Admit It: We All Want Vandy to Win!
By Carl Danbury (posted 10-2-08)

Bobby Johnson is simply one of the best coaches in the entire Southeast, not just the SEC. While his career record (24-50) at Vanderbilt suggests otherwise, his peers recognize the difficulty of the task at the SEC’s most prestigious academic institution. Johnson’s Commodores will line up against the hard-nosed Auburn Tigers Saturday night at Vanderbilt Stadium in front of a sell-out crowd, and a national TV audience.

Lets face it: except for those yelling "War Eagle", we all want Vandy to win!

This isn’t the first time Vanderbilt has entered its fifth game of the season undefeated, it happened most recently just four seasons ago, but it’s damned sure the first time most of us have paid much attention to it. For most of the past four decades, we expect Vandy to lose and they haven’t disappointed us very often.

The ‘Dores don’t have the depth, the talent, the strength and quickness to compete with the Auburns, Alabamas, Floridas, Georgias and LSUs of the world. Oh, sure, Vandy can beat South Carolina and Ole Miss, but we’re talking about the mighty Auburn Tigers this weekend, and the only thing Commodore Vanderbilt has over the loveliest village is endowment.

Vanderbilt’s only bowl victory in school history came Dec. 31, 1955 at the Gator Bowl against Auburn, but since that time, Auburn has roughed up the Nashvilleans with regularity even though they haven’t met often.

Auburn has won 13 straight in the series and the last six meetings in Nashville since the Commodore's last win at home in 1950. To add insult to victory, the Tigers have held Vanderbilt to 10 points or less in nine of those 13 victories, including last year’s romp at Jordan-Hare Stadium, 35-7.

The ‘Dores enter Sat. night’s contest ranked 19th in both polls with a 4-0 record. They have been 5-0 just twice since Hitler invaded Poland, once in 1941 for head coach Red Sanders and captain Joe Atkinson, and once in 1943 when Vandy was undefeated during a war-shortened five-game season. Vandy’s 2-0 SEC start is its first since 2004 and just the second time since 1956 the Commodores opened league play with two straight wins. Not surprisingly, the Commodores have trailed in every game so far this season. Surprisingly, they have outscored opponents 51-10 in the second half.

Imagine, cute little Vanderbilt trying to win its third consecutive SEC contest on ESPN, which actually found the Nashville campus twice in a month. Some Vandy grad probably runs the finance department in Bristol, Conn., and gave the crew exact directions.

Vandy’s stadium holds just 40,000, but those dressed in black and gold are typically out numbered by those donning opponents’ colors. It has been that way for many years — but this is 2008 — and Vandy fans have finally begun to buy into what Coach Johnson is selling. Johnson’s recipe for success is an active defense that confuses opposing offensive units with so many disguises that you’ll think the Black 11 is hosting a masquerade party. And, if they’re going to wear their customary black-and-gold uniforms, we hope they resemble and play like the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Yeah, it’s a neat story that will come to a crashing halt, just as it has for Vanderbilt students, fans, coaches, players and administrators since 1982, the Commodores’ most recent bowl appearance in Birmingham. It will be more indignation for the exceptionally smart, yet undermanned team that can’t play football with the big boys of the SEC. We all know that is exactly what most people are thinking with the national spotlight shining on little old Vanderbilt trying to slay an SEC giant.

“I think this has been one of our better weeks (of practice),” Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville said. “In terms of our level of focus, intensity and preparation, this was a really good week. The guys were really flying around this week. I think everyone is excited about heading up there.”

Reporters swarmed the Vanderbilt campus asking players and coaches if they are caught up in the excitement of having ESPN’s Gameday on the Commons Saturday — as if the presence of Fowler, Herbstreit and Corso is some sort of grandiose anointing of the program itself. In reality, the hype machine that is ESPN, hopes to doing nothing more than to cast its shadow on what could be an honest-to-goodness SEC upset. Vanderbilt is that good!

“I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but who cares about Gameday?” Vanderbilt quarterback Chris Nickson (right) asked rhetorically. “It has benefits for the city, for the school, for recruiting and for the organization, but for us players, we have to go out and perform and keep our focus.”

Thank you Chris for that perspective. We wish others would recognize it.

“In the end, it’s us playing football against Auburn,” said safety Reshard Langford (top left). “Coaches are doing a great job in preparing us to win…We have a little swagger about ourselves…When you have that confidence, we know we can beat good teams.”

Before his players got too fixated on the monumental occasion, Johnson said there was an easy cure for them getting too caught up with TV exposure and the newspaper headlines.

"Well, we just throw on last year's Auburn film. That's the best thing we can do. They were very impressive in that game and they sort of took us to the woodshed. Our guys know that we have to play extremely well if we want a chance to win. Plus, our guys get in their routine of class, practice, weights, and all the regular things in their lives, so I don't think too many of them are reading too many headlines,” Johnson said earlier this week.

While Johnson downplayed the opportunity for victory publicly, you can bet his Commodores will play hard, as usual.

“I wouldn’t recommend anyone to overlook us,” Nickson stated. “We have a lot of talent here, a good strategy, a great coaching staff and we can do a lot of things as long as we don’t make too many mistakes. If we play well, we can win.”

And, that would make all of us very happy!

I attended the Hall of Fame Bowl in 1982 and witnessed a great comeback by Air Force that day. The Falcons scored 19 straight points in the fourth quarter after the ‘Dores had forged a 28-17 lead. I also witnessed one of the great performances by any tandem in bowl game history, as Vandy quarterback Whit Taylor completed 38-of-51 passes for 452 yards and Norman Jordan caught 20 passes for 173 yards and three touchdowns.

We won’t see anything resembling those kind of offensive fireworks in the gloaming Sat. night in Nashville, but we could bear witness to Vanderbilt’s first 5-0 start in 65 years. It won’t be easy overcoming the 13-game losing streak in the series and Auburn’s fabulous recent success away from home (15-3 in it last 18 SEC road games). But, lets remember last year when Navy beat Notre Dame, 41-point underdog Stanford beat USC and Appalachian State beat Michigan.

Admit it — we all want Vandy to win — at least when they're not playing our team!