Anchor Drop

Anchor Drop, June 25, 2021: 71 Days to Kickoff

Yep, we’ve got an afternoon game.

By Tom Stephenson@tcstephenson818 Jun 25, 2021, 9:25am EDT

Good morning.

Optional Musical Accompaniment

We are now 71 days away from Vanderbilt football’s season opener against East Tennessee State. 71 for the Commodores is offensive lineman Donald Fitzgerald. The 6’8”, 305-pound junior (redshirt sophomore) played high school ball just a few miles down 21st Street at Hillsboro High School, and hasn’t gotten into a game in two years at Vanderbilt — but we would note that 6’8”, 305-pound offensive linemen don’t exactly grow on trees.

And, it’s rematch time! After Vanderbilt survived Wednesday night’s game against Stanford, the Commodores get a rematch today against NC State, which knocked Vanderbilt into the loser’s bracket by nullifying a splendid performance by Jack Leiter in a 1-0 win on Monday night. Vanderbilt will need to win two games, today and tomorrow, against the Wolfpack to advance to the finals, while NC State just needs to win one of two. First pitch is scheduled for 1 PM CT, assuming the weather cooperates — there’s a slight chance of rain in Omaha in the early afternoon, turning into a much more significant chance around 3 PM. (I’m actually going to go ahead and bet on the second game of the day — between Mississippi State and Texas, scheduled for 6 PM CT — getting pushed back to tomorrow.) Today’s game will be televised on ESPN2.

And, once again, our sister site Backing the Pack has a preview. If you have any questions about whether you should root for them against Mississippi State or Texas should they beat us, well...