Anchor Drop, August 23, 2019: 8 Days to Kickoff

Good morning.

We are now 8 days away from Vanderbilt football’s season opener against Georgia. #8 for the Commodores is linebacker Lashawn Paulino-Bell. The 6’4”, 243-pound junior from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, played his freshman year at Michigan State before spending last season as a starter on JUCO national champion East MIssissippi.

The soccer team, on the other hand, had its season opener last night, and that went swimmingly, with the Commodores beating Georgia State 7-0. Blue Ellis had a hat trick to open the season and Haley Hopkins scored twice.

The Georgia game has been designated as the “Set the Expectation” game. Both teams will wear teal and purple stickers to raise awareness of sexual violence and relationship violence.

Meanwhile, if this doesn’t make your blood boil, I don’t know what will.

“What I’ve heard is there are 30,000 people coming from the state of Georgia to Tennessee,” said Kozak, a Nashville resident who works for UGA as regional director of development and alumni relations. “It’s going to be like a game in Athens. Speaking for the local alumni here, we’re just really excited about seeing all the fans travel in and welcome everybody into Music City and show off our town around the game.”

The audacity. It’s one thing for opposing fans to invade Vanderbilt Stadium and quite another for them to treat it like a home game.

Off the West End

So, this got the internet riled up yesterday.

Man, people really need to get over Jim Harbaugh pointing out the obvious truth that some SEC schools are cheating. But especially Ole Miss.

It sounds like the NFL playing a preseason game in Canada was a silly idea.

Dennis Dodd says college football needs to reinvent itself.

Scoreboard

MLB: Red Sox 5, Royals 4 ... Cubs 1, Giants 0 ... Nationals 7, Pirates 1 ... Braves 3, Marlins 2 ... Cardinals 6, Rockies 5 ... Astros 6, Tigers 3 ... White Sox 6, Rangers 1 ... Rays 5, Orioles 2 ... Mets 2, Indians 0 ... A’s 5, Yankees 3 ... Dodgers 3, Blue Jays 2.

NFL Preseason: Giants 25, Bengals 23 ... Redskins 19, Falcons 7 ... Patriots 10, Panthers 3 ... Ravens 26, Eagles 15 ... Raiders 22, Packers 21 ... Dolphins 22, Jaguars 7.