VANDERBILT

noun
1) nationally recognized university located in Nashville, Tennessee
2) historically, a source of great pain for its football fans
3) the team ranked 13th in the AP College Football poll as of Sunday, October 5

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am a lifelong college football fan. However, until I was 18, I was a fan of winning football teams. That all changed in August of 1991 when I enrolled at Vanderbilt University. Growing up in southern Alabama, the comment I most often received upon telling acquaintances that I was going to Vanderbilt for college was, "Oh. You mean that team Alabama beats every year?" Yes, that's the one.

I didn't go to Vanderbilt for its football team (few do), and until this year, I've mostly come to accept that we were doomed to be at the bottom of the best conference in all of college football. The problem is that now I've begun to believe that we can actually win. This is a whole new universe.

Let me recap some of the emotions I've experienced thus far this season:


Stage I, Acceptance: Before the season even starts, I've accepted that Vanderbilt will self-destruct during at least two close games, manage to pull off an upset, lose to someone we should have beat and end the season with great disappointment. This is in sharp contrast to my husband, whose Stage I emotion is always optimism that THIS will be the season. Before the season started, some of my husband's college friends passed around their predictions for the season. The most optimistic prediction was 6-7, with a loss in the Music City Bowl to finish off the season. I'll admit I thought our friend was a bit delusional to think we could win 6 games. I have been a Vanderbilt fan for more than 15 years and we've never been to a bowl game. If we couldn't manage to do it with Jay Cutler quarterbacking or last year, with Earl Bennett, why would we be able to this year?


Stage II, Anxiety: Vanderbilt won its first three games of the season, including a second game upset of nationally ranked South Carolina. Our 4th game was Ole Miss, in Oxford. No sane, informed Vanderbilt fan thought we would win this game to go 4-0. We have self-destructed with far less grand opportunities than this. For those of you who don't follow this sort of thing, we beat Ole Miss. That's great, but my immediate emotion was great anxiety. The last time we started 4-0, we crumbled in the 5th game (to MTSU, of all people) and finished the season a greatly disappointing 5-7. That's right, in recent memory, we went 4-0 and then 1-7 to finish the season. My overwhelming thought after beating Ole Miss was, "How are we going to blow this?" I truly did not enjoy the Ole Miss win because of my anxiety about the rest of the season. This anxiety was well-founded. Up next, after a one week bye, was nationally ranked Auburn, who boasted a stifling defense.


Stage III, Hope: During Vanderbilt's bye week, Auburn played Tennessee. It was clear from watching that dismal game that while Auburn's defense was fabulous, their offense was, well, not much of an offense. They didn't seem to know what they were doing or how to do it. That they managed to beat UT was more of a reflection of UT's ineptitude than their own strength as a team. Maybe we could beat them? No, of course we couldn't. Then it was announced that ESPN Game Day was coming to Vanderbilt for the Vandy/Auburn game. This was huge - and a huge opportunity for us to blow it on national television. The anxiety returned and stayed with me until near half-time of the game, when Auburn led 13-0 after scoring two quick touchdowns.


Stage IV, Pride: But shortly before the half, Vanderbilt put together a drive and scored a touchdown to make it 13-7 going into the half. We had momentum on our side and one of the biggest differences in this Vanderbilt team and the teams of the past was that we were BETTER in the second half than in the first half. I think for years, Vanderbilt's football team didn't really believe they could win a close SEC game. This year is different. I think our players know they can win. I was so proud of our team's play through the rest of the Auburn game. We won 14-13 and our defense and offense both did their jobs. It wasn't a comfortable win - a victory margin of more than 1 would have been nice - but I think the team believed we could win, the crowd believed we could win and Auburn beleived we could win. We did and it was glorious. I was somewhat amazed that my primary emotion was not vindication - it's hard to lose close game after close game, year after year and not be a little bit bitter. But I was proud. I was so proud of our coaches, our team and our fans.


I can't wait to see how the rest of the season plays out. I know we will lose games - as of right now, we play two teams that are ranked higher than we are in the AP polls. But this is a new Vanderbilt and my word for right now is: "Expectancy." Let's see where this season takes us...