September 29 Auburn at Vanderbilt Commodores (Nashville)
Review: What an exciting game! It's easier to say that now that the game is over and Auburn won. The Tigers have a knack of making the other team look good - even in victory. This team lacks the knockout punch of the more superior teams in our conference. However, at this moment only Florida meets that criteria, really.
Just like last year, I attended the game with my wife, Debbie, and our next-door neighbors, Paul and Susan. Their's is a mixed marriage - he went to Auburn and she went to Vandy. This year, her team at least did something worth cheering about. This is my first visit to Vandy for a game since before I started doing this web site five years ago so I will digress and discuss the campus - like I usually do for away games I attend.
Vanderbilt is a beautiful compact urban campus that is almost entirely pedestrian. It is heavily shaded in between a mix of older and younger buildings. On the way to the stadium we passed the Divinity School, the Law School and you can see the rising towers from the University Hospital. It is a pretty place to visit. I have to admit that this is by far the most relaxed campus I've ever seen on game day. We went into the Student Center 2.5 hours before kickoff and it was almost empty. I found a TV and no one was watching it and it was tuned to a station showing golf! At Auburn, or almost anywhere else, there would be a couple of hundred people crowded around looking for scores of other games and watching whatever game happened to be on. The rest of the campus was quiet. We saw only a handful of tailgaters on the main part of campus and all were Auburn people. I assume there were more tailgaters south of the stadium where most of the parking is located but we did not ever go that way. Even the bookstore was easy to get around unlike Auburn's J&M which looks like a can of sardines on game day.
My neighbor, Susan, was treated to Guthrie's last year in Auburn, so in return she wanted to take us to what she called "Vanderbilt's Guthrie's" - a place the students like to frequent. We had an early dinner at a place on the east side of campus across from the library called San Antonio Taco Company (SATCO as the sign reads). We had good Mexican food and it had a nice large deck to eat on - it was perfect weather to do so. One thing I liked there was how you ordered. There was a long rack on the wall where you stood in line to order and pay that had paper pads and pencils to fill out your order and give it to the cashier. That speeded things along quite a bit.
I had a spare ticket that I wanted to get rid of and no one was buying or selling, really. Right before entering the gate, an Auburn student bought my ticket for $15. Actually she had already purchsed one but admitted she forgot it back at school and not brought it on her trip.
Vanderbilt's stadium is called Dudley field and it is a good place to watch a game. Even from row 71 we had a good view of the field. This is a very quiet stadium. At times, it's almost as quiet as watching a tennis match. You can chat with one another easily without yelling and in fact our wives did the whole game without hinderance. I'd guess that the stadium was 50-50 split between Auburn and Vanderbilt. Orange and Yellow were the primary colors as expected. Dudley is now the smallest stadium in the conference (around 41,000) and I doubt it will ever be enlarged. It suits their needs just fine. The stadium is in good repair and the concessions were good.
Now onto the game! Auburn looked better than they did against Syracuse, but only slightly. I still saw too many mental lapses like delay of games and illegal procedure penalties. There also a few too many holding penalties in critical situations. Jason Cambbell looked pretty good but he still has a long way to go. The running attack was not where I had hoped. Brown did not play and Cassinious Moore had a critical fumble in the red zone. Cadillac Williams had a good game with a long TD run early in the game.
I thought that the running game was not able to sustain a long drive. A close look at the stats show that most of the Tigers rushing yards were on a few long ones. Those short drive sustaining clock-churning runs were few and far between. I was happy to see Jason find Robert Johnson across the middle in between coverage on a few occasions for good gains. I thing our receiving corps will continue to get better.
The defense played a good game but not great. Really, though, if they stop Lew Thomas the game is not nearly as close. Thay guy is great and he's going to torch some teams this year. I also liked the play of Vandy QB Greg Zolman. He is probably the third best QB in the conference right now, behind Grossman and Claussen and just above Madkin, Petty and Davey. (Eli Manning will probably pass them all in due time.) Our defense faced a lit of trickery and they did stop the 'Dores more than not.
Special teams allowed an fake punt that led to a TD but then they prevented a fake FG at the end of the game so they saved face. Duval did a good job punting and his FG did win the game. His one miss was a long one.
Overall, a well-needed win that will help us become bowl eligible in December. Through a quirk in the transition of the schedule of East versus West games, we will play another Home/Away series with Vanderbilt in 2002 and 2003 and will not see them again after that until 2007.
Preview: This weekend, Auburn returns to SEC action against perennial doormat, Vanderbilt. Last year, I thought the game would be close it was instead a 33-0 shutout. In Nashville, the 'Dores seem to have sharper swords. They played a decent Alabama team to a battle of field goals. Of course, this team also lost to Middle Tennessee State and played close to Richmond before winning. I expect Auburn to come out with something to prove. Look for a balanced attack where Campbell is free to scramble and pass and where all four backs se some action. I'd like to see more production form the TE and FB positions. The defense shoud focus of getting to senior Vandy QB Greg Zolman and covering his good wide receivers. I don't know if Vandy will ever be a force to be reckoned with in the SEC again, but this is not a good time for them to start. Look for a good Auburn win. Vanderbilt can only dream about getting their first win against Auburn since the 1955 Gator Bowl.
Prediction: Auburn 27 Vandy 16
TV: TBA