DEVILLE: Nothing To Do, And All Day Saturday To Do It

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It was a beautiful day on Saturday.

by Matt Deville
Tiger Rag Senior Editor

(At left) The Commodores were celebrating in Nashville on Saturday night (Photo courtesy of VUCommodores.com)

It was so nice I almost thought how great it would be for a football game in Tiger Stadium.

Nah!

The weather was great over the weekend in Baton Rouge, which made it equally fantastic that LSU had an open date. With football going non-stop since the beginning of August and a couple of hurricanes making it our September a little less than comfortable, it was nice to have a free Saturday to enjoy doing something else other than covering a football game.

My wife and I enjoyed a nice Friday night at the Pete Maravich Center. Being married to a former collegiate volleyball player, I have learned to appreciate competitive volleyball. Beth and I joined Tiger Rag columnist Lee Feinswog and his wife Brenda for LSU’s SEC match against Ole Miss.

Considering that Brenda is the all-time winningest high school volleyball coach in the state of Louisiana, Lee helps her coach club league volleyball now and Beth played at the college level, the volleyball IQ of our group was pretty high.

While Beth and Brenda chatted strategy and dissected coach Fran Flory’s game plan, Lee laughed and made fun of me when I would refer to some volleyball tactic by the wrong name such as “that spike thing when the girl runs toward the out of bounds line.”

“It’s a slide,” Beth laughs.

Whatever.

At any rate, there was a great crowd on hand Friday evening – over 1,200 fans to be exact. I had the chance to visit with LSU softball coach Yvette Girouard, who was on hand for the game.

On a down note, the Tigers had already lost one of their best players already when Marina Skender tore up a knee earlier this year. Friday, senior Lauren DeGirolamo also went down with a knee injury. On Sunday, volleyball SID Caroline Domecq confirmed DeGirolamo’s LSU career is over after tearing her ACL, MCL and meniscus.

Saturday morning, it felt good to know it would be a work free Saturday. A morning tee time at The Island Country Club in Plaquemine got my pristine Saturday off to a good start.

And since I had been cooperative in sitting through all the volleyball chatter on Friday night, I was given the liberty of holding down a barstool at my favorite sports bar to enjoy an afternoon-turned-evening of college football on the big screen.

I watched a number of games, and may I say it was the most fun I’ve had in some time.

In covering football each week, I have to rely on the highlight reels and news briefs to see who did what on a college football Saturday. I watched three complete football games and loved every minute of it.

The first game was Alabama-Kentucky. I wasn’t surprised that the Crimson Tide struggled against Kentucky, considering they were coming off the big win at Georgia.

But had the Wildcats been able to muster any sort of offense at all, Rich Brooks’ team might have had a chance for the upset.

After getting off to a 14-0 start, the Crimson Tide managed only a field goal the rest of the way to hang on and win 17-14 – at home.

Then there was Vanderbilt.

Jeff Palermo gives me a hard time on our weekly Tiger Rag Radio Show because I always pull for the Vanderbilt Commodores.

Well, now the Commodores seem to be for real. Vanderbilt improved to 5-0 on Saturday with a dramatic 14-13 win over Auburn. ESPN Gameday was on hand and a packed Vanderbilt Stadium watched the No. 19 Commodores upset 13th-rated Auburn.

When the polls were released on Sunday, Vandy had risen to 13th in the AP and No. 14 in the Coaches Poll.

The most impressive thing about the win was Vanderbilt fell behind 13-0 in the first quarter. Commodore teams of years gone by would have packed it in at that point and laid down for a 40-0 blowout.

Instead, Bobby Johnson’s team fought back. Behind the leadership of backup signal caller Mackenzi Adams, the Commodores scored two second half touchdowns to register the upset.

Now, what’s next for Vanderbilt?

The Commodores have winnable games against Miss. State, Duke and Kentucky. And tell you the truth, after watching Tennessee struggle to beat Northern Illinois 13-9 on Saturday, Vandy’s Nov. 22 date with the Volunteers could be a “W” as well.

Then there are games against Georgia, Florida and Wake Forest. The Wake game means nothing. But if the Commodores could win one of those two biggies against the Bulldogs or Gators, Johnson’s team could be headed for Atlanta.

Now there’s something you never thought you’d be reading, huh?

And finally, I watched the first half of Missouri’s rout of Nebraska.

It was too painful to watch Bo Pelini’s team get picked apart by Heisman frontrunner Chase Daniel of Missouri. That guy’s good.

Looking back on my predictions from this football Saturday, one of my two projected top 10 upsets came to pass. I said Pitt would beat South Florida – and they did 26-21. However, my Colorado pick over Texas didn’t look very bright.

Also, I thought Kansas State could give Texas Tech a scare. Not A chance.

I actually picked Northern Illinois to beat Tennessee and the Vols almost made me look like a chance. Yikes, they are a bad football team.

And Ole Miss was supposed to take care of South Carolina at home, but silly turnovers and defensive breakdowns cost the Rebels in a 31-24 loss.

Well, now that my weekend of football bliss is in the books, it’s back to the grindstone. Gainesville, Florida here we come.

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Matt Deville is the editor of Tiger Rag. Reach him at matt@tigerrag.com.