Either 7-5 season and a bowl loss or 6-6 and a bowl win? Perhaps a tougher question: Would you rather go 7-5 and lose to Vols or go 6-6 and beat Vols and knock them out of the playoffs?

Four-star Ciara Byars takes an official visit to Vanderbilt.

The forward is the No. 63 player in the class of 25.

The Winchester, Kentucky, native’s top 7 includes Vanderbilt, Cal, Michigan, Louisville, Maryland, Mississippi State and Virginia Tech.

“Quiet! Ranked teams are talking!”

Login to view embedded media

7 games played - SEC Rankings

Scoring Offense
Vandy - 6th at 232 points
Texas - 3rd at 274 points

Scoring Defense
Vandy - 14th - 155 points
Texas - 1st - 68 points (pretty incredible 9.7 ppg)

Total Offense
Vandy - 13th at 363 ypg
Texas - 3rd at 461 ypg

Total Defense
Vandy - 10th at 331 ypg
Texas - 1st at 237 ypg

Offensive TDs
Vandy - 10th with 24
Texas - 2nd with 36

I'd like to take my 6-year-old twin boys to the game if I can get tickets for a decent price. $200 per ticket (after service fees) on the open market is a bit more than I want to pay. Maybe someone on the board has three available for a price closer to face value. Please direct message me if you have extras.

Thisguy.

Login to view embedded media

LISTEN:

Login to view embedded media
WATCH:

Login to view embedded media

...presented by Sutherland & Belk Injury Law, hoping to record tomorrow at 10am -- get 'em in folks:

Am told to expect a decommitment from MSU and he’ll choose either Vanderbilt or Tennessee. As you know he was originally a Vanderbilt commit who flipped to MSU this summer.

BALL STATE
Happy with the score, not the performance
Spoke to energy of focus and execution
They weren’t the more physical team Saturday and that was hard to watch and own
Thinks the players agree with that and are committed to being better


TEXAS
One of, if not the best, team in the country
But it’s about us, playing at our highest level
Don’t do things independent of identity
Highly-skilled team, they have to tackle and compress space on perimeter
Can’t allow explosive touchdowns
Vanderbilt needs to make an ugly game

Login to view embedded media
So… seems like Brodie might be a capital D Dude.

Just got emailed about this:

Clark Lea's Commodores are ranked No. 25 in both the AP and Coaches Poll, marking Vanderbilt's best start since 2008 with a 5-2 record. The team has also won its first four home games for the first time since 1982.

Now, Commodore Nation has the opportunity to keep this momentum going by supporting our student-athletes in exclusive ways! Visit our auction site by clicking the link below to bid on unique experiences that will elevate your game day vs. Texas. The auction ends at 12 p.m. CT on Thursday October 24.

Featured experiences include:

Pregame sideline passes and a Vanderbilt swag bag
The opportunity to sound "The Admiral" when the Commodores take the field
Join the Friday team walkthrough, enjoy a behind-the-scenes facilities tour, and receive a Vanderbilt Football helmet
Friday Night Lights: Join us for Commodore Cocktail Hour and play catch on the field at FirstBank Stadium
Take the field with the team
McGugin Society membership for the weekend
Participate in Star Walk and enjoy pregame sideline passes
Don’t miss your chance to elevate your game day and be part of these unforgettable moments. Anchor Down!

Coming to the game with my 11 year old daughter. Hit me with a direct message if you have some to sell. Thanks.

93-89 Vandy is what I’m seeing but don’t have any context.

UAB is predicted to win the American Conference in the preseason poll. Probably a top 50 team

Texas will have watched a lot of our tape and vice versa and so there are some things that I'm assuming - like our OL scheme & play is consistent.

Offense

• Echoing a Leaism - Don't get off schedule. Penalties will kill us, let Texas make mistakes. Can't get behind early.
• Convert Third downs at 50% or higher. Texas is #10 in the country at preventing third down conversions. Imo - game won or lost here.
• Convert Fourth downs - we're good at it this year and we're going to need to take some risks.
• Convert TDs in the Red Zone, but more importantly, 100% of the time in the RZ, need to come away with points.
• New wrinkles. Have a theory that we played Ball St. vanilla as not to highlight anything we want to do to Texas. Stowers back to Pavia...coming to a store near you.
• Diego has to keep his passing percentage high - above 65%. He missed some shots at Ball St., can't do that with Texas. Going to need some explosive plays even with Texas having maybe the best secondary in the country.
• Time of Possession - Has to be above 30 minutes, and need to limit UT to under 10-12 possessions.
• No turnovers. We're one of the best in the country at limiting turnovers and UT is the top defense in the country. UT also has a bunch of ball hawks. Something will give.

Defense

• Generate pressure from the front 4 or 5. We're near bottom in the SEC conference in generating sacks and we're going up against one of the top passing offenses. Sitting back will be a disaster. You saw what Georgia did, 7 sacks. Of course we don't have the man coverage or DL Georgia does, but Clark's going to have to dial it up or get picked apart.
• Despite some injuries to the RB position, UT has some excellent backs who average almost 5 yards a carry. Challenge accepted by the front 6 - and can't let the backs get open out of the backfield.
• Somehow keep the passing explosive plays to a minimum, all while applying pressure in spots. Bond, Wingo, Golden - tough to contain all game. Limit possessions is key. We'll need some luck here frankly.
• Texas doesn't give up many turnovers (#2 in the country, #1 in conference) - we'll need some fortunate bounces.

What else?

One thing that’s so great about this 5-2 start is that every single game the rest of the way is a meaningful football game to get excited about each week. Most seasons in my life time, the season is over before November. Nice to be able to care for a change.

I would be interested from folks who are better versed in the beef than I. We went into this week thinking that Ball State had one of the worst defenses in BCS and coming off of two competitive-to-dominant performances against top tier SEC defenses. The conventional wisdom here was that we should be able to run the ball down their throats, which did not happen. Did the big boys lack juice or was Ball State doing something novel to complicate things? To my layman's perspective, it seemed like Ball State was able to shed and evade blocks better than we've seen opponents in the last two weeks.

Login to view embedded media
It'll take a few minutes to show up.

I noticed on the broadcast that Moni was mentioned more than any other game so far.

This was backed up by the snap counts, ~22, from Chris.

Was this just a rest the other guys move, or was/is he presenting a different skillset?

If so, what is he offering different from seddy and Newberry other than size?