45-34

IF I HAD THE WINGS OF AN EAGLE

IF I HAD THE TAIL OF A CROW

I’D FLY MY ASS STRAIGHT OVER KNOXVILLE

AND SHIT ON THOSE BASTARDS BELOW!!!

I didn’t watch the game as it happened. I haven’t watched much all year – largely because I didn’t need the kind of trauma this team has given me the last couple of seasons. I just hosted the holiday party and trusted the guys to handle their business. And amazingly, it all worked out, in a way that I couldn’t have expected when the year started.

3-9 the first year, a disaster. 4-8 the next – almost worse in a way, because there was obvious progress that didn’t translate into results on the field. And when this team limped through the first half of the season, getting blown away by Georgia Tech (thanks for nothing, cuz) and losing three SEC games by a touchdown or less, it began to look like the Dores just couldn’t get over the hump. And then…

Let’s be honest: we probably didn’t deserve to beat Western Kentucky or Georgia. But we certainly didn’t deserve to lose to Cocky AND to GATA AND to UK. So that’s sort of a wash, far as I’m concerned. We shouldn’t have lost to Mizzou but definitely deserved to, we went toe-to-toe with Auburn…and then in these last two games, against two rivals, everything clicked. We didn’t back into it, we didn’t fluke into it, we went out and beat Ole Miss and Tennessee convincingly. Hell, look at the way the UT game went: in the first half we traded punch for punch, went down 31-24 at the half, and then beat them handily in the second half, 21-3. The adjustments were made and they worked and we delivered the goods.

So there it is, in the cold light of morning: Big Six. Lost one of the non-conference games the formula requires, but made up for it with three SEC wins – Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee. The steady improvement continues, and now this team will wind up in a bowl berth on the merits instead of needing to leverage the APR loophole. Vanderbilt heads to its fifth bowl since 2008 under the third different coach to get them there.  In that time, of course, they’ve also won two games in the season (twice) and three and four…but since that 2008 season, we have more bowl years than sub-.500 years.

You look at that…and something has changed. After all, we didn’t break the .500 mark once from 1983 to 2007. Lot of 5 win seasons, the occasional fluke over UT or Bama or Georgia (OK, usually Georgia), but mostly a whole lot of blowout losses and “same old Vandy” head-shaking. Sometime in the last decade, the bar changed. Yes, the Brigadoon era was an anomaly at the time, but if you look at the team from roughly 2004 to that 2008 season, you could see the slow progress. And now, three years on, the movement may not be quick but it appears inexorable…hopefully.

After all, on this pace, we’re looking at the SEC title game in five years, right?