This season can go one of two ways now

You wouldn’t really be that far off the mark to suggest that Saturday was the worst performance of the Derek Mason era.

Even considering the level of competition, you also have to consider the fact that the talent level is pretty far ahead of where it was in 2014 and 2015. There’s a reason, after all, that Vanderbilt was an 18.5-point underdog; consider that Alabama opened as a 28-point favorite against Ole Miss this coming Saturday. Vanderbilt was completely and utterly dominated on both sides of the ball. We expected to lose to Alabama, but not like that.

So now, Derek Mason has maybe the biggest challenge of his career ahead of him. Over the next two weeks, Vanderbilt plays at Florida and…