This is a guest editorial from our pal Scott Moore on the Vanderbilt Commodores. Do enjoy this perspective and provide some feedback in the comments section. Here goes…
While I am aware that men’s basketball, baseball, women’s teams, and other men’s sports are all assets in making up the athletics picture for Vanderbilt—for the purposes of this discussion I will focus solely on the effects of football.
I, like many Nashville transplants, am a pseudo Vandy fan … a quasi-Commodore. Largely it’s due to a greater affection in the heart for another league team — as it is for so many others who reside in this fine ‘music and SEC-crossroads city’. But some of that fan hesitation is admittedly for precautionary measures. Like cheap pool toys that say: Not To Be Used As A Floatation Device, this is what it’s like to haphazardly cast your lot with Vanderbilt athletics, and, in particular Vanderbilt football — don’t get sucked in ‘cause you’ll drown. So I keep my distance and root for my SEC boys from South Carolina. {Go Cocks!} But hey, I’ll pull for Vandy whenever they aren’t playing Carolina. Have any of ya’ll ever heard that one before? “Hey, I’ll pull for Vandy whenever they aren’t playing (insert team of preference here).” It’s a tune that many a Nashville transplant and/or lifelong resident and fan of another (usually SEC) team has sung for many a year — heck even a lot of UT fans will throw the ‘Dores that bone — strange as that may seem. The problem is that the university is not only used to it, they darn near expect it. And football is the primary culprit/eye-sore on an athletics department (oh wait, there is no athletics department) at a school that plays not only in a BCS conference, but plays in the greatest conference; the Southeastern Conference.
And there’s the problem. No SEC team and its fan base should ever play second fiddle to another team — with fans in the stands one week wearing black & gold VU attire, and a few week’s later sitting with the visitors and wearing a shirt and cap in the colors and logo of their “real team”. Trust me. Having lived here as long as I have, and gone to as many Vandy football games as I have, it happens all the time. But here’s the rub; as I live and breathe – guilty as charged. Which is one of; if not the ‘Exhibit A’ reason the Commodores should not be in the SEC.
Everything about Vanderbilt is backwards from the rest of the league. Consider some of the contrasts. …a very small stadium…a meager, fickle fan base, largely made up of Nashville-area alumni and little more… several curious onlookers, such as yours truly, but not many true fans… a private school with a small student body — a portion of which strolls into the stands sometime during the remnants of the 1st quarter… very high academic standards … football and sports in general are a moderate but not a high priority—as reflected by the ‘athletic department’ that really doesn’t exist… a football program with its diminishing, ho-hum supporters that nearly expects to lose. That may describe some strange DNA of certain objects studied in the microbiology department on campus, but it’s not the DNA of an SEC team. Vanderbilt’s time in the SEC has come and gone. The thought that anything from the blip-on-the-radar-screen Music City bowl win could be sustained beyond the embers of 2008 has died out. I’ve watched the roller coaster known as Vanderbilt football for 23 years. But the predictable thing about roller coasters is that they always end up in the very same place — right where they started. And as long as they stay on that big-boy roller coaster, it (any sustained success) won’t happen for Vandy. Not in the SEC.
But rather than draw this article to a close on a down note, I actually have a solution: (I’m a drummer, so this would be a good place for the proverbial drum roll…)
(…roll…)
(…roll…)
have Vanderbilt and North Carolina State switch conferences. (cymbal crash!)
(…now take a deep breath because you didn’t see that coming…)
OK… I know that sounds pretty far fetched on the surface, but bear with me. First, the SEC would welcome the connection with the Old North State to have a presence on tobacco road. Send out the cigarette cartons to Birmingham and let’s watch Mike Slive take a promotional drag or two. Maybe it’s just me, but I think the greatest league in the land would love to see a representative from the state of North Carolina within their ranks. Second, if there was one NC school that would be up for the challenge and be able to fly the ACC coop without ruffling too many feathers it would be NC State. UNC would never, could never, won’t ever. Duke and Wake of course is pointless to even consider — apples trading places with apples. NC State can always keep up those rivalry games each year with their (former) ACC brethren —- they would just become out-of-conference match-ups. {see South Carolina/Clemson, Florida/Fla. State, and Georgia/Ga Tech} —- and Vandy could figure out a similar arrangement with Tennessee and Kentucky, perhaps alternating series’ with those two rivals. Vanderbilt could make some kind of deal with the Wolfpack that for the next 10 years NC State has to share a portion of that sweet SEC kickback with them — whatever that sum would be — in exchange for the Commodores trading a cushy sofa on a private jet for the business class seat on Delta that NC State is currently fixed upon.
~ A brief word about another black and gold institute of higher learning…
Georgia Tech is the member institution of the ACC that Vanderbilt would do best to model. They, much like Vandy, reside in the capital (larger) state city but live in the collegiate shadow of their “elder brother” to the East – (U of) Georgia and (U of) Tennessee respectively. Yet, the Yellow Jackets have endured athletically through the past 125 years and have carved out their own niche — despite the large red aura cast by the big Dawgs from Athens. The Ramblin’ Wreck was once a football powerhouse in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s. While Tech is not quite as high up in the academic national rankings as Vanderbilt, nor are their admissions standards as lofty, they are still up there—no dummies admitted. Georgia Tech has had a solid reputation in the three major sports, and as an institution of higher learning, through the years. They too were once an SEC school. But they saw the handwriting on the wall nearly a half century ago and bolted for (if not greener) more effectual ACC pastures. {Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd and Alabama coach Bear Bryant being at odds was indeed a huge part of the rift that caused Tech’s departure in 1964.}
And while it was not until 1979 that the Yellow Jackets finally joined the ACC, it is a much better fit for the Engineering school out of Atlanta than the harsh pounding, football-wise, that Tech would have endured over the years. Despite having been very strong in decades past, it is my opinion that the way the SEC is today would take its toll on Georgia Tech the same way in football, or close to the same way, that it is currently sucking the life out of Vandy. Even still, in an ‘SEC lite’ conference, they have competed solidly on a national level in the top 3 men’s sports over the past 32 years, and, if you recall, won a national football championship (split with Colorado) as a member of the ACC in 1990. They have remained successful, if not firmly competitive in recent years under former Georgia Southern and Navy head coach Paul Johnson, running the triple option and having solid recruiting classes.
Why would Vanderbilt consider this? Because at the end of the day, the brainy nerd getting beat up by the school bullies for decades ~ and then holding his hand out for money to take the beating ~ has made the smart geek look like he has little brain and no dignity left after all these years. There would still be plenty of athletic struggle and competition in all sports—that’s a no-brainer in basketball with the likes of UNC and Duke. The Commodores would still make money at the end of the year when the ACC divvies up the pie pieces. But the impossible ~ namely concerning football and the hope of consistently finishing at or above .500 ~ would become the mildly possible.
There is tradition, and issues of sacrificing big piles of SEC money, to be sure. But for those of you not familiar with the institute of higher learning known as Vanderbilt University, let me fill you in on something. I see the ungodly sum of money that the alumni alone cough up every year at Homecoming. Unbelievable. You won’t convince me that Vanderbilt is so strapped for cash that they absolutely have to stay in the SEC for that annual payout. I don’t see Wake Forest filing for bankruptcy, and they have about 40% the number of undergrads that Vandy does and get far less from their ACC league revenue sharing. {Let’s not forget that Wake has had a nice football run ~ 2010 not included ~ over the past 5 years or so.} Yeah, I know it’s a great deal of money that the mighty SEC hands out, but this is a Top 20 University for crying out loud. Show some dignity in that you swallow your pride. Show some proactive change for the better.
The Kevin Franklin era has already begun. The job opening came about the same way it always does at Vandy: somebody was let go after the ‘same ol, same ol’ pile of losses got to be too big to stomach anymore, or somebody got out while the gettin’ was good. This time, the latter scenario played out when good-as-gold Bobby Johnson shocked the Commodore nation a year ago and resigned when the hard facts of the present started outweighing any optimism for the future. He saw the handwriting on the wall…plain and simple. If nothing changes, and the paradigm does not shift in McGugan center, James Franklin is (will be) just one more coach that, if he gets a few wins under his belt, will get off the roller coaster after too many nauseating trips around the West End bend. And, if he loses, well, he’ll be let go, and this spin cycle known as Vanderbilt football will just keep going round ‘n’ round. The losing will continue, and the coaches will come and go.
But if you, Vanderbilt, want to prevent that inevitable outcome from happening with this latest coaching hire, make the painful but fruitful call to the respective league officials, then to the state school in Raleigh. Offer them the biggest Christmas gift they’ve ever seen by trading places with them in the ACC. They will jump on that like a pack of Wolves. And you, Vanderbilt, will find academic camaraderie, athletic competence, newly acquired hope on the gridiron, and rest for your weary souls in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Scott Moore is a passionate college football fan, and free-lance Voice Over talent who resides in the Nashville area. His voice info can be found at www.scottmoore.voice123.com
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