Vanderbilt Football — When Words Fail

Kalija Lipscomb

Life has a happy ending for an Alabama football fan. Life is usually good for an Ohio State fan — even the 12-2 seasons such as last year, which generate a lot of frustration — are wildly successful. Buckeye fans live in a realm of “first world football problems.”

By Matt Zemek

Auburn fans (this year) and LSU fans (previous years) go through periods of madness when the talent doesn’t mesh on the field, but when the right circumstances emerge, their Tigers compete for national titles.

USC fans are suffering in 2018 and Texas fans are doing the same, but they have known many happy times in the past. Even with mediocre coaches such as Ted Tollner (USC) or David McWilliams or John Mackovic (Texas), the Trojans can stumble into a Rose Bowl and Texas can somehow end up in the Cotton or Fiesta Bowl. The past 10 years have generally been very rough for the two programs, but even then, they have rich memories from the not-too-distant past, their 2006 Rose Bowl being one of the greatest games of all time. USC has made a New Year’s Six game the past two seasons. Even when the present moment is bad, the past is full of riches.

It is similar at Michigan, and Florida State, and Florida.

The power programs which have been relentlessly bad (or at least mediocre) for two straight decades: Nebraska, Tennessee, and UCLA. None have won a conference championship this century. Yet, even if their droughts — all 19 or 20 years — are longer than the droughts of the schools named above, what is 19 years, anyway?

It is still a drop in the bucket when measured against the have-nots in the Power 5 conferences.

Iowa State. North Carolina State. Rutgers. South Carolina. These four programs have never been to a New Year’s Six bowl, formerly a Bowl Championship Series game, formerly a Bowl Alliance or Bowl Coalition game, formerly the four traditional New Year’s Day Bowl games — Rose, Orange, Sugar, Cotton — which were then joined by the Fiesta in 1982. College football, since the 1936 season, has featured anywhere from four to six high-end bowl games. ISU, N.C. State, Rutgers, and the Gamecocks have never been to any of those games in the ensuing 82 years.

There is also a fifth program: Vanderbilt.

Why has Vanderbilt been part of this quintet, a group which — like the four teams never to have made each of the 80 NCAA basketball tournaments which have been staged since 1939 — would like to forget its place in history?

Why has Vanderbilt not had a nine-win regular season since 1915?

Even Northwestern made the Rose Bowl in the 1948 season, then 47 years later in the 1995 campaign.

Even Kansas State finally woke up under Bill Snyder after decades of being awful.

Even Washington State in Pullman and Texas Tech in Lubbock and other programs in out-of-the-way places have tasted an occasional moment in the sun.

Why is Vanderbilt not there?

One only had to look at Saturday’s game in South Bend, Indiana, against the most famous and storied program in college football’s 149-year existence. The leprechauns and Touchdown Jesus smiled on their hosts, which meant an inhospitable attitude toward the visitors… but that attitude was not why Vanderbilt lost and Notre Dame won.

Vanderbilt had this game — very truly and profoundly — in its hands.

Vanderbilt had this game in its hands at the 1-yard line in the first half, only to fumble and lose seven points.

Vanderbilt had this game in its hands in the Notre Dame red zone, about to convert a fourth down in the final minutes of regulation and trailing by only five points.

Vanderbilt had it. It was so close. It was right there. It was as real as the Golden Dome, as clear as the luminous mid-September afternoon in Indiana.

It slipped away. Twice.

Vanderbilt committed the kind of blunder in the first half which normally loses games, but because the Commodores and Kyle Shurmur were so resilient — and just plain GOOD — in the second half, especially when Notre Dame gained 16-3 and 22-10 leads, they gained that very precious commodity in life: a second chance, a chance to get it right, a chance to drive home the dagger, a chance to gain the kind of win which very rarely crosses VU’s path and very rarely graces a Commodore football season.

There the pass was, perfectly thrown by Shurmur — like nearly every aerial he authored in the final 20 minutes of play. There the pigskin was, firmly clasped in the air and going to the ground. A fourth down had been converted, or at least, it was just a matter of finishing the process and absorbing contact with the ground, and then, two seconds later, handing the ball to the official who would mark it for a first down within a small distance of the Fighting Irish goal line. Vanderbilt would have had four plays to take the lead. Given that the clock would have restarted after the first-down-gaining catch, the amount of time left would have dwindled to the point that Vanderbilt could have scored in the final 30 seconds.

Vanderbilt 23, Notre Dame 22.

It was so close you could taste it.

This time — THIS TIME — when that pass was first hauled in, the dream seemed on the verge of becoming reality.

But we know what happened next.

The body crashed to the ground. The ball did not stay firmly planted in those two hands.

First down, yes… for the Irish… because Vanderbilt had turned the ball over on downs.

Are there any words which can capture the familiar yet somehow fresh waves of pain and agony which coursed through the veins and bones and sinews of Vanderbilt fans everywhere?

No.

There are not.

All that can be said at this point? Vanderbilt can’t let this loss beat the Dores a second time in 2018. The pain of one loss is immeasurable. Trying to avoid a recurrence of that pain is all the Dores can try to do at this point.

Yes, this was a very encouraging performance in so many ways and on so many levels. That can’t be swept under the rug. It shouldn’t be.

Yet, Vanderbilt and its fans long for the day when a performance such as this one is accompanied by a victory. The ending witnessed on Saturday owns a pain beyond words, because all the words devoted to that kind of pain have been written many times over the decades. It seems cruel and, moreover, pointless to repeat those words once more.

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