Vanderbilt football kicks off its 2018 Saturday; will it be the final opener of Derek Mason’s Commodore career?
The fifth-year head coach has had a rocky tenure in Nashville, taking a step backward with a 2017 campaign that saw his team sprint out to a 3-0 start before crashing back to earth harder than a Siberia-bound asteroid (we, in retrospect, did not want Bama) and losing seven of their next eight games — all by 13 points or more. Though beating Tennessee helped restore some goodwill, Mason’s inability to field a competent SEC defense last fall has put him firmly on the hot seat this one.