Anchor Drop, June 26, 2020: 71 Days to Kickoff

Good morning.

We’re now 71 days away from Vanderbilt football’s scheduled opener against Mercer. #71 for Vanderbilt is redshirt freshman offensive lineman Donald Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, who played a few miles down 21st Avenue at Hillsboro High School, is a bit of a project but has good size at 6’8” and 300 pounds.

Optional Musical Accompaniment

This doesn’t make me feel better.

Sources with direct knowledge of told Commodore Country that Charles Wright’s participation in pro days was petitioned by his family and representation to the university and its athletics department. The petition was granted that he could participate as an unaffiliated guest, and it was communicated to the Wright family from athletic department officials. It is unclear if the university communicated the approval of the petition to Siems.

Again: who green-lighted this? (I have my suspicions that this is going to be pinned on now-former Athletic Director Malcolm Turner.)

Greg Arias also asks if college athletics will be changed forever by COVID-19. All we really care about is that Rhodes and Sewanee continue to play every year. (We’ve already given up on Sewanee and Vanderbilt playing each other ever again.)

Ethan Paul reflects on the College World Series experience.

Here’s my friend Poseur at ATVS bursting everyone’s bubble about college football season. (Oh, but they’re absolutely going to try to play football, and Poseur also skips past placing blame for this where it belongs.)

Updated: When are sports coming back?

Apparently not any time soon, if Twitter is to be believed.

Actual Sports on TV

There’s the second round of the PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship on the Golf Channel at 2:00 PM CT, followed by the Korn Ferry Tour’s Utah Championship at 5:00 PM CT. Yay, golf!

ESPN+ has some soccer. In the Italian Serie A, there’s Juventus v. Lecce at 2:30 PM CT, and they also have English Championship soccer (Brentford v. West Bromwich Albion) at 1:40 PM CT. BeIN Sports has a Turkish Super Lig match (Besiktas v. Konyaspor) at 12:55 PM CT, followed by La Liga (Sevilla v. Valladolid) at 2:55 PM CT.