The last time Alabama came to visit FirstBank Stadium, the legacy of Diego Pavia was born in a 40-35 win that ended a 40-year losing streak to the Tide. Will we see a similar legacy game for Jared Curtis on Saturday?
Lol, probably not, though it’s worth noting that Alabama will be without starting quarterback Keelon Russell, and the latest Trump Administration fuckup led to Alabama having to ride a bus from Tuscaloosa to Nashville instead of taking a charter flight. I guess, in theory, that could
affect this game. What say our writers?
Andrew VU ‘04
Wait… did Tom leave the Grocery game and rejoin us in prediction land?
Clanga lost their do-everything QB, and so we picked up our first conference win of the season. Will the Ramajama Gump’s starting QB injury lead to our goalposts getting another dip in the Cumberland?
Live shot of the new Gump QB, Little Mack, training:
I… just think they have too much talent elsewhere for it to matter. Hope I’m wrong, but I just don’t see it.
The Pick: Vanderbilt 13, Alabama 24.
The SEC Upset Pick of the Week: Give me The Jorts over The Wedding Jerseys. Both are flawed teams, so I’ll go with the squad with the better running game.
Patrick Sawyer
It was good to get a win and certain parts of the team looked a lot better. The defense was great, but Mississippi State is really struggling as an offense since Kamario Taylor went down. That said, only allowing 4 drives to go longer than 3 plays is impressive. The Bulldogs could only muster 12 first downs.
The offense was moderately effective at moving the ball with 6.2 yards per pass attempt and 3.1 yards per carry. State is a stout 26th in yards per carry allowed at 3.39 YPC but a weaker 102nd in passings yards per attempt allowed at 7.7 YPA. The problem was what happened when Vanderbilt crossed midfield and suddenly bogged down. Brock Taylor kicking 6 FGs and only having 1 TD is not a winning formula against a good team.
Vanderbilt does not get to play Mississippi State again Saturday. They have to play #3 Alabama. A weird stat I saw today is that Alabama is the worst team in the SEC at giving up contact behind the line of scrimmage on designed runs at 31%. Vanderbilt is 4th worst at 28%. Alabama is also 114th in YPA allowed with the average pass attempt against them gaining 7.9 yards. They’re even better than State against the run though at 16th with just 3.02 YPC allowed. The Crimson Tide’s offense is lethal though, especially through the air. They average 9.1 YPA (13th) and are serviceable at 4.26 YPC (75th).
Keelon Russell is listed as “Probable” on the injury report though. That would somewhat explain the spread only being 16.5 points, but my hopes are not high, even if he does not play. The offense showed some spark and grit, but I am not expecting them to have their best game of the season against Alabama. I did edit this down 8 points when I saw Austin Mack is expected to start.
The Pick: Vanderbilt 13, Alabama 30
The SEC Upset Pick of the Week: I did not pick any upsets. I took all of the favorites to cover, but let’s take Texas to jump all over a wounded Tiger to take down LSU.
Cole Sullivan
Patrick said a bunch of numbers and that’s great but I got a D+ in Multivariable Calculus twice for a reason*: I don’t understand numbers. What I do understand is that last time Alabama came into our house, they never led. Crazier things have happened. Gimme the ‘Dores.
The Pick: Vanderbilt 30, Alabama 17
The SEC Upset Pick of the Week: As long as their plane takes off on time, I think Texas will handle business down in Baton Rouge.
(*I had Johns Ahner and Rafter if anyone were wondering)
Tom Stephenson
Yeah, I’m not feeling this. We finally did get an SEC win last week at Mississippi State thanks mostly to the leg of Brock Taylor. Vanderbilt had seven scoring drives and six of them were field goals. That is, suffice to say, not going to cut it against Alabama even assuming we manage to get seven scoring chances. We will probably not do that, either.
Now, back to my swing shift at the Ames Piggly Wiggly. Wait, where does Andrew say that I work this week?
The Pick: Alabama 31, Vanderbilt 10
The SEC Upset Pick of the Week: Between Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian, one of them has to actually win a big game this week. There is no way around this. Texas (+4.5) will beat LSU because one of them has to.
