Anchor Drop, August 20, 2018: 12 Days

Good morning.

We’re 12 days away from Vanderbilt’s season opener against Middle Tennessee. #12 is a number worn by two Commodores. Redshirt freshman linebacker Brayden DeVault-Smith was a late addition to the 2017 signing class from nearby Pearl-Cohn High School, and he has a good frame (6’3”/225) and insane high school stats (155 total tackles and 26 tackles for loss as a senior.) Quarterback Jack Bowen is an invited walk-on from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who’s fourth on the depth chart entering the season.

Vanderbilt got in the win column for the first time in the 2018-19 athletic year. Women’s soccer took down Jacksonville 3-0, improving to 1-1 on the season after losing to Florida State in Thursday’s season opener. Madison Elwell scored the Commodores’ first goal of the season in the 18th minute; Olivia Simmons (67th minute) and Kaylann Boyd (75th minute) also scored goals. Jacksonville managed just one shot on goal to Vanderbilt’s 19.

Over at the Tennessean, Adam Sparks has a write-up about redshirt freshman defensive lineman Rutger Reitmaier, who came back to Nashville after a semester at Oregon and looks to contribute this fall.

Simon Gibbs at the Hustler previews the first three games of Vanderbilt’s schedule, and proves that he is on the same wavelength with us with this line (in reference to the Week 3 trip to Notre Dame):

I’d love to have a conversation with the person that thought this was a good idea.

Discussions for this game took place back in the James Franklin era and now that Franklin is gone, he walked Mason and the Commodores into an unnecessary, out-of-conference nightmare with no reciprocal game in Nashville.

It’s almost as if Simon reads anchor of gold dot com. Also Cutler Klein talks basketball.

Tweet of the Day

Off the West End

Brandt Snedeker drained this putt to close out a win at the Wyndham Championship on Sunday:

Snedeker finished at 21-under par and topped the rest of the field by three strokes. It’s the first PGA Tour win for Sneds since the Farmers Insurance Open in February 2016, and the ninth win of his career.

Dennis Dodd took a poll of college football coaches on who the most overrated and underrated coaches in the sport are, and guess who’s number one? That’s right, the guy who won 24 games in three years at Vanderbilt (tied with Willie Taggart, which... I’m not going to say it, I’m not going to say it...)

“When [Franklin] got the Penn State job, I thought, ‘Man, he’s a good marketer.’ He did a nice job with that. It’ll be interesting without Saquon [Barkley]. He’s underrated. He turns a lot of no[-gain] plays into 60-yard touchdowns.”

I mean, I don’t really disagree with any of that. On the other hand, it’s not like anyone is putting Franklin alongside Nick Saban or Urban Meyer just yet. Hell, most people probably wouldn’t put him on the level of Gus Malzahn or Jimbo Fisher (who, by the way, I think is criminally overrated.)

Around the SEC: Alabama basketball lost a recruit. Dawg Sports previews, well, us (spoiler: they think Georgia will win.) Kentucky seems to have a new leader in its preseason quarterback battle.

And Rocky Top Talk’s writing staff passed around a joint and made some predictions for their season.

And just for Your Uncle Mike, Brighton & Hove Albion took down Manchester United 3-2 in yesterday’s Premier League action.