It's hard for outsiders to imagine what being a Vanderbilt football fan is like. Fans of other teams always wonder how we continue to follow a team that hasn't been to a bowl game in 25 years, and the best way I can describe it is that it's like being a golfer. In golf, no matter how bad you are, you'll occasionally hit a great shot. Then, you think that somehow, you'll be able to duplicate that success on a consistent basis, so you keep playing, even if your scores never dip below 100. Likewise, under Bobby Johnson, for every clunker that Vanderbilt plays (MTSUx3, Bama & Auburn this year, recent losses to Ole Miss, etc.) the team seemingly responds with a huge win (Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina).
Today, we beat #6 South Carolina, to mark our first win over a team ranked that highly since 1934. This comes after a horrible performance 2 weeks ago at Auburn and a severely disappointing loss last weekend to Georgia after fumbling the game away. Many fans on the message board, and myself to some extent, figured the dreams of a bowl bid were over after. Now, we're at 4-3 (2 shy of the 6 required for a bowl game) with Miami of Ohio next week, followed by Florida, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and the finale against Wake Forest. Assuming we beat Miami next week, we'll need to beat one of the other 4 teams for a bowl bid. Wake Forest is the most likely target, but I wouldn't put it past us to beat one of the other 3.
2 comments:
I'm not a golfer, but that makes perfect sense to me.
Bad poker players are similar, by the way, but the whole dirty secret is that the game is set up with enough variance to let them win a lot, at least enough to think they're not losing long-term. :)
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