2019 Vanderbilt Football Opponent Preview: East Tennessee State

Opponent: East Tennessee State Buccaneers

Date: November 23 in Nashville

All-time series record: First meeting

Last year: 8-4, #179 in Sagarin

Head coach: Randy Sanders (8-4, 2nd year)

Well, Vanderbilt has officially joined the SEC by hosting a SoCon team in the second to last week of the regular season. East Tennessee State comes to Nashville on November 23 for its first-ever meeting with Vanderbilt.

This preview is hard to write because ETSU hasn’t updated its roster for the 2019 season and what, you were expecting me to have a bunch of knowledge about them? Their leading rusher last season was a freshman (Quay Holmes) and ran for close to 1000 yards. They were an average-ish FCS team that somehow managed to go 8-4 and make the FCS Playoffs in spite of getting outscored on the season. That happens when you go 6-1 in one-score games and then lose your one game against an FBS team by a score of 59-3.

That FBS team, Tennessee, of course went 5-7 and lost to Vanderbilt for the third year in a row. So if you take anything away from this, Vanderbilt should beat ETSU easily. But know the name Quay Holmes. Okay, I think I’ve told you everything you need to know about ETSU.