In many ways, Saturday night’s game in Nashville was a microcosm of the Vanderbilt Commodores’ 2016 football season.
The Commodores’ first drive of the game ended on a failed fourth-down conversion, followed by a five-play touchdown drive for the Vols and a quick 7-0 hole that took all the air out of the stadium. And Vanderbilt opened the season with a deflating loss to a South Carolina team that most observers thought Vanderbilt should have beaten.
In the past, the three-letter acronym that we dare not use would have folded. But this Vanderbilt team followed the South Carolina loss with a relatively easy win over Middle Tennessee, and this Vanderbilt team answered Tennessee’s first blow with a touchdown drive of their own.