Photo by Matthew Tosh via Flickr.
Vanderbilt just put the finishing touches on a nine-win season. If you’re wondering when the last time that happened was, here’s a hint: the only people who can actually remember the last time that the Commodores did that are the same people who wake up early to get a birthday greeting from Willard Scott each year.
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2012 was a historic season for Vanderbilt football. This team washed away the sour taste of a front-loaded schedule to end their season with the SEC’s longest winning streak. The ‘Dores rallied from a 2-4 start to finish 9-4, toppling SEC rivals Ole Miss, Kentucky, Missouri, Auburn, and most importantly, Tennessee in that span. Vandy helped get no fewer than three different coaches fired while slowly building their fanbase at Dudley Field. Games against Florida, Auburn, and Tennessee turned into sellouts. Parking lots formerly dotted with creamsicle orange bumper stickers suddenly saw an infusion of black and gold across Music City.
Records fell in the midst of those nine wins. Zac Stacy became Vandy’s all-time rushing king with a season that would have broken the school’s yardage record if he hadn’t set it at 1,193 yards the year before. Jordan Matthews shattered Boo Mitchell’s receiving mark with 1,329 receiving yards. And, with 2,539 yards through the air, Jordan Rodgers had the fourth-best season in terms of passing yards in school history.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many meaningful records for Vandy’s defensive unit to break. That’s a shame, because it overshadows an impressive effort that kept the Commodores in all but one game this season. Vanderbilt put together the NCAA’s 15th-best defense, allowing less than 19 points per game. Players like Walker May, Archibald Barnes, Trey Wilson, and Caleb Azubike all came up with huge plays during a season where Vandy’s “D” was a major question mark. This team lost their four biggest defensive stalwarts – Tim Fugger, Chris Marve, Sean Richardson, and Casey Hayward – and somehow IMPROVED on their 2011 campaign.
Granted, Vanderbilt’s strength of schedule in 2012 wasn’t as stout as it had been in the past. The Commodores took advantage of a down year for the lower tier of the SEC and beat only two programs that ended up with bowl eligibility in 2012 – Ole Miss and N.C. State. That lack of competitive stature has earned the ‘Dores some critics following their Music City Bowl win.
But that’s not Vanderbilt’s fault. And if you want to harangue James Franklin’s team for taking care of business and winning the games that they should have, then you’re not taking an objective look at this program. Dismissing this team’s record thanks to a middling strength of schedule completely ignores the program’s progress and the turnaround that is taking place on West End Avenue.
Why? Because Vanderbilt, for decades, has been one of those teams that pads opposing records. The Commodores could very easily have fallen into the category that Missouri and Tennessee found themselves in for 2012. Hell, Franklin could have hit the finish line at 5-7 this year and it still could have been considered a net benefit for long-suffering season ticket holders.
But they didn’t. Instead of winning one game that they shouldn’t have and losing three that had been pencilled in as wins – an unfortunate element of the Bobby Johnson era – this team bowed up when they needed to and wrought every advantage that they could find on their way to nine wins. They also fought hard in their losses, playing competitively (with the exception of the Georgia game) in four losses that all came against 10-win teams.
The Commodores did what they were supposed to do and what James Franklin said that they would do. This team didn’t let past losses linger and came out as a better team than they had been the week before every Saturday. Their improvement was stark. The atmosphere around the team was electric. Their play, on both sides of the ball, was impressive.
That’s what has helped mold Nashville into the early stages of becoming a Commodore town. Ratings for the Music City Bowl were through the roof in the metro area. Fans, like recruits, are slowly buying into Franklin’s enthusiasm now that he’s got the wins to back it up. In two short years, Vanderbilt has taken a program that had been one of the worst amongst the BCS conferences and driven it towards legitimacy.
As for the Bowl itself? It really wasn’t all that impressive. All Vanderbilt had to do was to show up against a North Carolina State team that largely couldn’t get out of its own way. The Wolfpack’s turnover problems doomed their drives all day, and with the exception of a garbage-time touchdown and a kickoff return, State struggled to get to the end zone. Much of the credit there should go to the Commodore defense, but it was also abundantly clear that many of Vandy’s opportunities came from correctable mistakes by Mike Glennon and the rest of the NC State offense.
The most important outcome of Monday’s win was the new placement of expectations on Vanderbilt’s football program. The high-water mark for Franklin and his staff is now nine wins and a new year’s eve bowl win. That’s a goal that this team can sell to recruits and fans as they move into 2013 with an ever-expanding base of player talent. The departures of Stacy, Rodgers, Barnes, and others will hurt, but the cupboard isn’t bare. Those three players emerged from platoon situations and position battles to become standouts for a 9-4 team late in their careers. They’ll serve as an inspiration for some highly-touted recruits who have been waiting in the wings.
When March rolls around, it will bring Vanderbilt’s most highly-anticipated spring season of all time. Will Austyn Carta-Samuels take over at quarterback, or will Patton Robinette shine as a redshirt freshman? Is Brian Kimbrow ready to be a full-time tailback? Can a class of highly-hyped linebackers give Vandy the personnel to throw a 3-4 set against SEC defenses?
We don’t know what the future will hold there, but we do know the answer to one question: 10 wins. That’s what it will take for James Franklin and his staff to top the best Commodore season in nearly a century.
The PiBB ICE Player of the Game: Zac Stacy
Goodnight, sweet prince. Vanderbilt’s most prolific running back of all-time rounded out his NCAA career with his 10th 100-yard rushing game. Stacy carried the ball 25 times for 107 yards and a touchdown, putting a stamp on a four-year stint that saw him break the Commodores’ all-time and single-season rushing records while becoming the highest-scoring non-kicker in school history. The senior from Centreville, Alabama finished 2012 with 1,140 rushing yards, trailing only his 2011 total for the most yards in a single year in the Vandy record books.
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