas Tech Red Raiders survived in triple overtime to beat TCU, and the very impressive Kansas State beat West Virginia in Morgantown 55-14 in a game in which I’d only somewhat jokingly predicted WVU would score 100 after being embarrassed the week before. Dana Holgorson’s air raid offense appears to be out of jet fuel.

On Sunday, the Vikings continue to mount an increasingly compelling challenge to those who would dismiss them by going to 5-2 with a win over flash in the pan Arizona. RGIII continues to impress despite another close loss, this week to the Giants. The Saints doubled their win total by beating Tampa Bay, and the Raiders came back to beat the ailing Jaguars, who lost Maurice Jones-Drew and Blaine Gabbert, sending out the bat signal for David Garrard (I hope). The Patriots beat the Jets in overtime, although VSL’s Bobby O’Shea, a noted Jets fan, thinks that something is wrong in New England, and I’m inclined to agree. Whether it was the defensive injuries Baltimore suffered last week or Houston’s push to come back from a loss, the Texans returned to 2012 form with a 43-13 win over the Ravens.

In baseball, the World Series is nearly set. The Tigers are in(!), and the Cardinals and Giants are playing a game seven right now, which the Giants are winning 7-0 in the fourth. In other current news, Ndamukong Suh just separated Jay Cutler’s neck from the rest of his body. Bears 10, Lions 0 in the first half.

Jeff Driskel gator chomps the Commodores: Florida 31, Vanderbilt 17

Posted on by
Reply

ALDLAND was in Nashville last weekend (as if it isn’t always there) for the Florida-Vanderbilt game and sundry Music City revelry. I was at the game on Saturday night. Bdoyk could not take a break from forty-eight straight hours of honky tonking to attend. Magalan was supposed to be in the stadium too, sitting a row behind me, but I never did spot him on the inside, which likely was due to my inability to visually identify him in his Gator colors.

The Vanderbilt defense seemed to encounter the same challenge, demonstrating difficulty stopping the Florida run game in general, and mobile quarterback Jeff Driskel in particular. In my game preview, I suggested that the relevant analogy for this VU opponent was Georgia. Instead, the game probably was more similar to Vandy’s game earlier this season against Northwestern. While the Dores grabbed an early lead in this one, they were unable to maintain it. Still, the game was exciting throughout, the home team rarely beyond a one-score deficit until Driskel’s back-breaking touchdown run at the end of the game.

A bright spot for VU was wide receiver Jordan Matthews, who had eight catches for 131 yards and a touchdown. The spotlight also shone on Coach Franklin and his staff, though, and the Commodores’ inability to run plays quickly at the goal line late in the game was a little concerning. Still, in a game in which Driskel topped Tim Tebow’s school rushing record, the little things aren’t going to be outcome-determinative.

One last printable highlight of the weekend came before the game started, when top golfer and Vanderbilt alum Brandt Snedeker stopped by our tailgate for a chat with some of his old buddies on his way into the game.

ALDLAND Podcast

Posted on by
Reply

After a brief break, ALDLAND is back with a stellar new podcast.  Click on the play button and you will hear discussion of the first college basketball coaches poll, as well as the embarrassment facing the Auburn Tigers as a touchdown dog at Vanderbilt this weekend and the big in state battle in Michigan.  Seriously, click it right now!

_______________________________

Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:

Narrow Margin Monday, take 2

Posted on by
1

We find ourselves late on a Monday after another weekend of close games. On Saturday, woefully underachieving Michigan State lost in overtime to Iowa as a result of what one local radio host called the worst coaching he had ever seen in his life, and the man is neither young nor inexperienced in the field. In a real upset, LSU threw a monkey wrench in the SEC East race and beat South Carolina 23-21, Kansas State escaped Ames with a 27-21 win over Iowa State, Notre Dame beat Stanford 20-13 in overtime, and Texas A&M squeaked by Louisiana Tech 59-57. Even the Florida-Vanderbilt game was close into the fourth quarter before the Gators and their quarterback ran away with it. More on that game later this week.

Saturday had its share of blowouts, naturally, and the notable ones included Alabama’s 42-10 win at Missouri, which remains winless in its new conference, Texas Tech’s 49-14 embarrassment of one-time national championship contender West Virginia, still-undefeated Oregon State’s 42-24 win over BYU, and Michigan’s 45-0 muddy execution of Illinois on Wolverine homecoming. Michigan hosts Michigan State in another ALDLAND outing, more on which toward the end of the week.

The NFL had its share of close contests too, including the Lions’ overtime win over hapless Philadelphia, Buffalo’s 19-16 overtime win over Arizona, whose kicker hit a 61-yarder to tie the game but subsequently missed a 30-something yard kick to win the game in the final seconds, the Seahawks 24-23 win over New England, Atlanta’s come-from-behind win over Oakland to become the league’s final undefeated team, Miami’s 17-14 victory over the Rams, and Baltimore’s 31-29 capitalization on the Dallas (ongoing) Disaster. Baltimore payed a long-term price for its win, though, sacrificing defenders Ray Lewis and Ladarius Webb at last to the football devil (no, not the commissioner– separate office) in payment for their past defensive successes. Lewis and Webb are out for the season. Other high-flying teams went down in spectacular fashion on Sunday, including San Francisco, 26-3 at the hands of the Giants, and Houston, 42-24 to Green Bay on Sunday night.

In off-field NFL news, Jonathan Vilma, the embattled New Orleans Saint, reportedly will be allowed to play as soon as this weekend, although it isn’t clear if he will. Vilma continues to maintain a defamation suit against Roger Goodell.

In baseball, the final four is set and in motion. Detroit seized a 2-0 lead over the Yankees as the series heads to Detroit with AL strikeout kings Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer yet to pitch for the Tigers. The other road team, St. Louis, has a 1-0 lead in the NLCS battle of the two most recent defending World Series champions, though the Cardinals are down 5-1 in the fourth as I write this.

Let’s do it again/Do that one more time: Previewing Florida at Vanderbilt

Posted on by
2

Duality abounds this weekend, when ALDLAND takes you live to Florida vs. Vanderbilt in Nashville on Saturday evening.

Magalan and I will be in the stadium, along with VSL‘s Bobby O’Shea, for another game against another nationally ranked SEC East opponent. Indeed, it appears it will be the third time this season that Vanderbilt has played a top-ten team, and each of those opponents– South Carolina, Georgia, and now Florida– has been an SEC East foe.

Vanderbilt was a play away from beating both Georgia and Florida last year. This year, Georgia destroyed Vandy. Will the Commodores’ rematch with the Gators go the same way? Many are calling this a trap game for Florida, sandwiched between an emotional home win over LSU and a big game against South Carolina next week. I don’t think Florida is as good as the national commentators say they are, but Vanderbilt has more problems than its coach and fans want to admit as well. Their win at Missouri was a big boost, though. My reasonable hope for this game is that it goes like the season opener against South Carolina: VU plays UF close all game and has a chance to win it in the fourth quarter.

A final note on similarities between the Georgia and Florida games is the photograph at the top of this post, which, like the one in the Georgia preview, depicts a game between these two teams on nearly the same day, sixty-six years ago. Also like that old Georgia matchup, Vanderbilt beat Florida in this one, 20-0. Looking forward to their meeting tomorrow. Stay tuned here for coverage after the game.

Topsy Monday

Posted on by
Reply

As noted, last Saturday’s college football games featured a number of games between top-ranked teams. As discussed in this space before, every game generally is going to end with one team on the winning side and one team on the losing side, games being athletic events between two teams. This means that a bunch of ranked teams lost this week, and boy did they.

Keep reading…

In the Dawghouse: Vandy no-shows again on the road, loses 48-3 in Athens

Posted on by
1

Perched high atop Sanford Stadium, I had the view of Saturday night’s game football nerds have called the Holy Grail: the all-22 perspective. Fans prize this view because it allows them to see the game in its entirety and understand how plays develop, schemes function, and all of the other things blocked out by television’s narrow lens.

What I saw likely could have been apprehended from any vantage point in any of the nearly 93,000 seats, almost all of which were filled, and filled by fans of the home team: an unabated UGA run game set up laughably easy passing opportunities. The visitors were like ghosts on defense and ineffective football players on offense. After Vandy missed a field goal in the third quarter, my hospitable hosts, including Commodawg, took me outside the stadium and, mercifully, out of my misery.

________________________________

In reality, I had a great time throughout. While the game itself made all the jostling over who would start at quarterback for Vanderbilt beyond moot, and made it difficult to believe how close this game was a year ago, Athens on a football Saturday is a fun scene, and Sanford Stadium is an impressive place to see a game. Looking ahead, Georgia’s championship aspirations continue to progress, while Vanderbilt has a bye week during which it can reevaluate its approach. As for the series between these two teams, I only see Vandy being competitive in North Georgia when it comes to recruiting, and after performances like Saturday night’s, even that may be in question.

Chilly Monday

Posted on by
1

Sometimes it’s important to remind yourself that, for the most part, half the teams lose each and every football weekend. Despite what some say about football fandom, most of us are likely to have a couple teams we like, especially between the college and professional levels and, given the number of games played on a weekly basis, we’re likely to have a few winners and a few losers. You see where this is headed.

_____________________

The Big Ten is struggling this season. None of their teams were in the top fifteen heading into Saturday, and they didn’t exactly respond well. Notre Dame completed a convincing conquest of the State of Michigan by taking down the Wolverines one week after they did the same to the Spartans, who unconvincingly defeated Eastern Michigan, possibly the worst team in Division I. Iowa lost in overtime to Central Michigan. Northwestern, Minnesota, and the ineligible Ohio State are 4-0. This conference is approaching Big East relegation level lows.

On the topic of relegation, Vanderbilt’s third defeat of the season, a 48-3 drubbing under the lights in Athens more about which later, has Commodore bloggers rising to defend their team’s membership in the SEC. That’s never good. The ACC had the game of the weekend though, in which Florida State defeated Clemson, clearing one of its final remaining obstacles on the path to national championship contention. That path may be clearing further, as LSU barely defeated Auburn. Oregon also started slow before completing a one-sided shutout of RichRod’s inoffensive Arizona Wildcats.

I missed most of the NFL games in transit back from Georgia on Sunday, but I understand the Lions went out with a whimper in an overtime loss in Nashville, the Falcons dominated the Chargers, Darrelle Revis is headed back to his Island after some variety of non-beard-related injury, Peyton Manning’s arm strength continues to be a question, and the scab officials are bad getting worse. (On their account, it also came out during the past week that at least some of them hold personal, financial stakes in the outcomes of the games, which adds a new element of excitement.)

In golf, Vanderbilt alum Brandt Snedeker won $11.4 million yesterday, and in the AL Central race, the White Sox lost once and the Tigers lost twice as part of a statistical phenomenon known as “regression to the mean (streets of Kansas City).”

ALDLAND takes you live to the start* of SEC conference play

Posted on by
3

Although conference play technically began when South Carolina survived against SEC East foe Vanderbilt in the first game of the college football season, conference play ramps up in earnest this week, when the Commodores, and yours truly, head to Athens for a night game between the hedges against #5 Georgia.

As indicated in the photograph, these divisional opponents have some history. When they played in the above-depicted game, nearly fifty-six years to the day prior to Saturday night’s meeting, Vanderbilt scored a 14-0 victory at home. Unsurprisingly, that outcome does not predominate; in a series that began in 1893 (with a 35-10 Commodore win, incidentally), the Dawgs have a 53-18-2 record. The series was far more competitive through the early 1960s, but Vanderbilt has only four wins (and one tie) against UGA since the 1961 season.

These two teams have some recent notable history, too. ALDLAND was there, in duplicate, for their last meeting, in which Georgia survived a late special teams error to escape Nashville with a win. It was what happened after the game that most people will remember, though Continue reading →

Slaughterhouse Monday

Posted on by
Reply

While I was in Chicago, I got into a discussion with a reader about whether high school was too early to read Vonnegut. While the results of that conversation were inconclusive, this post is unequivocally too late. So it goes.

Week three of college football and week two of the NFL definitely stand as prime territory for some on-field slaughters, and this past weekend did not disappoint in that regard. First, Vandy took the Presbyterian Blue Hose to the woodshed in Nashville, where the Commodores claimed their first win of the season by a 58-0 mark behind new starter Austyn Carta-Samuels. It was the Vanderbilt running game, nonexistent last week against Northwestern, that shone this Saturday, when Zac Stacy took the first Vanderbilt play from scrimmage 86 yards to the house and never slowed down.

There was no shortage of lopsided scores around the country Saturday, including Clemson’s 41-7 takedown of in-state team Furman, the expected Arkansas defeat at the hands of Alabama, 52-0, and other top five blowouts, including LSU’s (63-14 over Idaho), Oregon’s (same score, over Tennessee Tech), and Florida State’s (52-0 over Wake Forest). Not all of said slaughters were so favorable for teams this space likes to track, particularly including Notre Dame’s 20-3 takedown of Michigan State in East Lansing, for which there is no excuse. I’m glad I couldn’t watch it.

The NFL wasn’t especially compelling this weekend, even though a number of games on Sunday afternoon came down to the wire, technically speaking. The main NFL topic this week is likely to be the Monday night game, which has already seen its share of storylines, including multiple Peyton Manning interceptions early and an apparent lack of control by the scab referees.

To round out the slaughter theme, of course, we go to the Motor City, where the Tigers continue to lose, first on a blown save by Jose Valverde against the mighty Cleveland Indians, and then in a make-up game this afternoon against the inexplicably division-leading White Sox.