Vandy becoming the real UT

Vandy was...is...and always will be Vandy. UT is currently mired in it's worst 10 year stretch in the post-Neyland era. Vandy just happens to be competitive in the SEC...East. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

Mason is a good coach. He's done good things at Vandy. As long as he's there, he will continue to do good things at Vandy. But it will always be Vandy. So despite him running his mouth a bit about Vandy -v- UT, he knows that once Pruitt gets settled in...and he will...that the days of beating UT are over. For a while.

Mason is making hay while he can. Can't fault him for that. But we're no more than one season away from yet another long, long run against the Commodores. And there is nothing they can do to alter that fact. As always, it is...what it is.

No...Vandy is not, is not becoming, and will never be..the real UT. There can be only one, and we are it. Hope Vandy enjoyed their time out of the SEC basement, but now it's back to arguing with UK about what color the curtains are downstairs.

Again, as always...it is what it is.

Go Vols.
 
  • Like
Reactions: orangebloodgmc
Does anyone know how Vandy's admission standards compare to those at Stanford?

Stanford is the most selective school in the country - last year's acceptance rate was 4.65%. VU is highly selective - last year's rate was 7.3%, which is Ivy-league territory. Cornell was 10.3, Penn 9.15, Brown 8.3, Yale 6.9, Harvard 5.2. Some others - Duke 6.4%, Northwestern 8.4%.

Stanford does have significantly higher admission standards for athletes, likely the highest in Div-I. It's not unheard of for VU to pick up a commit from an athlete who couldn't get admitted to Stanford. The VU standard for athletes is that they project to graduate, based on high school grades, preparaton, and test scores - which explains their high APR and grad rates, which are typically among the best in Div-I. But that standard means that it's much easier for an athlete to get admitted to VU than it is for the general student population. At Stanford, that's not so much the case.
 
Vandy was...is...and always will be Vandy. UT is currently mired in it's worst 10 year stretch in the post-Neyland era. Vandy just happens to be competitive in the SEC...East. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

Mason is a good coach. He's done good things at Vandy. As long as he's there, he will continue to do good things at Vandy. But it will always be Vandy. So despite him running his mouth a bit about Vandy -v- UT, he knows that once Pruitt gets settled in...and he will...that the days of beating UT are over. For a while.

Mason is making hay while he can. Can't fault him for that. But we're no more than one season away from yet another long, long run against the Commodores. And there is nothing they can do to alter that fact. As always, it is...what it is.

No...Vandy is not, is not becoming, and will never be..the real UT. There can be only one, and we are it. Hope Vandy enjoyed their time out of the SEC basement, but now it's back to arguing with UK about what color the curtains are downstairs.

Again, as always...it is what it is.

Go Vols.


Honestly, the bolded is nothing more than our hopes. Your basing that on emotion, or ancient history I guess.
Since 1976, Vandy has beaten us 7 times (7-35). Anything before that time honestly isn't relevant in today's landscape. How much you read into that number and extrapolate it out to make a bigger statement on whether they are or will be superior or equal to us, is for each fan decide.


But keep in mind, those 7 wins Vandy has against us are the same number of wins we have against Florida since that same year (7-26). I'd hate to think that any of our fans would believe we couldn't turn that around, despite our abysmal track record. The enormous amount of money pouring into all P5 programs now has, to some degree, been a great equalizer. Just because Vandy hasn't done it in the past doesn't mean they can't or won't now.
 
Honestly, the bolded is nothing more than our hopes. Your basing that on emotion, or ancient history I guess.
Since 1976, Vandy has beaten us 7 times (7-35). Anything before that time honestly isn't relevant in today's landscape. How much you read into that number and extrapolate it out to make a bigger statement on whether they are or will be superior or equal to us, is for each fan decide.


But keep in mind, those 7 wins Vandy has against us are the same number of wins we have against Florida since that same year (7-26). I'd hate to think that any of our fans would believe we couldn't turn that around, despite our abysmal track record. The enormous amount of money pouring into all P5 programs now has, to some degree, been a great equalizer. Just because Vandy hasn't done it in the past doesn't mean they can't or won't now.
Yes, it does. It just doesn't fit within the mission of their university.
 
Stanford is the most selective school in the country - last year's acceptance rate was 4.65%. VU is highly selective - last year's rate was 7.3%, which is Ivy-league territory. Cornell was 10.3, Penn 9.15, Brown 8.3, Yale 6.9, Harvard 5.2. Some others - Duke 6.4%, Northwestern 8.4%.

Stanford does have significantly higher admission standards for athletes, likely the highest in Div-I. It's not unheard of for VU to pick up a commit from an athlete who couldn't get admitted to Stanford. The VU standard for athletes is that they project to graduate, based on high school grades, preparaton, and test scores - which explains their high APR and grad rates, which are typically among the best in Div-I. But that standard means that it's much easier for an athlete to get admitted to VU than it is for the general student population. At Stanford, that's not so much the case.

That verifies my point. If Stanford can field a high-caliber team with a fairly solid tradition, I don't see why Vanderbilt couldn't build something similar.

That being said: we have dominated Vandy for many decades (until our past few years of wandering in the wilderness), they have a crap stadium and a very small, lukewarm fanbase at the current time, and they suck.

Better?
 
Very true at the present time, but Vol fans have a hard time with evidence based truth, when it comes to Vanderbilt


Don't give up
Go Vols

Evidence doesn’t point to a role reversal or some sort of Vanderbilt dominance though. UT hasn’t lost to Vanderbilt because Vanderbilt has become an elite SEC team. UT has lost to Vanderbilt because of a sustained period of being a bottom tier SEC team with a couple of decent years in between. They’ve had some of their better years recently, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t also at the bottom of the conference. They are.
 
  • Like
Reactions: brentcontractor
I have not read through this entire thread so if this point has already been made ignore me but I truly think what we are seeing with Vandy is just how important the Nashville market is becoming to college football in general. Traditionally Tennessee has not been the best state for producing recruits. The recruits we did produce usually were in Memphis and went to Ole Miss. Now Tennessee is consistently in the top 10 states producing blue chip recruits: Ranking 50 states by 2018 blue-chip CFB recruits. If you look at a majority of the 11 blue chip recruits from 2018 they were in or around Nashville. So IMO while Butch was focusing on Atlanta and Charlotte he should have been spending more time developing Nashville, which is the reason I think Vandy has been a little better than average lately. I hope Pruitt has noticed this trend and we start tearing up Nashville. BTW, Nashville is still one of the fastest growing cities in the nation. A quick google search revealed that it is growing by an average of about 100 people a day.
 
Problem with this is that Vandy fans just do not care. Franklin proved it. No matter how much they won, fans still did not show up. Their largest fan support is sidewalk alumni. Most Vandy grads come from all parts of the country, earn their degree and then go back to that state. Vandy has the smallest stadium in the SEC & never fills it. No amount of money or upgrade of facilities is going to increase the alumni support.

Interesting: Academics should always be 1st however sports are the front porch of a university. I am a UT Civil Engineering Grad. I go to a game & go by the Engineering department. Not visa versa. You would think that Vandy Alumni would understand that. Or like I said above, they just really dont care.
 
Evidence doesn’t point to a role reversal or some sort of Vanderbilt dominance though. UT hasn’t lost to Vanderbilt because Vanderbilt has become an elite SEC team. UT has lost to Vanderbilt because of a sustained period of being a bottom tier SEC team with a couple of decent years in between. They’ve had some of their better years recently, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t also at the bottom of the conference. They are.


I agree. Vandyfans are excited that they are 6-6, going to a bowl game and just beat UT. They still are at the bottom. UT would only see that as a stepping stone.
 
I don't care what Vandy is or isn't. I care about what Tennessee is. We're on the way back and Vandy will once again be left to anchor down the SEC East bottom once that happens.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Volmusic
No, they will never be the state's #1 brand, but if they ever put enough resources into their program, they could become a legitimate roadblock to Tennessee ever becoming what it once was. And yes, I think that is a moderately realistic concern.
 
I don't care what Vandy is or isn't. I care about what Tennessee is. We're on the way back and Vandy will once again be left to anchor down the SEC East bottom once that happens.

How many times have we heard this over the last 7 years? I'll believe it when I actually see it on the field.
 
  • Like
Reactions: overseasorange2
It's a private school without an alumni base. Too high a percentage of their students are not from Tennessee and far too high a percentage of their graduates don't stay in Tennessee upon graduation. They give nothing back to this state. They merely take up land here.

Do you mean the students don’t give back to the state or the school doesn’t - which one just take up land here? Trying to follow your meaning. I think Candy has a hospital and health system that serves middle TN including the regional trauma center.

Or do you mean that to give back to the state you have to donate to UT after graduating?

Also, generally I don’t think either school should measure their success on that one game. We had many good seasons when I was young and back then I just thought of Vandy as a possible spoiler but not an important game. I didn’t know as a kid why we even played them but I later realized it was a small rivalry with roots to the 1800s. But it was never something that was an important game to me.

I don’t think we need to worry about measuring up with that game. The measure is playing Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia. If we play hard and don’t let the outcome matter, win or lose, then they are the ones who look silly making it into a sort of bowl game for them.
 
Last edited:
After thinking about it further, Tennessee doesn't recruit within the state for half of its talent anyway.

So, even if it happens (which it won't), I'm not sure it matters
That's a misconception. Tennessee gets a lot of talent from right here in Tennessee. Look at Butch Jones' good 2016 team. A lot of those guys were in-state guys. The problem is more successful programs like Georgia and Clemson are getting our best players right now. Tennessee produces a lot of talent for a state its size.
 
Do you mean the students don’t give back to the state or the school doesn’t - which one just take up land here? Trying to follow your meaning. I think Candy has a hospital and health system that serves middle TN including the regional trauma center.

Or do you mean that to give back to the state you have to donate to UT after graduating?

Also, generally I don’t think either school should measure their success on that one game. We had many good seasons when I was young and back then I just thought of Vandy as a possible spoiler but not an important game. I didn’t know as a kid why we even played them but I later realized it was a small rivalry with roots to the 1800s. But it was never something that was an important game to me.

I don’t think we need to worry about measuring up with that game. The measure is playing Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia. If we play hard and don’t let the outcome matter, win or lose, then they are the ones who look silly making it into a sort of bowl game for them.

Yeah, I agree with you. While I am an orange-blooded UT alum and fan, Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center do far more than just "occupy land" in Nashville. I'm very glad that a Top 15 academically ranked institution, as well as a highly regarded teaching hospital and trauma center, are here.

That in no way alters the fact that I also am a proud alum of the University of Tennessee, which I also believe is a world-class institution. And I especially want the Vols to restore the rightful order of the universe on the gridiron.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Volmusic
With Vandy owning us the last few years, the new generation only knowing a UT team that loses to Vandy, and Vandy being in the heart of Nashville where almost everyone moving in is from another part of the country and holding no emotional ties to the past or clinging onto stories of the good old days......

Is there a chance that if things do not change in the next few years, that Vandy becomes the new UT and the Vols are left by the side of the road?


Is there a chance?.....No.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Volmusic
Anythings possible I suppose but I just don't see that happening in our lifetime. Even if it did Tennessee will remain the flagship university of the state. The only reason we're at where we are is because of gross incompetence in our administration. At some point we have to get things right right?

Right.
 
They are never going to be UT. They will never have the tradition (yeah, we've took some hits, but Pruitt is a guy who understands the SEC) or fan following.

With that said, I do see something unusual. With new AD and the current political mindset in Nashville.......................don't be surprised if some "disadvantaged" folks are given more looks than before. (No kidding, I've heard a comments along the lines of VU becoming a "culturally appropriating HBC". It does look like some kids are giving them some looks that maybe wouldn't have a few years ago).

They'll never win a division much less a conference championship, but they may be good enough to be a spoiler with regularity. (the last few years not withstanding).
 
They are never going to be UT. They will never have the tradition (yeah, we've took some hits, but Pruitt is a guy who understands the SEC) or fan following.

With that said, I do see something unusual. With new AD and the current political mindset in Nashville.......................don't be surprised if some "disadvantaged" folks are given more looks than before. (No kidding, I've heard a comments along the lines of VU becoming a "culturally appropriating HBC". It does look like some kids are giving them some looks that maybe wouldn't have a few years ago).

They'll never win a division much less a conference championship, but they may be good enough to be a spoiler with regularity. (the last few years not withstanding).
We have a new winner for worst bump in Volnation history. Mr. @Freak tell him what he wins!!!!
 

VN Store



Back
Top