Anchor Drop, June 15, 2019: 77 Days to Kickoff

Good morning.

We’re now 77 days away from Vanderbilt football’s season opener against Georgia — 11 weeks! Today’s Commodore is #77, Devin Cochran, the starting right tackle in all 13 games last season after starting 10 games as a redshirt freshman in 2017. The 6’7”, 315-pound Cochran figures to move to left tackle to replace Justin Skule this year, and he’s gotten some notice after putting in solid work on the line last season — Athlon Sports named him fourth-team Preseason All-SEC.

VUCommodores.com has a podcast up with Kendall Rogers of D1baseball.com.

It appears that third baseman Parker Noland will be coming to campus next season; Noland reportedly turned down $489,000 from the Toronto Blue Jays, who wanted him in the fourth round (Noland was ultimately drafted by the Marlins in the 31st round.)

ICYMI: Freshman QB Jamil Muhammad is in the transfer portal.

Off the West End

MTSU added a beer garden to its football stadium before we did. Oof.

SI’s Luis Miguel Echegaray on the fight for equality in soccer resources in Argentina and Chile.

Idaho fired its basketball coach because of possible NCAA violations.

Pat Forde and Pete Thamel speculate about which schools named in the FBI probe are going to be targeted by the NCAA.

Today in Bill C.’s previews, USC (the one out west.)

From our sister blogs: Arkansas Fight on the extremely weird story about Bret Bielema and K.J. Hill, as told by noted gentleman Zach Smith ... from College and Magnolia, Auburn gets a linebacker ... Red Cup Rebellion is not optimistic about the upcoming football season, but most of their writers think they’ll still be better than Vandy, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear ... Rock M Nation writes about Mizzou getting a D-lineman, but also about basketball in the middle of June (are we supposed to consider them an SEC school?) ... Rocky Top Talk podcasts ... Good Bull Hunting predicts the trademark cocktail at each SEC football stadium.

Scoreboard

MLB: Cardinals 5, Mets 4 (completion of suspended game) ... Nationals 7, Diamondbacks 3 ... Red Sox 13, Orioles 2 ... Indians 13, Tigers 4 ... Cardinals 9, Mets 5 ... Pirates 11, Marlins 0 ... Rangers 7, Reds 1 ... Braves 9, Phillies 8 ... Twins 2, Royals 0 ... Rays 9, Angels 4 ... White Sox 10, Yankees 2 ... Astros 15, Blue Jays 2 ... Padres 16, Rockies 12 ... Mariners 9, A’s 2 ... Dodgers 5, Cubs 3 ... Giants 5, Brewers 3.

U.S. Open: Gary Woodland is your annual average-ish PGA Tour pro who has the lead after 36 holes at a major. Justin Rose is two back, Louis Oosthuizen three back, Rory McIlroy and Aaron Wise are four off the lead.

FIFA World Cup: Japan 2-1 Scotland ... Jamaica 0-5 Italy ... England 1-0 Argentina.

Copa America: Brazil 3-0 Bolivia.

Today: The College World Series gets underway, with Texas Tech-Michigan at 1:00 PM CT, followed by Florida State-Arkansas at 6:00 PM CT. Both games are on ESPN. The weather forecast in Omaha calls for scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon, so don’t be surprised if there are delays.

Two matches at the FIFA Women’s World Cup: Netherlands-Cameroon (8:00 AM CT, FS1) and Canada-New Zealand (2:00 PM CT, FS2.)

At Copa America: Venezuela-Peru (2:00 PM CT, ESPN+) and Argentina-Colombia (5:00 PM CT, ESPN+.)

In MLB action, Mike Minor pitches for the Rangers at Cincinnati (6:10 PM CT), and Walker Buehler goes against the Cubs (8:10 PM CT.)