I think the headline tells the story. Vanderbilt-Mississippi St in the SEC Championship Game, on ESPN2 right now. Discuss at your leisure.

The Vanderbilt Commodores baseball team is headed to the SEC Championship Game after their ninth straight win, beating Florida 8-6 with a 5-run, 6-SB ninth inning.

In an inning that featured a game-tying squeeze play and stealing home as part of a triple steal, the Dores rallied from down 4-3, to take a 4-run lead, earning a spot in tomorrow afternoon's SEC Championship game against Mississippi State (2:30 p.m. CT, ESPN2).

(See the triple steal here, and someone feel free to embed the video later.)

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When I first looked over the black and gold rosters, I was a little disappointed to be quite frank.

The Black team is loaded up on both sides of the ball, the Gold team team is loaded with walk-ons and underclassmen. It turns out that the roster is actually almost exactly upperclassmen vs. underclassmen with a couple of key exceptions, but there is no question whatsoever that the talent level at Vandy is on the rise.

The two teams after the jump:

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So we've already locked up a 1st round bye, but there is still quite a bit to play for heading into the SEC Tournament.

The first issue is getting better than a #4 seed to ensure you wouldn't face Kentucky until the SEC final.

But of course the biggest question left is NCAA seeding (and the hope of landing in a Nashville pod the first weekend, which only seems very likely if we get a 4 or better).

Outpacing Florida the rest of the season could go a long way to getting that higher seed, as I believe that Florida has only a slight edge over Vandy for the second highest SEC seed. I think that the 2nd SEC team will get at least a 5 seed and very possibly a 4 or better, so if Vandy can outshine Florida the rest of the way, we have a shot at getting a 4.

So here are the scenarios for seeding #2-5 in the SEC Tournament, as well as some implications that these seeds would have for the NCAA Tournament...

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And if so, anyone have one extra ticket they may be looking to divest?

It seems like the Vandy section is B? Does anyone know if that is right?

I'm hesitant to do this, because I don't want to undermine the team. I hope this won't devolve into bashing a player, but I think this might be a positive way to channel discussion rather than just angry post-loss comments.

Clearly the two big losses, a solid showing against Bama for Jordan Rodgers and the fact that Larry Smith hasn't had a "show all the doubters" kind of game in our wins has a vocal contingent getting louder and louder calling for Rodgers to start.

So I was wondering if the Rodgers fans are representative of the whole or if there is a silent pro-Larry majority out there.

It seems the major lines of thought seem to be as follows:

• Pro-Larry: He's more athletic and makes us more dangerous when given the chance to play. He has shown improvement over last year when he isn't getting crushed. I trust that if the coaches thought Jordan gave us a better chance to win, they'd use him, but they don't and that is good enough for me. Jordan hasn't been any more impressive than Larry in similar situations.
• Pro-Jordan: We know what Larry brings, and he just can't get it done under the pressure that he's sure to be under. Jordan is more elusive in the pocket and makes decisions quicker. Right or wrong, we have a better shot with someone who makes a decision and gets a pass off than someone who gets sacked. We know what Larry brings, let's at least see if Jordan can do better.

(Note, this is somewhat related to VandyImport's terrific post earlier if you haven't read it, seriously, it's legit).

No doubt, game atmosphere is one area in which Vandy lags behind other schools. And what has there been to get excited about?

But most Vandy fans agree that there is now, or at least might be, something to get excited about. Yet, by and large, no one expects our crowd to be even a little different until the team starts to win.

Coach Franklin and the football operations people are trying to make these games as much an experience as they can, but I think most of us would agree that it isn't any kind of an event without a crowd that's excited, and not just excited about the score, but excited to be Vandy fans.

My challenge to fans is simple: learn and SING Dynamite.

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So I went into the Black and Gold game cautiously excited. Cautious, because I knew that many of the biggest changes will not be seen until the recruits start to show up and the coaching staff has a whole summer to work.

Watching the game I was pretty nonplussed, but as I think back, there were some good signs that the product on the field might just be able to keep up with the talk off the field.

While the improvements weren't mindblowing, the Black and Gold game gave plenty of reason to believe that the coaching staff will be at least solid and should be an improvement over the arrested development we've seen in the last couple years.

This was the first spring game I've watched for any college football team, so I'm not used to trying to adjust to the talent level of having no outgoing seniors, no incoming freshmen, and the remaining talent split in half.

The other really tough thing, and maybe the biggest (and worst) impression made, was that the offensive line was so thin and had to play both ways, that it was tough at times to really evaluate the rest of the team because the O-line was getting dominated a lot of the time.

In the end, the game was a reminder that this won't all happen over night, but you can see that improvements, however subtle, are being made.

I'll go position by position.

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So we're officially the #3 seed from the East. That means we'll play the lowest seed from the West, LSU. We'll be playing the late game (10 EST/9 CST) on Thursday, and if we win we'd play Miss. St. the #2 seed in the West, also in the late game.

And as luck would have it, we're 0-5 this season against the teams we'd possibly play in the semis. How cool is that!

Complete bracket, after the jump.

Also, if anyone knows anything about the ticket situation, and if anyone is planning to make the trip, let us know your plans in the comments.

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So my wife bought me Rivals for Valentines Day (yeah, pretty awesome), but while searching around VandySports.com, I found some non-premium info that I hadn't seen before. If you haven't read over my amateur recruiting outlook you may want to take a look. Then check out the list of offers after the jump.

These are all the players listed as offered by Vandy on Rivals. Any the comments on each player come from ESPN (also non-Insider content).

So far we have 8 offers out for 2012, with 5 spots expected. All of our offers so far are in the top 75, including one 5*. Last year we offered 11 players total, only 5 of whom were 4*. Clearly, we're far from done, and we have interest in a few more top 75 guys. But I wouldn't expect too many more offers from these kind of guys.

So here's what we've offered so far. If any news pops up on non-premium areas feel free to add it in the comments. Note also that these guys are all just juniors so they'll probably fill out more and may still add some height.

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So, theoretically, there is still a good bit left in the 2011 recruiting cycle, as the second signing period for 2011 isn't until April, but that's a vestige of an earlier time. Most recruits (95 of ESPN's Top 100) are already committed, with the vast majority of them officially signed in the early signing period.

Vanderbilt's 2011 class is already finished, and all three recruits are signed. Meanwhile, top recruits are already making verbal commitments for 2012 (15 of ESPN's Super60 have already made announcements).

2012 will be a big year for Stallings and Co. on the trail and will go a long way to determining whether Vandy continues to rise, levels off, or starts to drop off.

Full disclosure, I really know very little about basketball recruiting, and I'm not going to have any answers, but I think we can all benefit from getting some ideas out there about what where we might be headed.

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I'm a new arrival to Dore Nation, now in my second year. I think of myself as relatively devoted. Go to every basketball game I can, go to every football game until the team proves to me that I'm wasting my time (I plan to go to six games this season, CJF, make it happen), I am going to watch a butt-load of baseball this season.

But I've considered myself lucky that I wasn't here when Jay Cutler played for us, because then I'd feel like I have to like him.

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Lockridge reports in The Tennessean that John Ingram says James Franklin is about to be hired.

Actual quote from actual source, John Ingram:

We’re about to have this all wrapped up.

I guess you never know, especially after the Joe Schad tweet to the contrary literally an hour ago, but for the first time all search we have a legitimate source saying this is almost done.

The basketball home game against Tennessee on February 22 is going to be a white-out. That's all well and good. But I think it is even more important that it be a grill-out.

That's right BBQ at Our House! Everyone's invited! (Just don't tell the NCAA.)

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Editor's Note: The Goche put together one of the greatest rants this website has ever seen in the comments section of the USC/Vandy recap. It immediately became one of our better football critiques, mostly because it wasn't drafted in crayon, so we asked him (her? SBNation user names aren't great for gender specification) to put it in a FanPost so we could front page it, and we were treated to some awesome analysis to share with the AoG faithful. Enjoy!

Who knows if we really had much of a shot to beat LSU or South Carolina. Even at its best, our offense really shouldn't be expected to score that many points against defenses like these, but it sure is tough to watch our offense sputter knowing the difference just a few extended drives could make. Would suggestions like these fix the offense? I can't say, but what we are doing isn't just not working. We continually play into our biggest weaknesses. Here are my common sense suggestions for actually scoring some points.

1. Scrap the No Huddle

This really doesn't seem to be too novel an idea. We are one of the best schools in the country at wearing our defense out. Our TOP is 25:24 per game good for 118th in the FBS. Certainly to some extent, it us up to the defense to get themselves off the field, but even our 12 play, 83 yard scoring drive lasted only 3:45. For reference SC had 4 drives that went fewer than 40 yards that lasted longer. We have got to give our defense time. It's not as if the no huddle is bothering our opponents, so just scrap it. It hurts the defense and doesn't have any noticeable help for the offense. Why fool with it? Instead take the time and think about our playcalling, which certainly doesn't appear to have a surplus of thought going into it.

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