LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Mark Stoops opened his weekly press conference on Monday with this: "I don't have to worry about selling Vanderbilt anymore and telling you how good they are."
No, you don't. Not now. Not after last Saturday. Not after Vanderbilt 40, Alabama 35. Not after the Commodores' first win over a No. 1-ranked team since, well, ever, as it turns out. Not since Vanderbilt, who lost 30-27 in overtime at then No. 7-ranked Missouri on Sept. 21, could easily be 2-0 in the SEC with victories over two top 10 teams.
Vanderbilt? Yes, Vanderbilt. So as the Commodores come to Kroger Field to play Stoops' Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday for a 7:45 p.m. ET tilt on the SEC Network, let us ask a simple question: How did we get here?
After all, Alabama wasn't the only highly ranked team to come tumbling down last Saturday. No. 4 Tennessee lost at Arkansas. No. 9 Missouri got drilled at Texas A&M. No. 10 Michigan lost at Washington. No. 11 USC lost at Minnesota. No. 8 Miami had to rally from 25 points down to win by a single point at California.
What happened to the belief that once the NIL pay-the-players era arrived and the transfer portal became unfettered free agency, all the best players would migrate to all the powerhouse programs to widen the separation between the haves and the have-nots?
Turns out, we pundits were wrong. Again. This time, for two reasons. No. 1, there are a lot of great players out there who, for a variety or reasons, are not landing at the established powers. And No. 2, the established powers have taken depth chart hits thanks to players choosing to leave rather than wait their turn.
Diego Pavia is the poster child for No. 1. He's the Vanderbilt quarterback. Chances are you had never heard his name before Saturday. A native of Albuquerque, N.M., Pavia played at such outposts as New Mexico Military Institute and New Mexico State before arriving in Nashville.
Pavia is good. Really good. And he's really unique. As Stoops said Monday, he's a terrific ball-handler, thus a perfect fit for Vandy's deception-based offense. He was 16-of-20 passing for 252 yards in the win over Alabama. He has yet to throw his first interception this season. He rushed for 104 yards in Vandy's opening-game win over Virginia Tech. In other words, Pavia is a playmaker.
"He's an amazing player, he really is," Stoops said Monday.
That's not coachspeak. For one thing, Stoops has a tremendous amount of respect for Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea. The two were major college defensive coordinators -- Stoops at Florida State, Lea at Notre Dame -- before becoming head coaches at their current schools. When Lea returned to his alma mater he talked to Stoops about the way the Kentucky coach had built his program. Both coaches preach fundamentals and physical play. Remember, Lea's team beat Stoops' team in Lexington two years ago.
Still, Vanderbilt went 2-10 last season. Not sure anyone predicted that in the final seconds of Saturday night's game Alabama defensive back and captain Malachi Moore would be throwing a temper tantrum in which he hurled his mouthpiece halfway down the field, gesticulated wildly to his sullen teammates and then kicked the football after it had been placed by the officials for the next down.
After such a momentous victory will the Commodores suffer a hangover this Saturday? After all, it's not every night that Vanderbilt students are carrying the stadium goal posts right down the middle of Broadway Street in Nashville, past Bridgestone Arena, past the Ryman Auditorium, and gleefully pitching them into the Cumberland River.
It's not every day that a school is auctioning off pieces of the recovered goal posts -- 4-inch piece for $1,005, 8-inch for $4,035 -- or a personalized Clark Lea autographed game helmet ($2,830), game balls ($5,000 to $7,000) or end zone pylons ($1,500).
It's not every day that the host of NBC's "Saturday Night Live," in this case Nashville-based comedian Nate Bargatze, closes the show by shouting out "Vanderbilt beat Alabama."
Yes, it really is a whole new world for college football. Even if it's not entirely the world we expected.
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