Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Vanderbilt Hotline: Fest(iv)us for the Rest of Us, Edition

Despite the Commies' football season starting in just 15 days, we are going to, again, start with something else. Breaking news out of Nashville scooped up by the Man we Love to Hait, 6-11 Festus Ezeli, the 138th best recruit as rated by Rivals.com for his play with the AAU NorCal Pharaohs this summer. The full story appears on the Nashville City Paper website, and Brett was even nice enough to send VSL an email letting us know about the signing. As Brett reports, Festus is the 6th recruit for the class of 2007-08, and is expected to redshirt. While Vanderbilt fans were already excited about Crocodile OG and his presence in the middle, the idea that the Commies might actually have a "twin towers" scenario in the years to come is almost too much to handle. We'll try to get Brett on VSL to talk about this edition and what it means for Commies basketball.

Mo Patton's got two pieces in today's Tennessean, the first dealing with the emergence of Darlron Speed in the Vanderbilt's "nickle" package. The story gives a nice introduction to what the nickle defense is (see, you do learn something every day) and how Speed is, as far as the Commies are concerned, the "prototypical" player for that set. Mo's second piece in the Tennessean deals with how Vanderbilt is now in preparation mode not for the season, but for their first opponent, the Richmond Spiders. Brett gets into how true freshman Theron Kadri is expected to help the Commies right away in today's Nashville City Paper. According to Hait's story, after a great training camp, Kadri has broken his way into the starting rotation, especially given Vanderbilt's lack of depth at defensive end (a point repeatedly made in our VSL Defensive/Special Teams Preview).

Our friends at Who Ya With have done a simulation of Vanderbilt's upcoming season on EA Sports. According to Marv's post, Vanderbilt beats Bama, Auburn, and Wake, but drops games to Ole Miss, South Carolina, and UK. Overall, the simulation has Vanderbilt going 6-6 and playing (and beating) Michigan State in the Independence Bowl to end the season at 7-6. This is a cool post and is definitely worth a read.

While Vanderbilt ace David Price will not be returning, Dominic de la Osa will be after failing to agree to terms with the Detroit Lions according to VUCommodores.com. As the Guru said in our conversation, this team is really, really going to be able to hit.

If the Poolboy is calling, you better not screen, or you'll end up on his list along side dictators and Joey Fatone.

Orientation starts tomorrow for me, the Stanimal has already had his first day, and Seamus is enjoying his last days of freedom. That means that our loyal readers are going to have to drive things a little more. Our new format will mean fewer posts, but hopefully enough to satiate your Commie hunger. Details coming shortly.

9 comments:

Woody said...

Small correction: De la Osa plays baseball, not football, hence it should read Detroit Tigers. Besides, if I was drafted by the Lions, I'd probably return to school too.

Will said...

Also, Brett Hait didn't have the scoop on Ezeli. Jesse Johnson at VandySports first reported it and it was later confirmed by Hait.

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