Goal posts torn down at Vanderbilt Stadium

[BrentVU]

I remember it like yesterday. November 15, 2003, Senior Day. Vandy honored a great group of outgoing seniors. Then the team, behind sophomore Jay Cutler, proceeded to upset Jared Lorenzen and Kentucky 28-17 before a rowdy crowd. The win snapped a 23-game SEC losing streak. (Clark Lea was a junior on that team.)

I was covering the game that day for VandyMania, which at that time published game stories for every game. (I think Don Yates was overseas in the Iraq war.) I sat in the press box but was allowed to come down to field level for the final five minutes. By the end of the game, the student section was about to explode, and when the buzzer sounded, it did. (This was before the days of fines for storming the field.) Sure enough, both goalposts came down and got paraded down West End. Chancellor Gordon Gee, who was as excited as anyone, seemed fine with it all.

Eighteen years later, Vandy is riding a similar 20-game SEC losing streak. (Vandy fans haven't seen an SEC win since Mo Hasan's one start, and Derek Mason's bravado pronouncements afterward.) Kentucky is in town. It's Senior Day and the home finale. Vandy is again a big underdog.

A couple of questions:

1. Can history repeat?
2. If it did, would the goalposts come down again?
3. At what other times have the goalposts have come down at Dudley Field? There can't be that many. Vs. Tennessee 1982, I remember. Seems like the South Carolina game in 1998, which ended another terrible streak. I know I'm forgetting some. What ones do you guys remember? (Probably none since 2003; it was shortly after that that the SEC implemented fines and security at all SEC stadiums was beefed up. Kentucky and Texas A&M have both been fined $250,000 this season for field-storming incidents.)

[buffy]

No. We're not there yet. I'd like to be, but I just don't see it.

[Podge91]

I remember it like yesterday. November 15, 2003, Senior Day. Vandy honored a great group of outgoing seniors. Then the team, behind sophomore Jay Cutler, proceeded to upset Jared Lorenzen and Kentucky 28-17 before a rowdy crowd. The win snapped a 23-game SEC losing streak. (Clark Lea was a junior on that team.)

Exactly 5 years to the day later, Nov 15, 2008, VU beat Kentucky again to seal bowl-eligibility for the first time since forever.

That was the perfect way to cap my 40th birthday

[FayetteDore]

The Tennessean's report on the goalposts coming down:

Vandy Fans Rediscover that Winning Feeling

Do you remember James Brown's "I Feel Good!" blaring on the stadium speakers?

[AuricGoldfinger]

Speaking of past UK games, this happened 10 years ago today...Zac Stacy carries an entire defense into the end zone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOEj47fWN14

[commadore]

I remember it like yesterday. November 15, 2003, Senior Day. Vandy honored a great group of outgoing seniors. Then the team, behind sophomore Jay Cutler, proceeded to upset Jared Lorenzen and Kentucky 28-17 before a rowdy crowd. The win snapped a 23-game SEC losing streak. (Clark Lea was a junior on that team.)

I was covering the game that day for VandyMania, which at that time published game stories for every game. (I think Don Yates was overseas in the Iraq war.) I sat in the press box but was allowed to come down to field level for the final five minutes. By the end of the game, the student section was about to explode, and when the buzzer sounded, it did. (This was before the days of fines for storming the field.) Sure enough, both goalposts came down and got paraded down West End. Chancellor Gordon Gee, who was as excited as anyone, seemed fine with it all.

Eighteen years later, Vandy is riding a similar 20-game SEC losing streak. (Vandy fans haven't seen an SEC win since Mo Hasan's one start, and Derek Mason's bravado pronouncements afterward.) Kentucky is in town. It's Senior Day and the home finale. Vandy is again a big underdog.

A couple of questions:

1. Can history repeat?
2. If it did, would the goalposts come down again?
3. At what other times have the goalposts have come down at Dudley Field? There can't be that many. Vs. Tennessee 1982, I remember. Seems like the South Carolina game in 1998, which ended another terrible streak. I know I'm forgetting some. What ones do you guys remember? (Probably none since 2003; it was shortly after that that the SEC implemented fines and security at all SEC stadiums was beefed up. Kentucky and Texas A&M have both been fined $250,000 this season for field-storming incidents.)

I am not sure the 48 students in attendance and the band could get the posts down by themselves.

[kay1092]

I was one of those students tearing down the goal posts. In fact a piece of the goal post was at our frat party that night.