The start of the college football season has been full of surprises and disappointments. Both Tennessee and Vanderbilt started Saturday 2-0 and only one team ended the day 3-0. However, it was the team most would not have suspected.
Vanderbilt beat Ole Miss by the final of 30-7 on Saturday. The Commodores scored 21 points in the second quarter in route to a rare, but easy, win at Vanderbilt Stadium. Quarterback Larry Smith started the scoring with a 19 yard touchdown run and then a minute later defensive back Trey Wilson put the Commodores up 14-0 after a 52 yard interception return for a touchdown. At the end of the third quarter, Vandy running back Zac Stacy put the game out of reach with a 77 yard touchdown run. The big win was strongly attributed to Vandy’s five takeaways.
“By nature we are an aggressive defense. We do quite a bit of blitzing and movement and things like that,” Vandy defensive coordinator told the Tennessean on Saturday. “I thought our guys did a good job creating havoc up front and doing things like that so, that’s important to us to be disruptive.”
The Commodores take their 3 game winning streak on the road next week as they look to go 4-0. They face the 12th ranked South Carolina Gamecocks Saturday in Columbia.
The other SEC team in Tennessee did not fare so well on Saturday. The Vols took on Florida in “The Swamp.” The game didn’t start well for Volunteer fans as star wideout Justin Hunter left the game after the first series with an ACL tear and is out for the remainder of the season.
Sophomore quarterback Tyler Bray said it was tough to lose such a key player in a big game. Bray admits, though, that they had three quarters to make plays, but failed to do so.
Even with the Gators defense sitting back on the pass, Bray continued to look sharp even without Hunter. Bray completed 26 of 48 pass attempts for 288 yards, with 3 touchdowns and 2 interceptions.
However, the Vols were never really in the game. The Gators stormed out to a 16 point early lead before Bray hit Marlin Lane for an 8 yard touchdown pass to give the Vols life.
The Gators came out in the third quarter and got two quick touchdowns. The second of the two may have put the nail in the coffin. Chris Rainey was left wide open in the flat and took an 83 yard catch and run into the endzone to put the Gators up 30 to 7. The Gators went on to win by ten points, 33 to 23.
The drama continues off the field as well. The Pac 12, SEC and ACC are looking to expand their respective conferences.
Rumors have swirled since the start of the season about conference expansion. Pitt and Syracuse have locked up their moves to the ACC and are leaving the Big East. Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boehiem voiced his opinion on the move to the ACC, and he was obviously a bit irritated with all the expansion talk.
“If conference commissioners were the founding fathers of this country, we would have Guatemala, Uruguay and Argentina in the United States,” Boeheim said in a press conference. “This audience knows why we are doing this. There’s two reasons: money and football.”
After much drama with the Big 12, the SEC is reportedly looking to add Texas A&M and Missouri as the thirteenth and fourteenth members of the conference.
It has also been rumored that the Pac 12 is looking to expand their conference by adding Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. Many rivalries could be ending over the next couple years if conferences continue to realign.
“When you start looking at all the great games we grew up on there is history in there for me and it does matter to me,” said Texas coach Mack Brown to the newly formed Longhorn Network. “I’m afraid that some of the younger guys growing up won’t have the same feeling about the passion that we have now if we continue to change leagues and continue to change rivals.”