I heard some rumors that this had happened yesterday, and vucommodores.com assured it earlier today. To be honest, I think it’s pretty stupid. Apologizing for a blown call is just pouring salt on the wound if you ask me.
After only playing one game in the season, people are already jumping to conclusions about Vanderbilt football. Seriously, I’ve heard it all over the past few days. Some of you so-called “fans” just need to chill.
First off, can we just stop on the 1-11 predictions? Yeah, I get that your upset but slow down a bit. We won’t be worse than last season, I can promise you that. Besides, you could at least give us one upset victory.
Now another thing, why are some people calling for Robbie Caldwell’s firing? The guy has only coached one game, and he’s got this team looking better than they ever did last season (in my opinion).
Also, I’ve had enough of people calling Northwestern a horrible team. Anyone who says that obviously hasn’t been watch college football closely, and they don’t realize that the Wildcats have had a prolific passing attack in recent years.
Last but not least, enough “Same Old Vanderbilt.” I’m not standing for it this time, we have too much young talent to be the same old Vandy. Just check out the depth chart, nearly everybody is a freshman or sophomore (and we have plenty of strong juniors, as well).
Well, that’s my rant for the day.
Sure, our squad is 0-1 but that’s nothing to be depressed about. After all, there were plenty of thing we saw in the Northwestern game that should excite us.
Larry Smith is the Guy
As of right now, I’m a big believer in Larry Smith. While he was off occasionally, he seemed to have significantly improved from last season in both his decision-making and leadership; Larry made better choices with the ball and didn’t give up when the team was down two scores. He may not have gotten us the win, but he sure didn’t lose it for us either.
We’re Stacked at Running Back
I thought we were good at running back, but I was proven otherwise on Saturday. It turns out that we aren’t good at it, we’re great at it. Even when they weren’t 100%, Warren Norman and Zac Stacy were able to run all over the field. Heck, Stacy was able to break off for a 33-yard TD with a heavy brace on his leg — that’s saying something. And let’s not forget to mention Kennard Reeves, who averaged a killer 6.8 yards a carry.
Jonathan Krause & Brandon Barden
Yeah, you already know.
Improvement on the O-Line
I won’t lie and say that our offensive line is perfect by any means. That said, I think we’ve improved a lot over last year. The big boys opened some great holes for the running backs and they occasionally gave Larry a good pocket — but he was forced to go on the run every now and then.
Run Defense & Pass Rush Look Stronger
The Commodores ranked near the bottom of the nation in run defense last season but if Saturday night tells us anything, we’ve definitely improved in that area of our game. The Wildcats only averaged 3.1 yards a carry, and if you take Northwestern QB Dan Persa out of the equation, the Wildcats only averaged 2.1 yards a carry (that’s a OpenDores.com original stat!).
Vanderbilt was also able to sack the QB 3 times on Saturday. In fact, the ‘Dores had 11 tackles for a loss in that one game — compare that to last season’s 66 tackles for loss and you see how much we’ve improved.
Anyone who watched Vandy’s 23-21 loss to Northwestern will tell you that the Commodores looked like better team. We gave ourselves multiple chances to get the W, but at the same time, we gave away all of those chances by over-throwing receivers, missing tackles, and (of course) missing kicks.
Larry Smith is always the guy that VU fans blame first, but I’m not doing it tonight. I think Larry has improved from last season and he’s only going to get better from here on out. Yeah, maybe he missed too many receivers with high and low passes but you could tell that his decision-making was better. I believe Larry Smith can be a winning quarterback, and I’ll stand by that till he proves me otherwise.
Overall, we had some playmakers on offense. Zac Stacy & Kennard Reeves both broke off some great runs, and Warren Norman (who was less than 100%) was carrying guys on his back every play he had. We even had some good receivers: Brandon Barden was much improved for his sophomore slump, and freshman Jonathan Krause also played great in his debut. John Cole, however, was a little disappointing: last season’s best wideout only got 15 yards last night — could we be looking at another sophomore slump?
I thought the defense played decent. Giving up 23 points is nothing to brag about, but we did a solid job of stopping their running backs. The pass defense seems to have dropped from last year, too many mistakes were being made. In all, I’m worried about if stop a rushing QB (Persa was killing us) and I also worry about Jay Fullum, who was accountable for most of our mistakes last night.
Now onto the big thing: Just last week, I was praising Vanderbilt’s sophomore kicker, Ryan Fowler, and for that, I sincerely apologize. When you get down to it, Fowler is the true reason we lost the game. If he had made the first extra point, then we wouldn’t have had to go for 2 on the other touchdowns (meaning that we would have won the game by a point).
In closing, you’ll notice that I didn’t bring up the refs (till now). Yes, they did blow some calls, but we still had plenty of other chances to win and we didn’t take them. We can only blame ourselves for that one.
If there was any good news to this game, it was that we didn’t throw in the towel even when we were down early. That, in itself, gives me some hope for this team. In fact, all go as far as saying that we can beat LSU and ‘Ole Miss (our next two games). The Tigers almost loss to a second-string team, and the Rebels did lose to a FCS school.
Go ‘Dores!
There’s plenty to talk about at the moment, so instead of writing different post, I’ve decided to let it all out here. First things first, let me go rundown so game notes so no one gets upset.
Northwestern’s Passing Game
The Wildcat’s worked up nearly 4000 yards through the air last season , including a school record 532-yard performance against Auburn. So it goes without saying that the guys know how to toss around the football. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for us, though. In fact, we would much rather face a strong passing team as opposed to a strong running team…
Vanderbilt was among the nation’s top ten in passing defense last year, and even with the loss of Myron Lewis, the Commodores looking to continue their streak of fantastic corners with JR Casey Hayward. However, our rush defense was among the nation’s worst and most people will tell you that we won’t be getting too much better in that department.
How Big is this Game?
I see the Northwestern game as one of the season’s biggest factors. If we can beat the Wildcats, who are a rather solid team, then that tells us that we can also beat teams like Kentucky, Tennessee, Wake, etc… Now, that’s not to say that losing this game would be a season killer. Like I said above, these guys are good.
Also, I have something you guys may want to see: Chris Low Picks Vandy
Jeremiah Masoli
When I originally heard that Masoli wasn’t going to play for the Rebels this season, I was thinking to myself:
“Good, one less weapon Vandy has to defend.”
Then Today I heard he was cleared to play, and I was thinking out loud:
“Dang it! One more weapon Vandy has to Defend!”