Surprised by Vandy upsetting Alabama? Don’t be

A season ago, Vanderbilt finished 2-10 and 0-8 in SEC play, losing conference games by an average of 20.3 points. The closest result was a 31-15 loss to Auburn.

There was no earthly reason to believe that Vanderbilt football would be anything other than what Vanderbilt football has always – or almost always – been. Non-competitive.

But last season, coach Clark Lea brought in 43 new players, either through high school recruiting or the transfer portal.

On Saturday, the Commodores improved to 3-2 on the season with a 40-35 loss to No. 1 Alabama.

It wasn’t just fueled by blood-and-guts quarterback Diego Pavia (a transfer from New Mexico State) who threw for 252 and two touchdowns and rushed for 57 additional yards. He played behind three newcomers on the offensive line – Steven Losoya (Mississippi State), Steven Hubbard (UTEP) and Chase Mitchell (Liberty) – who joined returning senior starters Gunnar Hansen and Delfin Xavier Castillo to dominate the Crimson Tide.

Vandy defeated Alabama (418-394) and outscored Alabama (166-84). It also converted 12 of 18 third downs and went one-and-one on fourth down. It controlled the time of possession (42:08-17:52). It ran 75 plays to the Tide’s 45.

If anything, Vanderbilt was simply better on Saturday.

This was a new team in a new time for college football. There’s been a lot of talk about the expanded 12-team playoff, which will create new paths to the postseason for more teams but also give powerhouses like Alabama more opportunities to stumble. Not every loss is debilitating (not that it ever was for teams like ‘Bama).

The bigger development is that they need to be able to absorb these losses because it looks like there will be more.

College football — or at least college football in the SEC — hasn’t yet achieved the NFL’s “Any Given Sunday” ethos of parity, but that doesn’t mean the competitive balance isn’t leveling out some parts.

The sport is more competitive than ever. While many wrongly predicted that Name, Image and Likeness and the immediate eligibility of the transfer portal would help the Alabamians of the world – the rich get richer – the opposite has proven to be true.

For years, the blueprint for winning a national championship was assembling a set of top five recruiting classes, which only a handful of programs had the resources, tradition and geography to succeed. Just half a decade ago, there were only three or four legitimate title contenders in entire seasons.

Meanwhile, building from the basement for a program like Vanderbilt required years of slow steps amidst the adversity. Almost no one has ever realized this.

Now neither is true. The last two national championship games featured Michigan, Washington and TCU – none of which had realistically competed in recent decades, but all of which were bolstered by additions to the transfer portal and zero-powered returns on existing talent.

Meanwhile, the conferences are starting to plateau even as they have expanded to increase the number of heavyweight-versus-heavyweight matchups.

Consider that in recent years, No. 2 Ohio State and No. 3 Oregon may have been able to blitz through their respective conferences (Big Ten and Pac 12) into the playoffs unscathed. Now they face each other in a Big Ten conference game on Saturday in Eugene.

Then there’s the week-in, week-out gauntlet for each team. Vanderbilt, which had lost 60 straight games to its top five opponents, suddenly proved to be a serious contender against Alabama. Maybe the Tide could have walked through it at some point and only worried about bigger clashes — say Tennessee in two weeks.

Not anymore.

The once fourth-place Volunteers, in turn, fell 19-14 to Arkansas on Saturday. After all, the Hogs were just 4-8 overall and 1-7 in the SEC last year. Coach Sam Pittman was clearly aware of the hot season. Still, he brought in 40 new players, including 22 transfers, and Arkansas’ rebuilt defense largely kept Tennessee’s high-powered offense in check.

Every program has money. They always have. In the past, booster money was spent passively by investing in facilities or coaching salaries in the hope that it would ultimately result in attracting better players. Most of the time they couldn’t win the construction race.

Now the money can go straight to the players… and talent goes wherever there is money to be made.

At the same time, the depth of the major programs is declining as players deep on the depth chart look for playing time at other schools; including up to the Group of 5 level. That also weakens the top.

Just a week into October, the SEC has just one undefeated team: Texas. The ACC is led by household names like Clemson and Miami, but SMU and Pitt are in the rankings and Syracuse is showing seriousness. It seems like almost anyone can win the Big 12.

The playoffs will feature two- and three-loss teams, which once seemed ridiculous. Get comfortable with it, because the schedules are now stricter and the gap within a league is smaller, so it’s inevitable that there will be more ‘disruptions’.

The loser here is a group of five teams – New Mexico State would certainly want Pavia to still play for them. There is some talent there, though, and there have been some upsets and newcomers this year – from Northern Illinois to Notre Dame to the clear excellence of Boise State.

This is the beginning of a whole new era for the sport. The playoff, of course, but also more and more schools are embracing a modern way of building a roster and have the ability to turn a program around almost overnight.

That’s what Clark Lea did last season, and on Saturday Vandy finally beat a top five team. The biggest surprise was that when you watched the game, it wasn’t a surprise at all.