Can we just take a moment and process how insane the stakes are for Vanderbilt at Alabama?
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I hate to be “that guy,” but I fear a scenario in which by this time next week, we’ll have lost all context and appreciation for what Vanderbilt is walking into at Alabama. Note that I didn’t predict Vandy to lose by 28 points in the grudge match, nor did I say that I envision Diego Pavia getting humbled instead of it being a “good, fun time” in Tuscaloosa (H/T AL.com). Who am I to doubt Vandy these days?
We don’t do that. We’ll instead freeze this moment in time in which Vandy is taking on a once-unthinkable scenario.
College GameDay is making the trip to Tuscaloosa for the matchup of No. 16 Vanderbilt vs. No. 10 Alabama, which will mark their first time playing as ranked foes in the AP Poll since 1937 (H/T Mike Rodak). It’ll mark Vandy’s first time being part of a College GameDay game since Oct. 4, 2008. That was the first and only time that the Commodores hosted the ESPN pregame show (go figure that it was also Oct. 4). Saturday at Alabama will mark the first time ever that Vandy is the visiting team for a College GameDay game. Why is that significant? It’s one thing for GameDay to visit a plucky program who has never hosted the show, which was 2008 Vandy. It’s another to pick a game in which a team’s visiting presence is setting the stage, which is 2025 Vandy.
Yeah, a lot of that is the result of what happened in Nashville last year. Vandy taking down the No. 1 program in America for the first time put the Dores on the national stage in ways that nobody could’ve imagined. Pavia became the face of the program, and understandably so. He’s been the brash, rugged, floor-raising presence that Vandy has lacked for the vast majority of its history. The fact that he went on “Bussin’ with the Boys” this offseason and delivered headline after headline only added to his lore.
But let’s properly add context to this moment in time.
That 5-0 mark isn’t just Pavia
It’s also the offensive play calling mastery of fellow New Mexico State-to-Vanderbilt transplant Tim Beck, as well as preseason All-American tight end Eli Stowers and 2024 Alabama game hero Junior Sherrill, who most recently hauled in 3 touchdown grabs in a 55-point effort against Utah State. And defensively, all the preseason questions about Clark Lea not calling plays after he excelled at that in 2024 have since faded thanks to new defensive coordinator Steve Gregory.
Vandy has passed the eye test. Blowing out a pair of Power Conference teams and clearing out their hostile atmospheres in the 4th quarter was no joke. Go ask Alabama about that challenge on the road. Kalen DeBoer hasn’t lost a home game as an FBS head coach since 2021, but he just got the monumental win at Georgia to improve to 3-5 in games away from Tuscaloosa.
Of course, 1 of those 5 losses was last year in Nashville when Alabama’s defense couldn’t stop fighting internally long enough to start focusing on stopping Vandy. There’ll be no shortage of reminders of that. Since he became an FBS head coach in 2020, the only team to beat DeBoer in consecutive seasons was Hawaii in 2020-21. Since 2016, Michigan is the only team to beat Alabama in consecutive seasons. Take that for what it is.
You get it. Vandy is trying to pull off something that simply does not happen to programs like Vandy.
In 2024, a Nov. 2 victory at Auburn — you might’ve heard that Pavia improved to 3-0 vs. Hugh Freeze — marked the earliest that the Commodores had ever clinched bowl eligibility. A couple months later, they returned to the state of Alabama and won the Birmingham Bowl for their first postseason victory since 2013.
On Saturday, Vandy will go back to Alabama with a chance to start 6-0 for the first time ever.
Vandy could potentially become the first FBS school to clinch bowl eligibility in 2025
That’ll also depend on if 5-0 Iowa State can win its noon ET kickoff at Cincinnati. That’s out of Vandy’s control. What’s very much in Vandy’s control is a 60-minute opportunity to deliver an encore performance at Bryant-Denny Stadium and earn the program’s first top-10 ranking in the AP Poll since 1947. It would be impossible to deny if that résumé included 3 true road wins vs. Power Conference opponents, 1 of whom has suffered just 1 home loss in the 2020s.
That team, of course, is Alabama. It’s the program who became a national punching bag at Vandy’s expense last year. It prompted Alabama star Ryan Williams to tell Jon Gruden this offseason that the Tide would “kill an ant with a sledgehammer” in the rematch with Vandy.
Alabama looked like a sledgehammer on Saturday night when it handed Georgia its first home loss in a night game since 2009, and perhaps that’ll be the case this time against Vandy. But Vandy is no ant. It didn’t luck into last year’s win, which I’d argue is a key distinction for anyone who thinks the Dores have the same “Alabama, you’re next” energy that aged like milk in 2017.
Even if 59-0 happens and Vandy falls out of the AP Top 25 altogether — I’ll make a bold prediction and say a game with a 10-point spread won’t follow that script — it won’t erase last year in Nashville. More importantly, a loss at Alabama won’t erase a promising start that has Vandy eying the 12-team Playoff (those odds are now +370 on FanDuel).
All of that is on the table heading into October. As out-of-nowhere as last year’s 7-6 campaign felt, this is still a team who entered the season with a regular-season over/under of 5.5 wins and an external expectation that it would fall back to earth. The “over” is hitting there, even if the buildup to Saturday isn’t matched the rest of the season.
At this point, though, betting against Vandy doesn’t seem like a good, fun time.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
