Vanderbilt Football Is Home In The SEC, Stop The Swapping Talk
It's a continuing theme among writers of internet sites and fans of other teams around the conference and across the nation, Vanderbilt football should be swapped with insert team name here.
That's not going to happen, regardless of how many people or times it's shared.
The latest such musing that the Commodores should be vanquished from their home conference since the league's inception in 1932 comes via Fansided. Michael Collins, college sports editorial director of Fansided and a national columnist, penned an article last week on the subject.
Collins' premise is that football wasn't made for Vandy.
According to the article, "With all due respect to the Commodores from Nashville, other than being geographically located in a prime southeastern city, SEC football wasn't made for Vanderbilt."
While the statistical numbers laid out in his work are admittedly horrible by anyone's standards, there is more to a school than just football. The Commodores have a history in men's basketball and are the defending College World Series champs. That counts for something.
So how about they leave in football only? That's not happening, the conference wouldn't allow it for one, and the administration isn't even about to consider it.
Who would replace the Commodores in this latest "move on" work
The Knights of the University of Central Florida, that who. A sexy new kid on the football block who brought their sunny new toys to the table a couple of years ago and managed to put together an undefeated season.
While the Knights might be an upgrade of sorts in football- though, they've won nothing of note, unless you give them their claim of 2017 champs after their unbeaten season- and have little to no basketball or baseball history to speak of outside 2017.
The article goes on to make more points in support of this idea, though most are superficial. Still, the final paragraph is interesting.
"SEC football fans need to get behind this and put some pressure on Greg Sankey, Michael Aresco, and the Walt Disney family to make this happen. For the good of the conference. For the good of college football in the deep south."
It seems to me that the good of the conference extends past football alone, making this statement off-target at best.
Yes, the Knights have beaten Alabama, Georgia, and Auburn once each in their history. The Commodores have done that and more. UCF sports a 3-18 all-time mark versus SEC opponents, and their win over Alabama came back in the 2000 season when Mike Dubose was the Tide head man about to send Bama into the depths of NCAA purgatory in one of the biggest recruiting scandals in conference history.
I'm betting that as good as they were in 2017, and considering the knocked off Auburn in a bowl game, they still don't want a regular part of Nick Saban and Alabama during Saban's run of dominate that continues today.
Likewise, Georgia is another team that UCF should want to avoid regularly.
It's all fun and games for fans to chant "We Want Bama" or "We Want Georgia" until you get them.
The Knights are a great story, and 2017 was a magical year, but since then, they have finished 12-1 and 10-3 versus the American Athletic Conference. None of which are Bama or Georgia.
I'm no looking to pick a fight or start some media argument with anyone, but these articles are nothing more than fantasy.
Yes, the Knights would be an exciting addition to the SEC- Florida would never allow them in any way- but there's more to a conference than just one sport.
The sooner writers remember that the sooner we won't have to see these stories again.
Follow Greg on Twitter @GregAriasSports and @SIVanderbilt or Facebook at Vanderbilt Commodores-Maven
