Vanderbilt Hotline: Lock it Up

Lock it Up, the only sports love of Bobby's life that he has any real control over, starts their 2007 campaign tonight. With a new skipper at the helm, it's sure to be a better season. Sorry for the delay, Bobby had to pay the bills this morning and figured today's Hotline should be enough to get you through the rest of your day.

There's not much in the world of Vanderbilt sports news. Brett Hait's got a piece talking about the muted reaction to Vanderbilt clinching their first ever SEC East regular season title over the weekend. The Nashville City Paper piece goes on to say that Vanderbilt can clinch the division outright with 2 wins or a win and an Arkansas loss over the final weekend. There are some other "golden nuggets" worth checking out, including Ryan Flaherty sporting a 21-game hitting streak.

MasonFan pointed out this article to me that I thought was worth passing on. Matt Dougherty wrote on SportsNetwork.com an article outlining the most likely I-AA upsets (or whatever you call them) over I-A opponents in football this season. Dougherty has Vanderbilt losing to Richmond in the opening game of the season (in Nashville) as the 7th most likely upset. Now, I am conflicted. On the one hand, I think Matt is hose-head and totally off. Just because Vanderbilt might be "one of the worst teams in the SEC" according to young Dougherty (a dubious claim as far as I am concerned) does not necessarily make them a ripe target for Richmond or any other I-AA. While it might have been true in the past that Vanderbilt was a pushover, I really don't think that is still the case. These are not your daddy's Commies. Vanderbilt is returning their entire starting offensive line, have one of the best wide receivers in AMERICA, have a QB with a year's experience and demonstrated ability, not to mention the beast that is Jonathan Goff. Vanderbilt should roll Richmond. Aside from Matt's prognostications, I do think that Richmond is a bad game for Vanderbilt to schedule and I have said that many times in this space. The Spiders have had some success at the I-AA level and can certainly play. Vanderbilt beating them is a non-story. Vanderbilt losing is a HUGE story. I am going to go with my first instinct and say that Matt is way off. If you would like to email him and tell him how wrong he is, you can by clicking here.

"Hi, I'm Matt. I am really wrong. Email and tell me why." (Note, not an actual quote from Matt).




American Idol is down to 3 and I really hope Blake goes home. He sucks. I have no idea what the theme is tonight, but I bet the good Doctor will fill us in.

Great thread below on Vanderbilt expanding into more women's sports, and ways to fix Title IX. Check it out.