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    • Vanderbilt fans should support this football team
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    Vanderbilt fans should support this football team

    Vaseline Posted on

    The goalposts were up somewhere on Broadway, on the way to the river, when Vanderbilt football coach Clark Lea nearly burst into tears and became emotional as he discussed a “breakthrough” moment for a program not meant to compete against the SEC’s elite to have.

    “To more nights like this,” Lea said.

    More of these? Look, Vanderbilt will win again. But there will be no other golden celebration like this. It culminated in Nashville’s usual Saturday night revelry, capturing the attention of a merry city for once when the city usually takes out the Commodores.

    There will be plenty of people around here proverb they were there when Vanderbilt toppled mighty Alabama. It will be far more than the actual number of Vanderbilt fans who were at FirstBank Stadium to witness the Commodores’ stunning 40-35 win and then storm the field.

    Because most of the spectators in the stadium on Saturday wore crimson and white. I give Alabama fans 75% – and it might have been more.

    That’s not unique to Vanderbilt, and everyone knows it.

    In the aftermath of Saturday’s win, the Commodores posted a clip from a few weeks ago on the new large video board at former Alabama coach Nick Saban’s stadium. He told ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show” that “the only place you play in the SEC where it’s not hard to play is Vanderbilt.”

    “Because if you go to Vanderbilt, you have more fans there than they do,” Saban continued. “And that’s no disrespect to them. It’s just the truth.”

    Vanderbilt can enjoy the sweet satisfaction of beating Alabama, of all teams, after a statement like that.

    But Saban wasn’t wrong.

    Alabama lost on Saturday despite the fact that there was a very ‘road atmosphere’. The Crimson Tide’s rabid fan base is known for such invasions, but Virginia Tech fans did the same earlier this season.

    Vanderbilt still beat Virginia Tech. And now it has defeated Alabama, leaving little room to argue with the following two sentences:

    Lea has a damn good football team.

    And it’s high time that its own fan base came to support it on game days.

    “What we need to do is fill the stadium with black and gold shirts,” Lea said. “And if we do, it will be a tough place to play. It may not be the biggest, but it’s on top of you and it can get loud. I think this is a glimpse of what Saturday night could be in Nashville.

    Lea’s emotion after this victory was well deserved. This was by far his biggest win yet as head coach. It was the largest in modern program history, and Lea is a Vanderbilt man. Since his return, he has spoken boldly about Vanderbilt’s potential in football like few others would dare. He once appeared at SEC Media Days and proclaimed with a chuckle that he wanted Vanderbilt to be the best program in the country, and “that’s what I’m looking for,” he reiterated Saturday.

    “It’s a little cheesy to bring that up now,” Lea said after beating the No. 1 team in the AP poll, “but that’s what I said, and I guess when I said it, no one really understood. But the people who know me and what we do here understand it.”

    It’s hard to feel like a big program when you’re visiting fans who so consistently flood your stadium and outnumber your own. That is not just a competitive disadvantage. Recruits also sit in those seats.

    Vanderbilt, honestly, did Supporters will be present on Saturday. Some of them were noisy at times. Shoutout to the students, for example. Their presence was noticeable. They have done fantastic this season.

    For years, however, there was a huge gap between Lea’s stated vision for Vanderbilt’s program and its results on the field. That’s why more fans haven’t signed on to the Commodores as a serious contender. They are so used to disappointment. Until recently, this pessimism was understandable.

    But not anymore. Vanderbilt fans should be proud of this team. It’s a spirited, fun group to watch, with quarterback Diego Pavia embodying a team-wide mentality and not backing down in big moments. Or when you are confronted with superior talent. The Commodores face an opponent Saturday that is dripping with top talent and a program that went 59-0 the last time it played in Vanderbilt Stadium, outpacing it mentally and physically.

    This was (pause for impact) Alabama football. And Vanderbilt didn’t care at all. Wasn’t the least bit scared. It’s easy to make a case for such a team. The Commodores probably won’t win all of their remaining games, but they’ve earned the right to believe they have a chance against anyone.

    They just need their fan base to think so.

    “A night like tonight will hopefully be a breakthrough for some,” Lea said. “Hopefully the next time we’re home you’ll get a sense of what this could mean in terms of Vanderbilt’s support for our program. I’m not bitter about that. We have to play a certain way so that people get interested.”

    This is how Vanderbilt played on Saturday.

    I imagine all those people wearing crimson on the West End would agree.

    Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at [email protected] and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes.

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