Vanderbilt football adds salt to Alabama wound with Nick Saban troll job
The Vanderbilt football program put the world on notice during the first College Football Saturday in October. Weird things can happen outside of study hall on the Vanderbilt campus, and the Alabama Crimson Tide found out the hard way. The Commodores scored a 40-35 win over top-ranked Alabama, scoring their first touchdown against the NCAA powerhouse since 2007 in the process.
Vanderbilt's students stormed the field, as they should have, and then the social media team added some salt to the wound. Alabama's traveling contingent heard a familiar voice coming from the scoreboard as the field filled up with fans. And the knife-twisting message was from Nick Saban , courtesy of ESPN's Pat McAfee Show.
"The only place you play in the SEC that's not hard to play is Vanderbilt," Saban said. "When you play at Vanderbilt, you have more fans there than they have. That's no disrespect to them. That's just the truth."
The truth is the SEC upset has realigned the conference landscape.
Vanderbilt over Alabama football adds to SEC intrigue
The newly-expanded, totally realigned SEC Conference just got upended with the Vanderbilt win over Alabama. The Commodores had never beaten (0-60) a top-five ranked team and now they control their destiny in the 12-team College Football Playoffs race. They face only three ranked teams over the next eight weeks (7 games). Getting ready for second-ranked Texas and fourth-ranked Tennessee will be the priority against Kentucky and Ball State.
Even if Vanderbilt falls short of the CFP title game, the Commodores can feel good about being halfway home to being bowl-eligible. Alabama has a much tougher road back to the CFP mountaintop. The win over a top-five Georgia squad was squandered. South Carolina will not be a pushover. Then comes a gauntlet.
Alabama football has (all ranked) Tennessee, Missouri, LSU, and Oklahoma remaining. Then comes the Iron Bowl against Auburn. All things considered, this might not be the last time Alabama gets trolled in the first post-Nick Saban season. Given how the Vanderbilt team hung on for the wink, it might not be the last time they storm the FirstBank Stadium field this season either.
