Anchor Drop, August 3, 2023: 23 Days to Kickoff

Good morning.

Optional Musical Accompaniment

We are now 23 days away from Vanderbilt football’s season opener against Hawaii. 23 for the Commodores is defensive back Jaylen Mahoney. The 5’11”, 200-pound fifth-year senior from Rock Hill, South Carolina, has started 34 games over four years including 11 last season, when he had 55 tackles, five passes defensed, and an interception.

Vanderbilt punter Matt Hayball was named to the Ray Guy Award Watch List. As for yesterday’s practice, we’ve got video of the post-practice media availability:

Meantime, conference realignment is, and continues to be, very stupid.

We joke around here about not recognizing Missourah, but somehow the idea that the Pac-12 will literally not exist in 2024 is just a new, dumb frontier for conference realignment. There will be no major conference based on the West Coast in college football, and it’s entirely due to poor leadership. (Every fan of a remaining Big 12 school I know, which is unsurprisingly a few given where I live, is laughing about this. But it’s not funny. Neither are conferences with 16 or more teams.)

And then there are the petulant children in Tallahassee.

The funny thing is, Florida State’s probably more of a nonstarter for the SEC than people realize, and even ESPN probably has little interest in FSU jumping ship given that they own the television rights for their current conference. I’m also at a point where I think the networks are reaching their breaking point on conference payouts — that was the subtext of ESPN refusing to up the SEC’s payouts to get to nine conference games. Additional rounds of expansion are only going to add more mouths to feed.

Sports on TV

All times Central.

• 11:00 AM: MLB: Phillies at Marlins or White Sox at Rangers (MLB Network)
• 1:00 PM: PGA Tour: Wyndham Championship, First Round (Golf Channel)
• 2:00 PM: MLB: Orioles at Blue Jays (MLB Network)
• 6:15 PM: MLB: Astros at Yankees or Pirates at Brewers (FOX)
• 9:00 PM: MLB: A’s at Dodgers or Reds at Cubs (MLB Network)

Scoreboard

MLB: Braves 12, Angels 5 ... Tigers 6, PIrates 3 ... Nationals 3, Brewers 2 ... Astros 3, Guardians 2 ... Padres 11, Rockies 1 ... Mariners 6, Red Sox 3 ... Marlins 9, Phillies 8 ... Yankees 7, Rays 2 ... Blue Jays 4, Orioles 1 ... Cardinals 7, Twins 3 ... Rangers 11, White Sox 1 ... Cubs 16, Reds 6 ... Royals 4, Mets 0 ... Giants 4, Diamondbacks 2 ... Dodgers 10, A’s 1.

FIFA Women’s World Cup: Jamaica 0-0 Brazil ... Panama 3-6 France.