No, Homecoming is about tailgates and football

There’s a reason why, when Homecoming first became a thing, colleges and universities (and, well, high schools) scheduled it on the weekend of a home football game. If you’re going to invite alumni back to campus to relive memories of their time at the school, it might as well be on a weekend when the football team is playing at home, because there’s a good chance that your best memories of college involved football. Hell, even Sewanee schedules Homecoming on the weekend of a home football game.

Vanderbilt has scheduled its homecoming this year for October 11-13, the weekend of the Florida game. So that’s not an issue. But Vanderbilt has taken a lot of heat over the last couple of weeks due to articles in the Tennessean about the university’s foot-dragging on football stadium renovations and just the general lack of commitment to the football program.

In other words, it’s probably not the best time to be sending an email like this:

Hey, Chancellor Zeppos...nobody asked you whether Vanderbilt was committed to challenging minds.