We don’t ask for much. Win more than you lose. Win most of the home games, try for around .500 in the conference, generally win homecoming or non-conference games, and at least beat your arch-rival about one out of three or so, certainly more than once every 10 years. A team like that, going 7-5 and 4-4 in conference play routinely, would probably be a nightmare and a misery to most college football fans.
To Vanderbilt, it’s a once-in-a-quarter-century achievement.
Brigadoon’s gone. Whatever cosmic mix of talent and coaching led to 24 wins in 3 years, with victories over Georgia and Florida and (twice!) Tennessee, it’s history. We’re back to the days when a good year looks like 5 wins and one upset worth turning into a DVD, when DiNardo can average five wins a year and get SEC Coach of the Year (which Franklin somehow never did), when it’s more realistic to look at the schedule and see 2-10, when the best you can hope for is that you’re building toward maybe six wins next season.
I’m done. I cannot do this anymore. I cannot emotionally invest in a sure failure, especially when success earns nothing better. Football is an abusive relationship and I’m burning the bed. I love Vanderbilt, I support Vanderbilt, I wish nothing but the best for Vanderbilt, but until college football is de-NFL’d and we’re playing the same sport as the illiterate criminals that line up for the rest of the league, I can’t be involved.
I’m out.