Save the Shield! A Vanderbilt sports blog

Of course it’s way too early to dream of bowl matchups yet, but that doesn’t stop it from being fun.  I really want to document our grandiose dreaming so that it will seem all the more bitter when we win one of seven to finish just out of the money one more time.
Via Paul Westerdawg [...]

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Alabama - No denying it now: Saban’s at least a year ahead of schedule.   Interesting question now: another November swoon?
LSU - Consider this belated recognition of their win at Auburn.
Georgia - May be the best team in the country at digging out of a 31-point halftime hole.
Florida - Being an offensive genius means you don’t [...]

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ESPN College Gameday actually will be coming to Nashville, and VU is up to 19th in both major polls.  I’m not sure which is a bigger deal.
To be honest, I’ve sort of minimized the whole Gameday thing in my mind in part because people make too big a deal out of ESPN’s validation and in [...]

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So far, there’ve been four interdivisional games in the SEC.   Here are the results, home team first:

Ole Miss 17 - 23 Vanderbilt
Florida 30 - 31 Ole Miss
Auburn 14 - 12 Tennessee
Georgia 0 - whatever the hell they want it to be Alabama (halftime projection)

Now, I started to declare the West to be the strong division, [...]

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VU fans will mostly be pulling for Auburn because we want to see Tennessee continue to implode, of course, but is an Auburn win really best for our interests?    One school of thought says that you don’t want to play a team the week after a big loss, and I think that’s generally true. [...]

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(Fellow stats geeks: Anyone know where I can find data sets with scores and yardage data for I-A over a number of years?   Please comment!)
The heated discussion over what to make of an undefeated team who’s last in the league in both total (yardage) offense and total defense has the entire SEC blogosphere abuzz.   Well, [...]

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Obviously their boosters need to get with the program.   Apparently they only pay their guys enough to motivate them for the big out of conference game each year.   If you want 13 games of performance, you gotta pay for 13 games.

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A quick timeline of Vanderbilt fans’ expectations for the season:
Preseason — consensus is about 4 wins, with guesses as high as about 7 and as low as about 2. Chris Nickson’s play is seen as a crucial factor that will go a long way to determining the Dores’ fate, as is the health of [...]

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Yesterday I listened to WHBQ, even though I’m not in Memphis at the moment, because I wanted to get the semi-Ole Miss perspective on our game.   They were generally very complimentary of our performance, but one point in particular was troubling.   One of the midday hosts (Eli Savoy, maybe?) mentioned that he was talking with [...]

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Georgia - This is the last week with a tough decision at #1.   If they beat ‘Bama I can keep them here with no pangs of conscience.
LSU - Squarely in the mix for #1 now.   Auburn is the single biggest win of anyone in the SEC, and has their fans dreaming about a repeat MNC.
Florida [...]

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