It's been over a year since I've written on this blog. That's entirely my fault. Life gave me an opportunity elsewhere and my blog fell by the wayside.
Apologies. We'll hit the restart button and get this going again.
The plans for this blog's future are for a season-long account of the Vanderbilt Men's Basketball Team, from the perspective of the fan, but with special access. I have to admit here that I will be employed by the team, working as a game day stat crew member, which allows me full media rights. Other than that, I have just as much access to players, coaches, and other personnel as anyone else. I follow players and program on Twitter, befriend the players and Like the team page on Facebook, and read ESPN.com like it's my job.
With that said, we're about to enter the prime of SEC football season. Vandy is 3-0 so far this year, coming off a surprisingly dominant win over Ole Miss 30-7. The Commodores are on the road this week, traveling to #10 South Carolina, where they beat the then #6 Gamecocks 17-6 in 2007.
So far in the stat lines, these two quarterbacks look almost the same. Vandy's Larry Smith has 3 TDs with 2 Ints while averaging 53.5% completion rate, while USC's Stephen Garcia has 2 TDs and 3 Ints, with an 55.4% completion rate. It will be very interesting to see who wins the battle of Alshon Jeffrey vs Vandy's secondary, which is leading the NCAA in Ints with 10.
The rushing game features USC's man-child running back Marcus Lattimore. If he gets going it could spell trouble for Vandy. The 'Dores have Zac Stacy, who is reminding every Vandy fan why he was so touted as a Freshman. But the numbers don't lie on this one. Lattimore has ran the ball 87 times for 534 yards and 7 TDs, while Stacy has 29 attempts for 262 yards and only one score. Stacy is averaging 9 yards/carry though, a stat that might have been boosted by his 77 yard TD score this past week. But Lattimore is the work-horse for Spurrier. He's perfectly able to carry the ball 40+ times a game, eating up yards and minutes. If the past couple games are the beginning of a trend, Lattimore actually seems to get stronger as the game goes on, although it's simply how much he wears down defenses.
If Lattimore carries the ball like he has been, South Carolina will be hard to stop at home. If Vandy can capitalize on their opportunities, and play mistake-free football, they could pull the upset. I see a close one.
Vandy 24 South Carolina 21
No comments:
Post a Comment