I actually skipped the Sugar Bowl, almost in its entirety. Thank goodness for people coming into town to visit – dinner, drinks and a bout of emergency shoe and USB hub shopping (really!) made it possible for me to miss the game almost completely.
Good thing, too, because to all accounts, Alabama shat the bed in truly epic fashion. This is going to make the SEC look very, very bad, even before throwing fuel on the fire of all the nimrods who think Utah and Boise State deserve BCS bids in perpetuity. You can bet there are going to be serious recriminations now, especially vis-a-vis a) whether Andre Smith’s offense was truly suspension-worthy if it didn’t entail NCAA risk and b) why the spread-option is Nick Saban’s Kryptonite this year. Number one in the country, followed by a two-game swoon in two of the three (or four it you’re me) biggest games of the year is not the kind of thing that people will let lie.
But hey – Vandy, son. Just mathed it up and realized that the Dores have 18 of 22 starters returning from the team that beat BC. Add that to an SEC East without Stafford, Moreno or Tebow, the complete collapse of South Carolina, and the spectacle of Hello Kiffy trying to coach in the SEC – you have to think that 6 or 7 wins should be repeatable next year. SHOULD be. Any Vanderbilt supporter will tell you, though – no guarantee is good enough and there’s no swoon too deep for the Dores to take.