Diezba
Oct 06, 2008 Jun 24, 2011 13 5
Conservative attorney from East Tennessee practicing law in Nashville. Vanderbilt, B.A. '05; Samford, J.D. '08.
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Franklin's 1st football schedule: there's reason for hope
by Diezba on Mar 4, 2011 3:00 PM EST
in Vanderbilt Commodores Football
on Anchor Of Gold
Coach James Franklin said that scheduling was one of the most pressing concerns he faced in taking the top job at Vanderbilt.
He also said that the Vanderbilt administration would give him a free hand in setting the schedule for the Black & Gold.
It appears that he may have already taken them up on their offer.(Update: Someone raises the point in the comments that this schedule has been set for a while. I agree that the conference slate has been set, but I'm not so sure that there haven't been tweaks in the non-conference schedule.)
What I want hear from you guys is -- I want to hear you talking more about the most important program in this state: that's Vanderbilt football.
Vanderbilt head coach James Franklin in a surprise call to Nashville's Three Hour Lunch sports talk radio.
Vanderbilt head coach Kevin Stallings meets with the media in a 5-minute, court-side appearance. Topics include: previewing Marquette; Walker's return from illness; Goulbourne's NCAA situation; and Stallings on Cam Newton & Lance Goulbourne.
Commodore Country's new Public Enemy Number One: Vol-loving, unprofessional sports editor John Adams
by Diezba on Dec 29, 2010 1:43 PM EST
on Anchor Of Gold
John Adams just became Public Enemy Number One in Commodore Country.
Who is John Adams, you ask? He is not our nation's second President (nor his son, the sixth). He is not Chief of the Canadian Security Establishment, nor the American composer who came to prominence with his opera, Nixon in China.
No, the John Adams who has earned the ire of Commodore Nation is the so-called "Sports Editor" and "Senior Columnist" at the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
Mr. Adams, following the hooligans and thugs from the Orange Institution of Knoxville ("OIK") over to the shining city of Nashville for the Institution's appearance in the Music City Bowl, apparently got bored with simply covering the inevitable arrests, shenanigans, and fights of the OIK's players.
To deal with his boredom, he chose to be a contumelious mountebank and write an entire article based upon asking various denizens of our fair city, "Who is the coach at Vanderbilt?"
I did my homework coming into this interview process. So I knew the averages in this conference of what people were paying their staff and facility-wise what everybody had. Those discussions started right away in the interview process. Everything I asked for, they were willing to do. That, to me, showed that they were serious.
Coach James Franklin, answering ESPN's Chris Low, when he asked, "What kind of assurances have you received that Vanderbilt is going to spend the money to upgrade facilities and do the things necessary to get the program up to speed with everybody else in the SEC?"
The road to recovery for VU football begins by admitting the problem: all three of them
by Diezba on Dec 18, 2010 4:10 PM EST
in Vanderbilt Commodores Football
on Anchor Of Gold
It is the massive, black-and-gold striped elephant standing astride the quarterdeck of the Commodores' ship.
It has been since at least the 1960s.
Vanderbilt fans do not like to talk about it. Over the years, we have developed elaborate explanations and justifications for it.
Each one of us has a ready "talk" that we give to our friends and family who support other SEC teams.
But finally, someone -- and not just anybody, but the man at the very top of VU athletics -- has had the courage to say it out loud.
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UT fan updates VolNation on the VU coaching search: schadenfreude ensues
by Diezba on Dec 15, 2010 12:42 PM EST
in Vanderbilt Commodores Football
on Anchor Of Gold
The last few days have been rough for us Vanderbilt fans. For a while, the Black and Gold faithful abounded with unfettered joy, because "#gusiscoming". Then he wasn't. And it was embarrassing. Deflating.
But, worry not, beleaguered Commodores! Whether James Franklin checks "yes" on the note we passed him in class yesterday (tip of the bicorne to VSL), there's light at the end of the tunnel.
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The Caldwell difference?
by Diezba on Sep 10, 2010 2:47 PM EDT
in Vanderbilt Commodores Football
on Anchor Of Gold
It's the fourth quarter. Vanderbilt trails, under the lights at home, against a team coming off a near-miss loss to a good Auburn team in a New Year's Day bowl game.
Though the Commodores are down only 2, their drive stalls at the opponent's 40-yard line. It's now fourth-and-two.
What does Bobby Johnson do?
Commodore Nation (along with the rest of the planet) knows the answer: send in the punt squad.
Larry Smith drops his head in frustration, already taking the straps off his helmet for a chewing-out on the sideline. The punting unit huddles around the head coach, getting last-second direction.
Only, instead of sending them out to "flip the field," this head coach grabs the punter's arm and says, with a lilting, South Carolina drawl, "Wait a minute, boy!"
It shocked me one day when football came on the television and shattered my beliefs about the receiving abilities of wooden-based television arrangements. Vanderbilt was playing Tennessee. I was maybe eight years old at the time. Tennessee scored off a short TD run. My grandfather made a displeased grunt from somewhere in his enormous lantern-sized head, the same one that totters on my neck like a bowling ball taped to a gameday shaker.
"What's wrong, Gran-gran?"
"I'm thinking Tennessee's a little bit more physically equipped than Vanderbilt is."
"Are we pulling for Tennessee?"
"No, Spencer. We can't do that."
"Why?"
"We just don't. You can't cheer for Tennessee. We don't do that in Nashville."
"Can I cheer for Vandy?"
"You can cheer for Vandy, but you can't pull for ol' Tennessee."
"Got it."
I want to win every game, and you can't win every one of 'em unless you win the first one. I wanna win -- I don't care if it's horseshoes or whatever: I wanna win. That's just who I am.
The SEC media's real-time reactions to Coach Caldwell's presser.
All I know how to do is work. I've been a worker all my life. I grew up in it. My wife said, 'You can't talk about anything but football.' I can. I can talk about pouring concrete, farming, being a pipefitter, all those things, working on a turkey farm. But nobody wants to hear that. Those are the things that I did prior to getting into football. That's the God's truth. So I'm extremely excited about what [the Vanderbilt administration] presented to me and the efforts they put behind me. I'm just, you know, in place and ready to go.
No longer under renovation: Bobby Johnson opened the new wing of Commodore football
by Diezba on Jul 15, 2010 4:45 PM EDT
in Vanderbilt Commodores Football
on Anchor Of Gold
I am sure that I'm not the only Vanderbilt fan who dreaded going through the news coverage of Bobby Johnson's abrupt retirement announcement. And, as I read the Tennessean's website, I realized that Joe Biddle did not disappoint:
As I was walking to my car after the press conference, I could see the scaffolds and construction under way on the football offices at McGugin Center. A sign let you know it was a renovation project. It seems Vanderbilt football has been undergoing renovation for the last 30 years. Bobby Johnson stepped aside to let someone else give it a go. Vanderbilt's latest football victim got out before it buried him alive.
This is the kind of nonsense that plagues our football program. As the sharks reporters were circling around Bobby Johnson yesterday, they kept asking him if he'd "improved the program." They wouldn't shut up until Vice Chancellor David Williams literally brought out the Music City Bowl trophy and set it next to the podium.
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