Anchor Drop, July 5, 2018: 58 Days

Good morning.

Today marks 58 days from Vanderbilt’s season opener against Middle Tennessee State. 58 for the Commodores is offensive lineman Justin Skule, who’s started every game over the last two seasons and has 27 career starts. Skule started at right tackle as a sophomore and left tackle as a junior; as a senior, the 6’6”, 305-pounder will be one of the leaders up front.

All right, let’s just get it out of the way: July sucks. It’s kind of close to football season, but not close enough to get really excited about it. Baseball season is fine, but this is the part of the season when the Opening Day magic has worn off and the playoff push hasn’t hit full swing yet. Basketball and hockey are in the offseason. The World Cup is going on, but not today. Oh yeah, and it’s hot as hell outside.

Speaking of the World Cup, the Tennessean (or really, USA Today, because it’s not fair to put this on the Tennessean) has an article whose clickbait title is “Why a shocking World Cup finalist is guaranteed.” The premise of the article rests on the belief that England, the country that literally invented soccer, making a World Cup final would be a shocker. (Or Croatia, for that matter.)

NBC Sports ranks the World Cup quarterfinalists.

Joey Chestnut ate 74 hot dogs yesterday. This, for some reason, is sports news.

Today on the sports calendar: eight MLB games and, of course, golf. Seriously, this must be the worst day of the sports year.