Vanderbilt, the SEC’s happiest team, is gleefully ruining seasons across the South

The 12-team playoff has gifted two dozen teams with postseason hopes, filling the heads of alumni and boosters with previously unattainable dreams of championship glory … or, at the least, relevance in December. But the 12-team playoff has also given rise to a whole separate class: the Ruiners.

The more teams in the postseason hunt, the more chances there are for schedules, dreams, entire seasons to blast into pieces thanks to one unexpected, chaotic, all-in opponent. Northern Illinois skewed Notre Dame’s entire arc. Arkansas kneecapped Tennessee. South Carolina nearly took out LSU early, then blasted Texas A&M just last week. Texas Tech just dragged Iowa State right out of the playoff bracket. Cal brought the #Calgorithm to life and set it loose on hapless programs all over the South.

But no program is reveling in its newfound ability to Ruin Things than the Harvard of the South, the Landed Aristocracy of Nashville, the Blue-Bloods of Middle Tennessee … ladies and gentlemen, your Vanderbilt Commodores, 2024’s gleeful, exuberant Ruiners of the Year.

The 40-35 defeat of Alabama a few weeks back was, in the moment, one of the most stunning outcomes in recent college football history. But as the season has proceeded, that victory — while no less impressive — is looking less like a miracle and more like the end result of a long-planned strategy. Combine that with Vanderbilt’s close loss to Texas, which helped expose the flaws in the Longhorn program, and a Yellowhammer State sweep in a victory over Auburn, and there might just be something happening in Nashville besides bachelorette parties.

Although Vanderbilt was once a Southern football titan — no, really, look it up — the program has spent most of the last century as the SEC’s version of the nerd brought in to actually do the group project. Aside from a pair of nine-win seasons in 2012-13 that James Franklin leveraged into a job at Penn State, Vanderbilt hasn’t won more than seven games in a season since 1982. Even in an era when bowl invitations are slung around like Halloween candy, the Commodores have only played in six bowls in the last 40 years.

Just over two years ago, speaking at SEC media days, Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea proclaimed, “We’re aiming to build the best football program in the country at Vanderbilt University, where we have the best school in the best city in the best conference with the best facilities on the horizon.”

It was easy to smile and think, Sure, Clark, whatever. Maybe try getting to .500 before you start talking about winning titles. The Commodores were coming off a two-win season in 2021, and they’d post another two-win stinker in 2023.

Now, though, everything has changed, from the vibe around the program to the quarterback leading the charge. Diego Pavia, the portal transfer from New Mexico State who bedevils opposing defenses, personifies this new Vanderbilt mentality, scared of no one and ready to challenge everyone.

Granted, Vanderbilt isn’t exactly challenging the conference leaders in any major statistical categories. But here’s the key: The Commodores aren’t in last place, either. They’re solidly in the middle … which won’t get you any playoff invitations, but it will get your previously moribund campus fired up for something besides basketball and baseball.

No school in the SEC is having more fun these days, because no school in the SEC is playing farther above its expected station. The Georgias, Tennessees and Texases are terrified of slipping in the playoff standings, the Alabamas and LSUs are one loss away from irrelevance. And the Auburns and Mississippi States are counting the days until their rivalry games. Vanderbilt is playing with house money … lots and lots of house money.

SEC Shorts, the social media sports/comedy collective, is all on board the newly wealthy Vandy train. College football comedian Josh Mancuso captures the Commodores’ utter inability to trash talk … because when would they have gotten the practice?

This weekend, it’s Ruiner vs. Ruiner, as South Carolina comes to Nashville. How’s it going to go? Who knows? Either one of these teams is capable of creating complete chaos, so it could be a 48-42 shootout or a 6-3 feather duel.

Vanderbilt is breaking a whole lot of new ground this year, and it carries a 15-game losing streak against South Carolina into Saturday. To hear Lea tell it, though, that’s never an issue.

“Sincerely, it doesn’t occupy any part of my mind. I just don’t hang onto those things,” he said, and then offered up a humblebrag for the ages: “I didn’t realize that it had been since 1955 that we beat Auburn and Alabama. Those are things that are fun to find out after the game, but they don’t have any part of our approach or process.”

After South Carolina, Vandy closes out the season on the road against LSU and at home for the annual Tennessee rivalry. Depending on how the upcoming weeks go, either or both could be yet another opportunity for Vanderbilt to demolish a season. And winning two of the next three would give Vanderbilt only its second five-conference-victory season since — wait for it — 1935.

The Commodores will face tough questions about how to pivot this year’s success into next year’s improvement. But that’s a 2025 problem. For now, it’s just a question of whose year they’re going to ruin next.