SEC Media Picks Vanderbilt Football to Finish Last

In the annual ritual known as SEC Media Days, members of the media exercise their annual tradition of being wrong.  But this year, they appear to have outdone themselves:

SEC Champion

East Division (First-Place Votes in Parentheses)

West Division (First Place Votes in Parentheses)

Of course, here at Anchor of Gold, we are concerned that exactly one school in the SEC was not picked by a single writer to win its division, and that's Vanderbilt.  In fact, Vanderbilt got 243 points -- and considering that 225 writers voted in the poll, that means that at least 207 of them picked the Commodores to finish last in the East.  Apparently they took Vanderbilt coach Rod Dowhower Woody Widenhofer Roody Dowenhofer Derek Mason at his word when he actually said

I assumed just because we were in the SEC we’d play like an SEC team. We didn’t.

Dowenhofer would have never said something this ridiculous, because they knew for a fact that Vanderbilt wouldn't play like an SEC team.  But it's amazing just how quickly the media's opinion of Vandy has fallen.  Remember, from 2011-13, this was a program that won 24 games and went to three straight bowls.  It's taken all of one year for the media to treat Vandy like they did during the Woodson Hofenbrown era: maybe beats Kentucky (but no, not really, some writer actually voted Kentucky to win the East and you know he won't shut up about it for ten years if that comes true), probably loses to MTSU and Houston, 2-10 and hey when does basketball season start?

In all fairness, I really don't have a good argument that Vanderbilt won't finish seventh in the East.  But the near-unanimity of that opinion -- in a conference where the seventh-place pick in the West actually got a vote to win the whole conference -- is rather disturbing.