Anchor Drop, September 16, 2020: Another DB in the portal

Good morning.

Optional Musical Accompaniment

So, for the second day in a row, a Vanderbilt defensive back has announced he’s transferring. This time, it’s Tre Douglas:

Both Douglas and Tae Daley (who announced his transfer on Monday) were upperclassmen who weren’t projected to start, but seriously: why now?

Derek Mason liked what he saw in practice on Tuesday, though, and Adam Sparks talked about the quarterback competition and, uh, thanks for reminding us of this:

There’s a fine line between freshman quarterbacks who grow or regress with early playing time in tough circumstances. In 2014, Wade Freebeck played in five games as a Vanderbilt freshman for a struggling offense that had little direction. He never gained enough momentum to earn the starting job, and his early playing time probably stunted his long-term growth.

Oh, yeah, and the baseball team opened fall practice yesterday. Soccer coach Darren Ambrose has thoughts on the season (also, spoiler alert, DotP is going to be writing about soccer for us this season.) And the SEC preseason poll picked women’s cross country for 8th place in the league and the men’s team for 11th.

And we have three items of interest for how the various conferences are handling the COVID-19 pandemic:

• The University of Nebraska’s President was caught, Naked Gun-style, saying that the vote to restart football was coming on Tuesday night. (It did not, in fact, come.)
• USC’s football players (the real USC, not the Game Penises) are asking the Governor of California to ease restrictions to allow the season to go on.
• And finally, LSU coach Ed Orgeron said “most” of LSU’s football players have contracted the virus. In fairness, how can anyone be sure what he actually said?

“Hopefully that once you catch it, you don’t get it again,” he said. “I’m not a doctor. I think they have that 90-day window, so most of the players that have caught it, we do feel like they’ll be eligible for games.”

I think we had all already concluded that Ed Orgeron isn’t a doctor.

Actual Sports on TV

All times Central.

• 2:10 PM: MLB: Oakland A’s at Colorado Rockies (ESPN+)
• 3:00 PM: MLB: Los Angeles Dodgers at San Diego Padres (ESPN)
• 6:00 PM: MLB: New York Mets at Philadelphia Phillies (ESPN)
• 8:40 PM: MLB: Arizona Diamondbacks at Los Angeles Angels (ESPN)

And if that’s not enough baseball for you, here’s your MLB.TV schedule. Free game of the day is Cardinals-Brewers at 4:10 PM. (No idea why the NBA and NHL both picked this for a day off.)

The SEC Network has eight hours of Finebaum, six hours of SEC Now, and... the Egg Bowl.