Although if you have to lose, losing to Coach Croom’s team is far from a disgrace. There’s actually a lot of symmetry there: a good stout defense that capitalizes on mistakes and an offense that does just enough to keep the ball away from the other team. Vandy got out-posessed 36 minutes to 24, and that should really tell you all you need to know. Well, that and the fact that they set season highs for penalties and turnovers. Much of what has gone well all year for the ‘Dores revolved around doing all the itty-bitty things right and not making mistakes.
Well, technically, all that’s shot to hell now is the national title game berth. Everything else up to and including an SEC championship is still on the cards, as the Commodores are technically still tied for 1st place in the SEC East. But then, we do have Georgia next week. My concern there is that once the Dawgs realize that they really need not to get snakebit again (and heaven knows Vandy has shocked their shit more times than they’d like to remember), we will wake up in a week on a 2-game losing streak and at risk of foundering against Duke…and losing the Duke game would seriously raise the possibility that the 5-game winning streak will be capped by a Tedford-esque 7-game losing streak.
And then there will be trouble.
(No idea why the ‘Skins shat the bed, although I put all the blame on Johnny “Cakes” Auville. If he ever bets on YOUR team, hang yourself. Or better yet, hang him.)