Anchor Drop, August 3, 2019: 28 Days to Kickoff

Good morning afternoon.

The countdown reaches four weeks. We’re now 28 days away from Vanderbilt football’s season opener against Georgia. #28 for the Commodores is Allan George, a redshirt sophomore cornerback who went from “guy we flipped from FCS Richmond a few days before Signing Day” to “part-time starter and contributor in the defensive backfield” in a short period of time. So, that’s good.

Vanderbilt has announced its five-member Hall of Fame Class of 2019, who will be inducted on August 30. The class starts with former football player and head men’s basketball coach Josh Cody — who, as Vanderbilt’s only three-time All-American in football and also a basketball coach, it’s a wonder he wasn’t already inducted. The rest of the class consists of football player Chris Gaines, women’s basketball’s Carla Thomas, soccer’s Laura Koerner Stewart, and tennis player Bobby Reynolds.

Rocky Top Talk gets around to us in their opponent preview series. Money quote:

Vanderbilt has won five of its last seven games against the Vols and now, in 2019, the final game of the year is anything but a guaranteed win for Tennessee.

Ah, that’s right.

And in a shocking development, former Bachelorette winner and current house-flipper and SEC Network commentator Jordan Rodgers has a new criticism of Vanderbilt, this time over, uh, academics:

“But then again, I honestly think, that Vanderbilt uses the academics as a crutch at times. We can get in who we need to get in. There’s a process to show proof of how you’re gonna help someone through school, how you’re gonna place tutor programs around them, what programs you’re gonna put them in.

So, yeah. First of all, let’s not forget the time that Jordan Rodgers trashed a bunch of Vanderbilt fans (and some important donors, and, well, us) for pointing out that he’d crossed a line into being a jerk about Vanderbilt’s lack of investment in football. But as to academics... well, that’s definitely an opinion. It’s also more or less a long-time trope that you can’t compete in football unless you go admit a bunch of dummies and pass them along through bullshit classes, not with the goal of educating them but simply keeping them eligible.

There’s a fundamental difference between asking that Vanderbilt still be Vanderbilt but with the investments in football (and other athletic programs) needed to be competitive, and asking that Vanderbilt be basically Tennessee. The former is something that may very well happen under Malcolm Turner. The latter is something that will not happen under any foreseeable Vanderbilt administration.

(Speaking of which, Chris Lee podcasted with Adam Sparks about the latter’s year-old investigative piece into what Vanderbilt was really doing with its athletic department.)

Scoreboard

MLB: Cubs 6, Brewers 2 ... Yankees 4, Red Sox 2 ... White Sox 4, Phillies 3 ... Pirates 8, Mets 4 ... Blue Jays 5, Orioles 2 ... Indians 7, Angels 3 ... Reds 5, Braves 2 ... Rangers 5, Tigers 4 ... Astros 10, Mariners 2 ... Twins 11, Royals 9 ... Rockies 5, Giants 4 ... Nationals 3, Diamondbacks 0 ... Padres 5, Dodgers 2.

PGA Tour: Byeong Hun An leads the Wyndham Championship by one stroke after two rounds.