Archive for October, 2008
What’s wrong with Vanderbilt? It’s the offense, stupid
Vanderbilt tight end Brandon Barden is on to something when it comes to what isn’t working for the Commodores:
We have to put points on the board to help our defense to gain the win. We didn’t do that today.
No kidding. Barden is right, but he may be guilty of an understatement. Except for games against Miami (Ohio) and Rice, the Dores’ offense has struggled virtually all season. The break-but-don’t-bend defense, which provided its usual strong performance during today’s loss to Duke, has carried the team all season. It shut Duke down all four quarters, but that still wasn’t enough for the offense to overcome. The problem seems to be that the Dores’ D is top 25, but the Vandy offense may be bottom 50. At least right now, those numbers don’t add up to six wins.
Tags: bradon barden, college football, duke, duke blue devils, vanderbilt, vanderbilt commodores
The Dores are done
It’s unbelievable to be writing this after the first few weeks of the season, but I think the Dores are done. Vanderbilt showed very little life this afternoon in a terrible and embarrassing 10-7 loss to Duke, one that may very well extend the Commodores’ postseason drought yet another year. Coach Bobby Johnson said what he’s supposed to say following Vanderbilt’s third consecutive defeat:
I told them we have four more games to play, four more important games. We have to stop talking about doing things and start doing things. Keep our heads up and try to keep chugging away, but we are far from finished … 5-3 is not bad, but you’re as good as your last game. We have 4 more on the schedule as far as I know and we will be there to play every one of them.
If it were still August, I’d agree with Johnson that 5-3 would be not only “not bad,” but spectacular. Since the three losses followed five straight wins, though, 2008 is beginning to look a lot like 2005, the last time the Dores flirted with a breakout season. I hope I’m wrong, but after today, I’m pretty sure the flirting is over.
Tags: bobby johnson, college football, duke, duke blue devils, nashville, vanderbilt, vanderbilt commodores
Things I learned at the Nashville Geek Breakfast
Yesterday’s installment of the Nashville Geek Breakfast was another fun morning of tech talk. Though ringleader Dave Delaney was absent while caring for a sick child, the large and rowdy group carried on and made the best of it. (We missed you, Dave. Hope the Delaney family gets well soon.) Here are a few things I didn’t know before I darkened the door at Noshville 24 hours ago:
- Paul Van Hoesen has spent a lot of time in distant lands, such as Germany, Holland and rural Tennessee. Regarding the last of those locales, Paul’s company is dedicated to extending broadband access beyond urban areas to help reduce the digital divide.
- If you’re ready to dismiss that divide as insignificant, don’t. Would you believe that none of the students in a high school class Paul addressed recently in a rural Tennessee county knew what a podcast was? No one. Only four of them owned an iPod. Considering that we’re talking about a group of teenagers here, that’s startling.
- Dolphini Networks is the reason why Barcamp Nashville was able to use the Sommet Center for its site location last weekend. As a Preds sponsor (thanks, guys!), Dolphini is free to use the team’s logo and colors in its promotions, but not the faces of its players. Thank the NHLPA for that last part.
- Based on the location of her hometown in Pennsylvania, Julie Moore is practically Amish. Considering that she drove to Noshville for yesterday’s breakfast and that she works for Dolphini, though, she probably isn’t.
- Kate O’Neill can go to sleep at 2 a.m. and still attend a breakfast meeting at 7:30 the same morning. That’s impressive.
- Bill Seaver did not drive to Noshville in a car covered in its entirety with Post-It notes. But if he had, he knows what company would take credit for the idea.
It was good to see everyone as usual. See you next time!
Tags: geek breakfast, nashville, nashville geeks, noshville delicatessen, technology
Not time for Dores to celebrate, yet
Former Commodore football players Tavarus Hogans and Andre Woods have some sage advice for their current counterparts:
“This season is great,” Woods said. “Especially if we get this sixth win. They’ll etch themselves in history.”
Both Hogans, who lives in Tampa, Fla, and Woods, who lives in Houston, said people have been congratulating them about Vanderbilt’s success this season, particularly after the school’s appearance on ESPN’s College GameDay. “People want to see Vandy win,” Hogans said. “I’m even getting some people come up to me and say ‘atta boy.’ [But] We don’t need to party too soon.”
Virtually no one would have forecast the results Vanderbilt has generated on the field this fall, but Dores fans know all too well that the team has been here before. A 4-0 start in 2005 resulted in a 5-7 season after a humbling home loss to MTSU.
The details may be different, and the Dores may be one win closer to bowl eligibility, but one thing is very much the same: Vanderbilt can’t take any wins for granted. Win this weekend, and much of the pressure fades away. Lose to Duke, with Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee and Wake Forest on the horizon, and things may shift southward in a hurry. Vanderbilt needs to start fast, finish strong and keep the Blue Devils backpedaling this weekend. Go Dores!
Tags: college football, duke blue devils, nashville, vanderbilt, vanderbilt commodores
Time for Preds to get defensive
There will be plenty of defensive talent on display tonight at the Sommet Center. The Preds’ success against Calgary this evening–and for the entire season–will depend in large part on how Nashville’s defensemen perform.
The 2003 NHL Entry Draft held in Nashville offered a bumper crop of quality defensemen. Nashville’s Ryan Suter, the seventh player overall taken in the first round, Calgary’s Dion Phaneuf, the ninth player selected in the first round; Nashville’s Shea Weber, the 47th player overall taken in the second round and Kevin Klein, the third player picked by Nashville in the second round and the 37th overall, should all be on display tonight at 7 when the Flames and Predators meet at the Sommet Center.
Although offense has rarely been a source of strength for the Preds, Nashville’s shown early on this season that it can score goals when it needs them. It hasn’t shown that it can stop opponents from doing the same on a consistent basis, as high-score setbacks against St. Louis, Dallas and Columbus attest. The Preds have long been lauded for their depth at the defenseman position, and that’s true even though the team selected Ryan Suter over Dion Phaneuf in the 2003 draft. If Nashville is going to qualify for its fifth consecutive postseason this coming spring, that depth had better translate into strong defense soon.
Tags: calgary flames, dion phaneuf, hockey, kevin klein, nashville, nashville predators, nhl, ryan suter, shea weber
Tourists, residents aren’t mutually exclusive downtown
I usually agree with Gail Kerr, but I think she’s missed the mark today with her column comparing downtown noise limitations to fairy tales such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Guess what happened next? The clubs closed down. The tourists stopped coming. Downtown Nashville was, once again, a ghost town. The moral of the story? Silencing Nashville’s honky-tonks would be akin to flattening the Smokies so tourists could get to the outlet malls faster.
No one is suggesting that honky tonks be “silenced,” only that the noise be reduced to reasonable levels late at night. If it’s working for Austin, Texas, another hot destination for live music, surely it could work here. Last time I checked (earlier this year), the only ghosts there were the “spirits” stocked behind the bar at every popular nightspot. There were zero indications that downtown Austin was turning into a ghost town, but there were plenty that it was very much the place to be.
Striking a reasonable balance between tourists’ and residents’ needs downtown seems like the right approach to me. It’s great that tourists once again feel welcome downtown, and I think we should make sure that residents do, too.
Tags: community, downtown, gail kerr, metro council, noise, politics, the tennessean, tourism
Season on the line for Dores against Duke
The season may well hang in the balance for Vanderbilt as Duke visits Dudley Field on Saturday. A win will make the Commodores bowl eligible for the first time since 1982, and it will take much of the pressure of a team that has so far exceeded expectations. Yesterday’s respectable road loss to Georgia won’t matter much in the grand scheme if the Dores take care of business at home against an improved Blue Devils team.
“We’re not happy, but we think we can build on it,” Coach Bobby Johnson said after his team’s second straight loss. “If we’d come down here and not met the challenge of playing this team, I would have worried. But our guys were ready to play and played hard. That’s what I wanted them to do, play hard. “We thought if we did, we’d have a chance to win in the fourth quarter. We had a fair chance to at least tie it.”
There’s been much to be excited about on West End this fall. We’ll know whether that trend will continue by this time next week. Go Dores!
Tags: bobby johnson, college football, duke blue devils, georgia bulldogs, mackenzi adams, the tennessean, vanderbilt, vanderbilt commodores
Downtown needs both nightlife and neighbors
If it’s good enough for Austin, it ought to be good enough for Nashville. I think expecting reasonable limits on late-night noise is an appropriate thing to do:
[T]he 85-decibel standard matches the limit in Austin, another music-driven town, and is much louder than Manhattan’s. The standard actually would give the clubs more leeway than downtown establishments that are outside the central business district, which would violate the proposed ordinance if their music was “plainly audible” from the nearest residence, [Council member Mike] Jameson said.
Manhattan is an amazing city because of its nightlife and its residents. I’m thrilled that Nashville continues to have a vibrant downtown nightlife that attracts locals and tourists, and I want to see residents keep moving to the central part of the city, too. When people live downtown, it makes it a more welcoming a safer place for everyone. There’s room enough for both singing and slumber downtown.
Tags: butch spyridon, community, metro council, mike jameson, nashville, nashville convention and visitors bureau, noise, politics
