Vanderbilt Hotline: One Practice In, Edition

Yesterday was Vanderbilt's first, and only, open practice as they prepare to kick off the 2007-08 season in 25 short days against the Richmond Spiders in Nashville. Not surprisingly, both the Man we Love to Hait and Mo Patton were on campus to cover the action. In today's Nashville City Paper, Brett Hait gives his thoughts on what he saw yesterday. As has been mentioned in articles about the Commies over the past few weeks, they ended last night's practice by chanting "B-C-S."

Mo Patton double dips in today's Tennessean, focusing first on yesterday's practice, and also on CBJ and Co.'s early recruiting efforts for the class of 2008. In his practice recap, Patton makes 3 observations that have to make Commodore fans well good:

"Despite working in helmets and shorts, junior tailback Jeff Jennings ran with authority during offensive drills and appeared fully recovered from the knee injury that cost him the 2006 season. Sophomore quarterback Mackenzi Adams connected with Sean Walker on a nice deep ball as well, and cornerback Myron Lewis looked sharp during one-on-one matchups."

As we discussed in the VSL Offensive Preview, we think the running game will be key, and it is very likely that Jeff Jennings will be the man to finally give the Commies an consistent running attack. Based on Mo's very preliminary observations, it sounds like that might be the case.

Mo's second article addresses Vanderbilt's early recruits for the Class of 2008, and as has become standard in articles about recruiting, relies on Rivals.com's recruit rankings. With this in mind, when you are done with the article make sure to read the comments below. One of the commenters makes a great point about Rival's ranking "not being gospel" and how CBJ and the boys have always been good at finding talent, often overlooked by others.

I think it's safe to say that Ryan Ferguson's "analysis" on AOL Sports' FanHouse that His Name is is the most overrated player in the SEC isn't going to earn him any accolades from VSL. It's not that this guy is wrong, it's that he's so wrong. Feel free to clog Ryan's blog with comments about how wrong he is.

Today's Hotline is going to be short so we can get back to our posts on my interview with the Guru and the second and third installments of our Football Previews.

If anyone was at yesterday's practice, we'd love to hear your takes. Also, be sure to check VUCommodores.com's Preseason Central.

I'm out, but keep checking back as VSL continues to prep you for the Commies impending domination of the SEC.