Barr
Mahoney
Sheppard

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Starts Sunday night at 6. I'll try to give some thoughts between now and then but am currently at my daughter's lacrosse tournament in Chattanooga and won't be back until Sunday evening.

Vandy has announced that Mabel Cummins will be added to the coaching staff of the bowling team. If you are not familiar with this recently graduated athlete, I urge you to go to the Vandy website to read about this amazing young lady. I cannot imagine this hire as being anything but a huge plus for VU for the next several years----for the bowling team, the athletic department and the university as a whole.

I saw this opinion piece on cnn.

Obviously it is someone very upset about the supreme court decision.

I am in no way arguing for or against that decision.

I thought the idea was interesting. Could sports admissions be considered a quota based system (for a certain number of students) and not allowed?

I thought it was interesting.

Gets an initial 5.6 3 star rating from Rivals.

Vandy currently has 21 commitments in their 2024 recruiting class, here is a state breakdown:

Texas - 5 (Harrison Moore, Tristen Brown, Johann Cardenas, Alvin Williamson, Jr., Dontae Carter)
Tennessee - 5 (Glenn Seabrooks, Jaren Sensabaugh, Markeis Barrett, Whitt Muschamp, Jeremy St-Hilaire)
Florida - 4 (Guylijah Theodule, Joshua Raymond, Mason Carter, Callahan Blair)
Georgia - 2 (Simeon Boulware, Martreece Dillard)
Ohio - 1 (Dorian Williams)
Maryland - 1 (Brycen Coleman)
Massachusetts - 1 (CJ Williams)
Louisiana - 1 (Tate Hamby)
Arkansas - 1 (Joseph McVay)

For comparison, Vandy had the same amount of commits from Texas and six in-state pledges in their 2023 class. Also, interesting that Alabama is not represented in this class so far.

Gordon Sargent was invited to play as an amateur in this week’s PGA tournament, The John Deere Classic. He made the cut at -5 while three other former Vandy pro golfers Snedeker -1 , Schwab +4 and Gordon +6 missed the cut. He is -7 at the end of three rounds and the final round begins at 8:30am this morning.

I always felt that Fitz was a Neanderthal and this hazing incident just solidifies it. That piece of crap needs to be fired and I hope Northwestern football program gets destroyed with transfers and decommits in the next six months.

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Big backfield pickup for Vandy, beating out Missouri

NM

Thanks to two generous sponsors, we have secured Joey Dwyer in a bigger role for the coming year in a bigger role!

Last year, Joey worked as our hoops guy and covered baseball some. This year, Joey will continue to anchor our basketball and basketball recruiting coverage. This year, thanks to financial sponsorship, Joey will be working for us through at least next July. The pay has enabled him to be able to drop other paid work and be exclusively with us, and hopefully stay in Nashville year round. And because of that, he'll be a major part of our football and baseball coverage, too, as well as be more involved in the podcasts.

I want to thank two people for their help here.

The first is Davis Young with Purity Dairies, which will be our sponsor of our baseball content for the coming year. I am a huge fan of their product and so I couldn't be more excited about this partnership.

The second is Stephen Andrews of Wash House, which is a custom clothes-laundering service (and they also own a few laundromats). Stephen has been a friend of mine for about 20 years and is a tremendous guy, and I look forward to their partnerships too. And so Wash House will be the presenting sponsor of all our basketball content.

I am in talks with a couple of business about sponsoring football season and hopefully they will jump on board, but we could still use help (whether that be sponsorships or donations, etc.). We are looking for title sponsors for recruiting coverage and for travel, and always have more podcast inventory (guest line/news/player of the week sponsors, whatever you can imagine). So please send any inquiries my way.

And to the last part, I've had a few people reach out about updates on pledges; I know several you have promised to help through Luke Wyatt, and he passed those along to me. So we will be getting in touch in the coming week to firm those up and talk about where the money goes to meet needs and all those things.

Finally, I've been overwhelmed by the offers of help. Thank you to those who've jumped in and to those who will. It truly does make a difference because without it, we would not have hired Joey (and we're hoping to make Billy Derrick next.).

Sincerely,

Chris

He will be going live on his Instagram account at 5:50 CT tonight.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Candice Storey Lee has been reappointed as Vanderbilt University’s vice chancellor for athletics and university affairs and athletic director, Chancellor Daniel Diermeier announced today. The reappointment is for a five-year term beginning July 1, 2023.


A former standout student-athlete at Vanderbilt and three-time graduate of the university, Lee was named to the vice chancellor and athletic director role in May 2020. She is Vanderbilt’s first female athletic director and the first Black woman to head an athletics program in the Southeastern Conference.


“Candice Lee’s pathbreaking tenure at Vanderbilt has included the transformation of our athletics program through Vandy United and tremendous progress toward our goal of making Vanderbilt Athletics a second-to-none experience in all of college sports for our student-athletes, alumni and fans,” Diermeier said. “Candice embodies our university’s rich values and is a tireless advocate for our student-athletes’ success. I look forward to continuing our collaboration, with the goal of taking Vanderbilt Athletics to unparalleled new heights.”


Announced in March 2021, Vandy United is the university’s bold investment in its athletic programs. As part of the initiative, Vanderbilt announced in April 2023 the creation of the Frist Athletics Village. Made possible by an unprecedented philanthropic gift from Vanderbilt trustee Jennifer R. Frist, BS’93, and William R. (Billy) Frist, the complex encompasses the entirety of the campus neighborhood that is currently home to Vanderbilt Athletics and many key Vandy United initiatives. In May, the university announced that Vandy United had achieved its initial $300 million fundraising goal—the largest campaign in the history of the athletics program.


Projects that have been announced or are currently underway include a new football operations center; a significant renovation and expansion of the McGugin Center; a new indoor practice facility for football; a new basketball operations center; the newly expanded and enhanced Lummis Family Tennis Center; major updates to the Vanderbilt Legends Club, home of the men’s and women’s golf teams; and significant enhancements to Hawkins Field, home of VandyBoys baseball. Upgrades to Vanderbilt Stadium to improve the fan experience will include premium seating, new hospitality space, upgraded food and beverage options and more.


In August 2022, Vanderbilt announced a 10-year football stadium naming rights and campus collaboration agreement with FirstBank in alignment with the Vandy United goal of broadening opportunities for community engagement.


In November 2022, the university announced the creation of the Ingram Center for Student-Athlete Success, to be funded with part of the lead gift to the Vandy United campaign made by longtime supporter and Board of Trust member John R. Ingram. Housed within the McGugin Center, this initiative represents a restructured approach to how Vanderbilt Athletics supports academic, personal and career development.


Vanderbilt student-athletes continue to excel in the classroom, having exceeded a 3.0 grade-point average for the 17th consecutive year—including a record 3.38 GPA earned this academic year.


During Lee’s tenure as vice chancellor and athletic director, Vanderbilt student-athletes have earned two national championships (including bowling’s third national title in April, and Gordon Sargent’s individual national title in men’s golf in 2022) and six conference championships. She also led efforts to restore volleyball as Vanderbilt’s 17th varsity sport, announced in April 2022 during the 50th anniversary of Title IX.


A team captain, four-year letter winner and five-time SEC Academic Honor Roll honoree as a member of the Vanderbilt women’s basketball team, Lee helped lead the Commodores to an SEC Tournament championship and NCAA Elite Eight appearance in her final season in 2002. She graduated from Vanderbilt with a bachelor of science in human and organizational development in 2000 and received her master’s degree in counseling in 2002 and her doctorate in higher education administration in 2012.


In 2021, Lee received Vanderbilt Peabody College’s Distinguished Alumna Award. Members of Vanderbilt’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee awarded her the inaugural Staff Appreciation Award in 2022 in recognition of her leadership. Also in 2022, Lee was named Athletic Director of the Year at the Black Student-Athlete Summit. She currently serves or has served on the boards of directors for the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, Nashville Sports Council, YWCA of Middle Tennessee and The Family Center.


“I’m grateful to Chancellor Diermeier for his partnership and commitment to our shared vision for what is possible at Vanderbilt. It’s an honor to serve the student-athletes who choose to be Commodores and the lifelong community of alumni and supporters who make this university special,” Lee said. “And a special thank you to our dedicated coaches and staff and my campus colleagues for their trust and support.


“As a new athletic year approaches and we move forward, much hard work remains,” Lee said. “But with each shovel in the ground and each victory on the field of play, we dare to grow. I know the best days are ahead for Commodore Nation. I can’t wait to continue our journey.”

He will not be playing in the All Star game. He has a bruised left foot.

Seems like things look really good for both Cardenas & Carter in the next few days.

That would put VU at 21 commits before the 2nd week of July. Even with Jimmy FranksI never remember having that many on board this early.

@Sean_Williams how many is VU looking to take this cycle? Would think that with the exception of maybe trying to add 1 more OT it’s just best available you can get to commit from here on out?

Let’s go Johann

Switching to long-snapper as the backup is no longer in the team - - he’s reporting to training this week.

I have seen a few comments on here on how we have a "great" recruiting staff and they are killing it with this class, etc. So I decided to do what I always do, look at the facts. Here is where we are:

Rivals Class Rank: #36 (11th in SEC)
247 Class Rank: #37 (12th in SEC)

However, we have more commitments than a lot of other schools. If you rank it by star average/recruit quality, it would look like this:

Rivals: #67 (last in SEC)
247: #47 (last in SEC)

I would equate it to a 400m race in track--when you are in lane 8, it looks good starting off but the longer it goes, the more you come back to the pack.

I believe the last 6 or so years, our average class ranking is around 47, and that looks to be in the neighborhood of where we finish once everyone fills up their classes. So on paper, doesn't look to be a class substantially above or below what we usually have. Hopefully there are some 4 stars that will swing our way (we currently don't have one on either site). Also, I know many of you have a theory that Barton has a secret sauce formula and our kids are underrated, but those things are said every year regardless of coach so therefore it cannot be quantified. Hope we have a super strong close and can close top 40--that would be a win IMO.

Totally stealing someone’s work but oh well lol


Southern Miss has the largest offensive line in the entire Group of 5 entering the season. They average 325 pounds.

Largest O-Line Weight Averages:

1. Arizona -334
2. Florida - 330.
3. Alabama - 327
4. Vanderbilt - 326
5. TCU-325
6. Texas A&M -325
7. Southern Miss -325

I personally think this is one stat many aren’t looking at from the outside. Rather it’s the Oline or Dline we actually have size for the first time that I can remember. During Masons stay I recall our lines being stuck around 280ish .. so undersized and getting bullied . We are now actually at a point where we are producing 300+ linemen on oline and dline with Depth .. on both sides we will have players coming off the bench that would usually be starters playing the whole game due to the lack of depth size and talent.