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There Are No Good Guys Here
by Thomas Stephenson
Jun 9, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC
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The headlines tell you things like “Congress may finally fix college sports.”
The actual substance, though, is not what I would call a “fix.” It is the people who broke the sport — and there are many, many involved here — telling you that we have to “fix it,” but where the “fix” looks nothing like what you grew up with. It is the AI guys threatening everybody with large-scale unemployment and then proposing a new social contract to make up for them rendering humanity obsolete and poor, entirely on their terms and completely ignoring the obvious question of “why on earth did we need this?”
Since Congress is involved here, this is the new generation of politicians telling you we have to move forward and if you just want things to go back to the way they were prior to about 2016 or so, fuck you, you can’t have that because we said so. That’s where college sports are at in 2026. As the debate rages about how we fix college sports, every single person involved in deciding what the future of college sports looks like is a villain. There are no good guys here.
The cartoon villain in charge of the Big Ten. Would really, really like to create a “super league.” Would settle for simply stripping the ACC for parts and calling it a day.
One of the obnoxious things about the way the media covers this whole ordeal is accepting at face value the excuse of “we have to pay the players now,” a meat shield to ignore that the biggest brands trying to clean their hands of smaller players (who they think they’re “subsidizing”) is something that’s happening across sports for reasons that few in the media want to explain. Pettiti is mad that some portion of the money the Big Ten brings in to college sports goes to the MAC in a variety of ways, because now the Big Ten needs that money to pay the players. Credulous media members don’t notice that the European Super League was proposed in spite of the fact that Barca was paying its players long before 2020, so that’s not it.
Anyway, somehow Pettiti has probably passed Greg Sankey (more on him in a minute) as the arch-villain in college sports, which is an achievement in and of itself. Also wants to expand the playoff to 24 teams and is the loudest voice behind guaranteeing multiple bids to the Big Ten. Pettiti wants to make college sports into Temu pro sports.
In the past, I thought Sankey got somewhat of an unfair reputation. Sankey cares only about the SEC, which de facto meant that he was arguing for a lot of toxic stuff simply because it would favor the SEC; but where the Big Ten is threatening additional consolidation, Sankey mostly seems uninterested in raiding the ACC. Of the two of them, I’ve always thought that Sankey understands the diehard college football fan a lot better, and the SEC does in fact tend to be more geared to the diehards living across the South than to the NFL fans who casually tune in on Saturdays but only if it’s a “helmet game.”
In the present, though, Sankey increasingly seems like he’s getting dragged around by Pettiti. Lately you’re hearing more and more of the threats by the SEC to “break away,” and not to form a “Super League” with the Big Ten but simply to do their own thing. Supposedly this allows them to hoard more of the money they’re generating, though I suspect that for both the SEC and the Big Ten, this relies on the LIV Golf Fallacy: while it sounds like a nice money grab to wall off the biggest brands and just have them compete with each other, in practice the only reason we know they’re the best is from routinely beating up on everybody else. Forming your own fishbowl within a larger ecosystem that nobody else is allowed to play in only works if you can guarantee yourself the attention of the larger ecosystem, and let’s just say that if Vanderbilt is not in the SEC, I literally do not give a shit about watching the other 15 schools.
And that’s the flaw in “why don’t we just break away from the NCAA?“ The 104 schools in the FBS that are not members of the SEC or Big Ten have real fans, who probably do not care about the tiny fishbowl in the larger ecosystem if their teams are not included. You can draw them in to the current iteration of the College Football Playoff, sort of. You cannot draw them into the SEC/Big Ten Circle Jerk. Do people actually think that if you break off the rest of the SEC from the NCAA as an ”elite” league, Memphis State fans just pick an SEC school to root for? Have you even been to Memphis?
For a while, Campbell, the Texas Tech billionaire megabooster and de facto Big 12 commissioner (again, we’ll get to the actual titular Big 12 commissioner), seemed like one of the few people who cared about the sport as a whole. Campbell’s big thing is wanting the NCAA to get an exemption to the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 that would allow the entirety of FBS to pool their media rights, which would mean a single entity negotiating television deals for all 138 FBS teams instead of the current system that ensures the conferences are at war with each other. That’s actually a good idea, and the fact that Tony Pettiti and Greg Sankey hate it suggests that it’s a really good idea for maintaining the health of the sport writ large. You have to keep the fans of the other 104 schools (never mind FCS and Division II and NAIA) engaged somehow.
Then, two things happened. First, everybody collectively found out that his plan involves something called Smash Capital, which even by the standards of the private capital/private equity vulture morass sounds especially problematic. Of course this guy wants to give away the sport to private equity, because he’s affiliated with a Big 12 school. Nobody ever bothers explaining why we want private equity to get involved, but we all know where that leads. And then there was the whole Brendan Sorsby saga, where Texas Tech’s transfer portal acquisition quarterback did the one thing you can’t do (bet on your own team’s games) and… somehow, he’s still allowed to play college football after sitting out games against Abilene Christian and Oregon State? Yeah, this isn’t a good guy, either.
The titular commissioner of the Big (sic) 12 (sic). Wants private equity to get involved, and also a proponent of all the dumbest ideas you can think of. If having a conference that extends from Arizona to Florida wasn’t dumb enough, Yormark also decided to use a court made out of glass for the Big 12’s basketball tournament, which was exactly as dumb as it sounds. But we still had to suffer through a lot of gullible media claiming this was “the future of basketball” and dipshit fans insisting this was “sick,” all up until the Big 12 unceremoniously yanked the LED court and reinstalled an actual wood court for the semifinals and finals of the tournament after too many players slipped and fell on the glass court. As though that wasn’t an incredibly obvious thing that would happen.
The commissioner of the ACC. Settled with Clemson and Florida State to amend the ACC’s grant of rights to speed up the timeline for the ACC to get raided. Somehow kept his job as commissioner of the ACC after doing that.
Somehow, this is the least bad of the four power conference commissioners. It’s still really bad.
Is Congress.
I mean, who knew we’d ever reach a point that the fucking NCAA is the closest thing we have to a good guy in college sports? The NCAA keeps making an attempt to enforce its rules. Is asking Congress for an antitrust exemption to allow the NCAA to have rules, since a combination of courts and lawyers has made this impossible. Is getting drowned out by other interested parties in this effort.
If they’re not daydreaming about a Super League and comparing this to European soccer, they’re telling you we can’t go back to the way things were, for reasons they don’t want to explain. The media used to not be so toxic, then sometime in the 2010s they flipped and decided that actually athletes need to be able to play at four schools in four years because “freedom of choice,” or something. The worst offenders are mostly interested in this for gambling.
Were arguably the good guys back when the initial round of lawsuits were coming up challenging the NCAA’s restrictions on athletes getting paid came up.
And then once those decisions started coming down, some of them decided to show us that the slippery-slope arguments that were popular in the 2010s in opposition to this were not being made in bad faith and in fact are exactly what’s happened. Allowing athletes to profit off their “name, image, and likeness” did in fact legitimize the bagman. Undoing the NCAA’s one-year residence rule for players transferring schools did in fact lead to athletes going to four schools in four years. Compensating football and basketball players for the revenue they bring in is in fact threatening nonrevenue sports and athletics at smaller schools. Somehow, any time you bring any of this up you get a load of media members and Twitter sports lawyers telling you that the beatings will continue until we get a collective bargaining agreement, at which point the sport becomes unrecognizable because the thing they really want and haven’t gotten yet is to stop pretending to have to go to class.
The NCAA was made to relax its rules at exactly the time that a generation was coming along that thinks staying with the same company for five years, never mind 20, is for suckers.
It exists. It is allowed to advertise its product right below tweets about Brendan Sorsby getting ruled eligible, somehow.
Are still mad that James Madison got included in the College Football Playoff. Quickly turned that game off to go watch the NFL. For some reason, this is who the entire ecosystem caters to.
Somehow, all the complaints about ESPN’s coverage of the sport led FOX to announce itself as a much more toxic actor.
The only thing we can really call a “good guy.” Being completely ignored in this conversation.
So… I don’t know. I guess we’re getting Temu NFL. Why not go watch the real NFL if that’s what we’re gonna get?
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by Thomas Stephenson
Jun 9, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC
If you buy something from a link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
The headlines tell you things like “Congress may finally fix college sports.”
The actual substance, though, is not what I would call a “fix.” It is the people who broke the sport — and there are many, many involved here — telling you that we have to “fix it,” but where the “fix” looks nothing like what you grew up with. It is the AI guys threatening everybody with large-scale unemployment and then proposing a new social contract to make up for them rendering humanity obsolete and poor, entirely on their terms and completely ignoring the obvious question of “why on earth did we need this?”
Since Congress is involved here, this is the new generation of politicians telling you we have to move forward and if you just want things to go back to the way they were prior to about 2016 or so, fuck you, you can’t have that because we said so. That’s where college sports are at in 2026. As the debate rages about how we fix college sports, every single person involved in deciding what the future of college sports looks like is a villain. There are no good guys here.
Tony Pettiti
The cartoon villain in charge of the Big Ten. Would really, really like to create a “super league.” Would settle for simply stripping the ACC for parts and calling it a day.
One of the obnoxious things about the way the media covers this whole ordeal is accepting at face value the excuse of “we have to pay the players now,” a meat shield to ignore that the biggest brands trying to clean their hands of smaller players (who they think they’re “subsidizing”) is something that’s happening across sports for reasons that few in the media want to explain. Pettiti is mad that some portion of the money the Big Ten brings in to college sports goes to the MAC in a variety of ways, because now the Big Ten needs that money to pay the players. Credulous media members don’t notice that the European Super League was proposed in spite of the fact that Barca was paying its players long before 2020, so that’s not it.
Anyway, somehow Pettiti has probably passed Greg Sankey (more on him in a minute) as the arch-villain in college sports, which is an achievement in and of itself. Also wants to expand the playoff to 24 teams and is the loudest voice behind guaranteeing multiple bids to the Big Ten. Pettiti wants to make college sports into Temu pro sports.
Greg Sankey
In the past, I thought Sankey got somewhat of an unfair reputation. Sankey cares only about the SEC, which de facto meant that he was arguing for a lot of toxic stuff simply because it would favor the SEC; but where the Big Ten is threatening additional consolidation, Sankey mostly seems uninterested in raiding the ACC. Of the two of them, I’ve always thought that Sankey understands the diehard college football fan a lot better, and the SEC does in fact tend to be more geared to the diehards living across the South than to the NFL fans who casually tune in on Saturdays but only if it’s a “helmet game.”
In the present, though, Sankey increasingly seems like he’s getting dragged around by Pettiti. Lately you’re hearing more and more of the threats by the SEC to “break away,” and not to form a “Super League” with the Big Ten but simply to do their own thing. Supposedly this allows them to hoard more of the money they’re generating, though I suspect that for both the SEC and the Big Ten, this relies on the LIV Golf Fallacy: while it sounds like a nice money grab to wall off the biggest brands and just have them compete with each other, in practice the only reason we know they’re the best is from routinely beating up on everybody else. Forming your own fishbowl within a larger ecosystem that nobody else is allowed to play in only works if you can guarantee yourself the attention of the larger ecosystem, and let’s just say that if Vanderbilt is not in the SEC, I literally do not give a shit about watching the other 15 schools.
And that’s the flaw in “why don’t we just break away from the NCAA?“ The 104 schools in the FBS that are not members of the SEC or Big Ten have real fans, who probably do not care about the tiny fishbowl in the larger ecosystem if their teams are not included. You can draw them in to the current iteration of the College Football Playoff, sort of. You cannot draw them into the SEC/Big Ten Circle Jerk. Do people actually think that if you break off the rest of the SEC from the NCAA as an ”elite” league, Memphis State fans just pick an SEC school to root for? Have you even been to Memphis?
Cody Campbell
For a while, Campbell, the Texas Tech billionaire megabooster and de facto Big 12 commissioner (again, we’ll get to the actual titular Big 12 commissioner), seemed like one of the few people who cared about the sport as a whole. Campbell’s big thing is wanting the NCAA to get an exemption to the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 that would allow the entirety of FBS to pool their media rights, which would mean a single entity negotiating television deals for all 138 FBS teams instead of the current system that ensures the conferences are at war with each other. That’s actually a good idea, and the fact that Tony Pettiti and Greg Sankey hate it suggests that it’s a really good idea for maintaining the health of the sport writ large. You have to keep the fans of the other 104 schools (never mind FCS and Division II and NAIA) engaged somehow.
Then, two things happened. First, everybody collectively found out that his plan involves something called Smash Capital, which even by the standards of the private capital/private equity vulture morass sounds especially problematic. Of course this guy wants to give away the sport to private equity, because he’s affiliated with a Big 12 school. Nobody ever bothers explaining why we want private equity to get involved, but we all know where that leads. And then there was the whole Brendan Sorsby saga, where Texas Tech’s transfer portal acquisition quarterback did the one thing you can’t do (bet on your own team’s games) and… somehow, he’s still allowed to play college football after sitting out games against Abilene Christian and Oregon State? Yeah, this isn’t a good guy, either.
Brett Yormark
The titular commissioner of the Big (sic) 12 (sic). Wants private equity to get involved, and also a proponent of all the dumbest ideas you can think of. If having a conference that extends from Arizona to Florida wasn’t dumb enough, Yormark also decided to use a court made out of glass for the Big 12’s basketball tournament, which was exactly as dumb as it sounds. But we still had to suffer through a lot of gullible media claiming this was “the future of basketball” and dipshit fans insisting this was “sick,” all up until the Big 12 unceremoniously yanked the LED court and reinstalled an actual wood court for the semifinals and finals of the tournament after too many players slipped and fell on the glass court. As though that wasn’t an incredibly obvious thing that would happen.
Jim Phillips
The commissioner of the ACC. Settled with Clemson and Florida State to amend the ACC’s grant of rights to speed up the timeline for the ACC to get raided. Somehow kept his job as commissioner of the ACC after doing that.
Somehow, this is the least bad of the four power conference commissioners. It’s still really bad.
Congress
Is Congress.
The NCAA
I mean, who knew we’d ever reach a point that the fucking NCAA is the closest thing we have to a good guy in college sports? The NCAA keeps making an attempt to enforce its rules. Is asking Congress for an antitrust exemption to allow the NCAA to have rules, since a combination of courts and lawyers has made this impossible. Is getting drowned out by other interested parties in this effort.
College football media
If they’re not daydreaming about a Super League and comparing this to European soccer, they’re telling you we can’t go back to the way things were, for reasons they don’t want to explain. The media used to not be so toxic, then sometime in the 2010s they flipped and decided that actually athletes need to be able to play at four schools in four years because “freedom of choice,” or something. The worst offenders are mostly interested in this for gambling.
The athletes
Were arguably the good guys back when the initial round of lawsuits were coming up challenging the NCAA’s restrictions on athletes getting paid came up.
And then once those decisions started coming down, some of them decided to show us that the slippery-slope arguments that were popular in the 2010s in opposition to this were not being made in bad faith and in fact are exactly what’s happened. Allowing athletes to profit off their “name, image, and likeness” did in fact legitimize the bagman. Undoing the NCAA’s one-year residence rule for players transferring schools did in fact lead to athletes going to four schools in four years. Compensating football and basketball players for the revenue they bring in is in fact threatening nonrevenue sports and athletics at smaller schools. Somehow, any time you bring any of this up you get a load of media members and Twitter sports lawyers telling you that the beatings will continue until we get a collective bargaining agreement, at which point the sport becomes unrecognizable because the thing they really want and haven’t gotten yet is to stop pretending to have to go to class.
The NCAA was made to relax its rules at exactly the time that a generation was coming along that thinks staying with the same company for five years, never mind 20, is for suckers.
The sports betting industry
It exists. It is allowed to advertise its product right below tweets about Brendan Sorsby getting ruled eligible, somehow.
Casuals
Are still mad that James Madison got included in the College Football Playoff. Quickly turned that game off to go watch the NFL. For some reason, this is who the entire ecosystem caters to.
Television networks
Somehow, all the complaints about ESPN’s coverage of the sport led FOX to announce itself as a much more toxic actor.
The fans
The only thing we can really call a “good guy.” Being completely ignored in this conversation.
So… I don’t know. I guess we’re getting Temu NFL. Why not go watch the real NFL if that’s what we’re gonna get?
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The SEC and Big Ten bullied the rest of the sport all the way to this
by Thomas Stephenson
Jun 18, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC
I’ve made no real secret of the fact that in spite of the fact that the school I root for plays in the SEC, I hate what the conference has become. It’s a 16-team morass of some of the biggest brands in the sport, whose every move seems to be dictated by cash grabs, whether it’s adding Texas and Oklahoma or going to a nine-game schedule or getting rid of SoCon Saturday or getting rid of divisions all so that we sacrifice playing Kentucky every year because we’ve gotta play freaking Texas A&M more often. And unlike some of my SB Nation SEC brethren who have responded to college football being all about money by complaining that college football doesn’t go all out in the name of protecting the biggest brands, I don’t give a shit about the money involved because I see literally none of said money and never will. Okay, okay, SB Nation does give me a small stipend so that you have to sit here and listen to me rant.
The Big Ten is that, but on steroids. But what I especially hate is the way they’ve attempted to chop up the rest of college sports for their own gain. What started as simple on-field success became megadeals with ESPN (SEC) and Fox/NBC/CBS (Big Ten) that begat picking off the spare parts of other conferences, whether it was Texas and Oklahoma begging to get out of the Big 12 because Oklahoma wanted to play Nebraska at night or the Big Ten circling the carcass of the Pac-12 like a vulture to force Oregon and Washington to accept reduced revenue shares and kick their in-state rivals to the Mountain West under a different name. It began with Tony Vitello flying to Lawrence, Kansas, to have dinner with Maui Ahuna and getting slapped on the wrist by a toothless NCAA and it ended with Pete Golding literally texting a Clemson linebacker while he was sitting in class at Clemson University to offer him more money. It started with four SEC teams being in the top six of the first ever College Football Playoff rankings back in 2014 and it ended with the SEC whining that Texas got left out of the 12-team playoff because playoff rules said that James Madison got in as the fifth-best conference champion.
When that’s what you’ve done over the last decade or so, this is what you get.
This is the big bully getting the rochambeau that everyone else has long hoped that they would get.
Of course the SEC and Big Ten aren’t getting the bill that they want passed, because literally the entire fucking point of Congress passing a law on college sports in 2026 is to kick the SEC and the Big Ten in the nuts, because in different ways these are the people responsible for destroying the sport we love, the people who saw the Alston, O’Bannon, and House rulings and promptly began using them as meat shields to justify further action to destroy the sport in the name of money because we had to pay the players, never mind the amount of money they’ve been throwing at having Hogwarts athletic facilities and ten million athletic department staffers (many of whom are also losing their jobs as a result of having to pay the players, but that’s neither here nor there), and now in spite of the billions of dollars flowing into their coffers from television deals that made it necessary to bloat themselves to massive memberships, crying poverty when it comes time to fund nonrevenue sports that bring in actual student-athletes.
That kind of behavior is how you get this, from the bill’s co-sponsor who represents Washington — which contains a Big Ten school, somehow, but also inarguably the most screwed school in all of this:
While the SEC and Big Ten have gotten increasingly louder about threats to break away and do their own thing (which, as I’ve pointed out, suffers from the LIV Golf fallacy of assuming that people watching the biggest brands will continue to do so when there’s no on-field marker indicating that these are, in fact, the best out there), it seems the Protect College Sports Act wants to increase the opportunity cost of doing so: remaining in the NCAA means you’re covered by legislation. Leaving the NCAA would now sacrifice that protection and leave you subject to the same lawsuits that currently threaten the NCAA.
Restoring order requires recognizing that the biggest threat to order is the big bully, not the people fighting for table scraps. Of course this is what’s happening.
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by Thomas Stephenson
Jun 18, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC
I’ve made no real secret of the fact that in spite of the fact that the school I root for plays in the SEC, I hate what the conference has become. It’s a 16-team morass of some of the biggest brands in the sport, whose every move seems to be dictated by cash grabs, whether it’s adding Texas and Oklahoma or going to a nine-game schedule or getting rid of SoCon Saturday or getting rid of divisions all so that we sacrifice playing Kentucky every year because we’ve gotta play freaking Texas A&M more often. And unlike some of my SB Nation SEC brethren who have responded to college football being all about money by complaining that college football doesn’t go all out in the name of protecting the biggest brands, I don’t give a shit about the money involved because I see literally none of said money and never will. Okay, okay, SB Nation does give me a small stipend so that you have to sit here and listen to me rant.
The Big Ten is that, but on steroids. But what I especially hate is the way they’ve attempted to chop up the rest of college sports for their own gain. What started as simple on-field success became megadeals with ESPN (SEC) and Fox/NBC/CBS (Big Ten) that begat picking off the spare parts of other conferences, whether it was Texas and Oklahoma begging to get out of the Big 12 because Oklahoma wanted to play Nebraska at night or the Big Ten circling the carcass of the Pac-12 like a vulture to force Oregon and Washington to accept reduced revenue shares and kick their in-state rivals to the Mountain West under a different name. It began with Tony Vitello flying to Lawrence, Kansas, to have dinner with Maui Ahuna and getting slapped on the wrist by a toothless NCAA and it ended with Pete Golding literally texting a Clemson linebacker while he was sitting in class at Clemson University to offer him more money. It started with four SEC teams being in the top six of the first ever College Football Playoff rankings back in 2014 and it ended with the SEC whining that Texas got left out of the 12-team playoff because playoff rules said that James Madison got in as the fifth-best conference champion.
When that’s what you’ve done over the last decade or so, this is what you get.
This is the big bully getting the rochambeau that everyone else has long hoped that they would get.
Of course the SEC and Big Ten aren’t getting the bill that they want passed, because literally the entire fucking point of Congress passing a law on college sports in 2026 is to kick the SEC and the Big Ten in the nuts, because in different ways these are the people responsible for destroying the sport we love, the people who saw the Alston, O’Bannon, and House rulings and promptly began using them as meat shields to justify further action to destroy the sport in the name of money because we had to pay the players, never mind the amount of money they’ve been throwing at having Hogwarts athletic facilities and ten million athletic department staffers (many of whom are also losing their jobs as a result of having to pay the players, but that’s neither here nor there), and now in spite of the billions of dollars flowing into their coffers from television deals that made it necessary to bloat themselves to massive memberships, crying poverty when it comes time to fund nonrevenue sports that bring in actual student-athletes.
That kind of behavior is how you get this, from the bill’s co-sponsor who represents Washington — which contains a Big Ten school, somehow, but also inarguably the most screwed school in all of this:
While the SEC and Big Ten have gotten increasingly louder about threats to break away and do their own thing (which, as I’ve pointed out, suffers from the LIV Golf fallacy of assuming that people watching the biggest brands will continue to do so when there’s no on-field marker indicating that these are, in fact, the best out there), it seems the Protect College Sports Act wants to increase the opportunity cost of doing so: remaining in the NCAA means you’re covered by legislation. Leaving the NCAA would now sacrifice that protection and leave you subject to the same lawsuits that currently threaten the NCAA.
Restoring order requires recognizing that the biggest threat to order is the big bully, not the people fighting for table scraps. Of course this is what’s happening.
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I’m tired of paying the players being the meat shield
by Thomas Stephenson
Jun 20, 2026, 2:52 PM UTC
Back in the 1980s, the Universities of Oklahoma and Georgia sued the NCAA over its television contract.
More specifically, they were mad that the NCAA limited the number of games that were televised and distributed the revenue from its television contract in an even-handed manner. In 1981, Oklahoma played USC on national television, except for four ABC affiliates that showed a game between The Citadel and Appalachian State, and all four schools got an equal cut of television revenue for that weekend’s games. Oklahoma didn’t have to pay the players (legally, anyway) in 1981, but they were mad about getting the same cut of television money that App State did.
(For their trouble, App State and The Citadel would get booted down to Division I-AA the next year. Because several years earlier, the NCAA had split Division I into two subdivisions for football, expecting schools like The Citadel and App State to play in the smaller subdivision… except, they didn’t, so in the early 1980s the NCAA started implementing attendance requirements to remain in Division I-A, which the Southern Conference among others didn’t meet and they got forced down to Division I-AA against their will. Division I-A had 137 football-playing schools in 1981 and 113 in 1982, and by 1989 it was 106. It is now 138. Discuss amongst yourself the relationship between this number and the current discourse.)
That history is relevant today when anybody talks about a Super League, or when anybody talks about the SEC or the Big Ten or both breaking away and doing their own thing. (To clarify, Greg Sankey is opposed to a “super league” in the sense that he is opposed to schools banding together, but he is evidently not opposed to the SEC leaving the NCAA.) That history is why “maximizing player compensation” is disingenuous bullshit that’s currently being paraded around as a meat shield for the same thing that the biggest brands of college football have been trying to do since decades before the players could legally get paid and, after the House settlement, they’re basically required to get paid.
You hear that? It’s for the good of the Kansas States of the world that the big boys have to go do their own thing.
Except that that’s not why this is happening. If that were the case, the Big Ten and SEC would be on board with splitting off as a voluntary membership organization, but that’s explicitly what Greg Sankey is opposed to. Greg Sankey is a known enjoyer of The Club, the book about the machinations behind the English Premier League — which started because the top clubs in England were mad about having to share revenue with third-tier clubs, so they made threats until the Football League allowed them to form the Premier League, which only distributed revenue to clubs that were in the Premier League. That was actually marginally better than what the SEC and Big Ten want, because at least other clubs could play their way into the Premier League.
But the reality is that they’ve been wanting to do this since long before the players had to be paid. Blaming it on that is a way to make themselves sound sympathetic. If you’re buying into this, you’re part of the problem.
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by Thomas Stephenson
Jun 20, 2026, 2:52 PM UTC
Back in the 1980s, the Universities of Oklahoma and Georgia sued the NCAA over its television contract.
More specifically, they were mad that the NCAA limited the number of games that were televised and distributed the revenue from its television contract in an even-handed manner. In 1981, Oklahoma played USC on national television, except for four ABC affiliates that showed a game between The Citadel and Appalachian State, and all four schools got an equal cut of television revenue for that weekend’s games. Oklahoma didn’t have to pay the players (legally, anyway) in 1981, but they were mad about getting the same cut of television money that App State did.
(For their trouble, App State and The Citadel would get booted down to Division I-AA the next year. Because several years earlier, the NCAA had split Division I into two subdivisions for football, expecting schools like The Citadel and App State to play in the smaller subdivision… except, they didn’t, so in the early 1980s the NCAA started implementing attendance requirements to remain in Division I-A, which the Southern Conference among others didn’t meet and they got forced down to Division I-AA against their will. Division I-A had 137 football-playing schools in 1981 and 113 in 1982, and by 1989 it was 106. It is now 138. Discuss amongst yourself the relationship between this number and the current discourse.)
That history is relevant today when anybody talks about a Super League, or when anybody talks about the SEC or the Big Ten or both breaking away and doing their own thing. (To clarify, Greg Sankey is opposed to a “super league” in the sense that he is opposed to schools banding together, but he is evidently not opposed to the SEC leaving the NCAA.) That history is why “maximizing player compensation” is disingenuous bullshit that’s currently being paraded around as a meat shield for the same thing that the biggest brands of college football have been trying to do since decades before the players could legally get paid and, after the House settlement, they’re basically required to get paid.
You hear that? It’s for the good of the Kansas States of the world that the big boys have to go do their own thing.
Except that that’s not why this is happening. If that were the case, the Big Ten and SEC would be on board with splitting off as a voluntary membership organization, but that’s explicitly what Greg Sankey is opposed to. Greg Sankey is a known enjoyer of The Club, the book about the machinations behind the English Premier League — which started because the top clubs in England were mad about having to share revenue with third-tier clubs, so they made threats until the Football League allowed them to form the Premier League, which only distributed revenue to clubs that were in the Premier League. That was actually marginally better than what the SEC and Big Ten want, because at least other clubs could play their way into the Premier League.
But the reality is that they’ve been wanting to do this since long before the players had to be paid. Blaming it on that is a way to make themselves sound sympathetic. If you’re buying into this, you’re part of the problem.
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Mar 17The canary in the coalmine of the shrinking college sports world
Feb 27
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Let’s Get Weird Again—All World All Time Best Song Competition: Louisiana
by parlagi
Jun 29, 2026, 11:30 AM UTC
Welcome to the land of Louisiana! Where crawfish are crawfish, “crawdad” will get you a “you’re not from around here, but we’ll tolerate you” look, and “crayfish” will get you a “where in God’s name did you come from, and how quickly can you go back there” stare.
The Pelican State ought to have some of the greatest music ever written representing it. Unfortunately, no one else rose to the task of writing about it, which means you’re stuck with my nonsense. Strap in, because I’m stupid and we’re doing this anyway!
See our list of all previous winners.
Boots Randolph’s “Yakety Sax” came from behind to knock off Loretta Lynn’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” so basically the most Anchor of Gold result possible. Actually the most Anchor of Gold result would probably be a bunch of Appalachian mountain men yodeling the Kentucky state song, but that wasn’t an option.
Awwwww yeah, this shot straight to #1 on the Billboard charts in 1961. Allen Toussaint’s honky tonk piano and production. Benny Spellman’s bass voice that could rattle a window. And the greatest lyrics ever written. Did I mention the greatest lyrics ever written? Well they are.
Let’s talk about Allen Toussaint for a second, because that dude was one of the most underrated creative forces of our time. This? LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade”? Glen Campbell’s “Southern Nights?” Lee Dorsey’s “Working in a Coal Mine”? “Whipped Cream,” which Herb Alpert turned into the theme for the freaking Dating Game? It’s not just the quantity, it’s the absolutely absurd variety.
But really, “She think her advice is a contribution, but if she would leave that would be the solution. And don’t come back no more.” Amazing. Poetry really.
Some would technically call this a cheat, but feh. After getting rejected by the Opry, Hank signed on with the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport, which was the Opry’s biggest rival at the time. The Opry picked up him a year later, in 1949, where he had to play six encores of “Lovesick Blues” in his debut. (Seriously. SIX ENCORES. I mean, what. How is that even a thing.)
After he got booted from the Opry in 1952 for “habitual drunkenness” (sigh) and missing shows, he was welcomed by the Louisiana Hayride. And then he was dead four months later at age 29, which kind of makes me wonder what I’ve done with my own life.
All of that to say this isn’t just the quintessential Hank Williams tribute to Louisiana -- he actually took the tune from an actual Cajun song called “Grand Texas.” And here’s a bonus video of that, so there you go.
You know what gets a song included in this contest? The lead singer standing in front of a crowd and saying “This is my brother Cleveland on washboard.” That is easily the best sentence ever spoken.
And accordion. Accordion gets you in too. (And drummer Robert from Louisiana.)
Anyway, this basically translates as “The Snap Beans Ain’t Salty.” It’s a lament that times are hard and he’s broke. If he wasn’t, there’d be some salt pork or other meat (or at least some, you know, salt) mixed in the pot. Not that you’d ever know it how from unbelievably happy he looks just to be alive, to say nothing of the music itself.
You know what else gets you included in this contest? Friggin’ Nat King Cole standing up on national television and calling you the world’s greatest gospel singer.
I know the walls of Jericho collapsed with a shout, but I’m pretty sure Mahalia Jackson could’ve just sang the walls to the ground. And probably converted the heathen Canaanites while she was at it, which would’ve saved a lot of trouble later on, come to think of it.
I don’t know why the uploader disabled embedding for her TV appearance with Nat King Cole (2.3 million views!), but click that link and listen to that version. She’s somehow even more forceful doing it live than in studio. I’m honestly speechless. Tremendous.
You know, we need an entry that’s not as old as our parents:
Oh screw it, I hate myself and...1.1 BILLION views? I’m sorry, where was I?
You know good and well this is what planted the seeds in Young Tom’s mind that later sprouted into him putting Alexandra Stan into Anchor Drops, and listening to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild” for four hours straight or whatever it was instead of watching the second half of the Virginia Tech game.
She’s from Kentwood. It counts. Enjoy your final entry.
(squee)
Remember when right after this came out, a bunch of radio station trolls actually convinced half the Internet that Kidz Bop had released a version of it? Good times! And then we wondered how people could ever be susceptible to AI brainrot.
More Allen Toussaint genius! That’s Floyd Cramer on piano and Boots Randolph on saxophone, so this is as fresh as it gets. I have NO idea what’s going with the dancers, but I’m extremely glad they’re there. The “Java” is definitely supposed to represent coffee percolating, but I’m pretty sure the dancers aren’t doing anything related to the island of Java either. I’ve said this a lot, but let’s just go with it. It was the 1960s. People just did whatever.
Did you know Al Hirt also played four Super Bowl halftimes, including the very first one? No fooling! He also played Super Bowls IV, VI, and XII, all in New Orleans.
Who says these posts aren’t educational? (“Everyone.” “I know.”)
Speaking of educational hits from 1964:
February 1964: The British Invasion kicks off, as the Beatles stranglehold the #1 spot on the Billboard charts for 14 weeks in a row with “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You,” and “Can’t Buy Me Love.” Who can possibly put a stop to their tyrannical, mop-topped reign?
That’s right baby, SIXTY-TWO year old Satchmo with this gem.
And then Lorne Greene had a #1 song, because it was the 1960s, and people just did whatever. (“Ben Cartwright from Bonanza?!” “Yes.”)
I sincerely hope every single one of you finds someone that makes you smile as radiantly as Louis Armstrong.
Apparently setting these to automatically close continues to work! Let’s see how long this continues to last before our vague competence runs into a brick wall.
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by parlagi
Jun 29, 2026, 11:30 AM UTC
Welcome to the land of Louisiana! Where crawfish are crawfish, “crawdad” will get you a “you’re not from around here, but we’ll tolerate you” look, and “crayfish” will get you a “where in God’s name did you come from, and how quickly can you go back there” stare.
The Pelican State ought to have some of the greatest music ever written representing it. Unfortunately, no one else rose to the task of writing about it, which means you’re stuck with my nonsense. Strap in, because I’m stupid and we’re doing this anyway!
Previous Result
See our list of all previous winners.
Boots Randolph’s “Yakety Sax” came from behind to knock off Loretta Lynn’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” so basically the most Anchor of Gold result possible. Actually the most Anchor of Gold result would probably be a bunch of Appalachian mountain men yodeling the Kentucky state song, but that wasn’t an option.
The Songs
1.) Ernie K-Doe - Mother in Law
Awwwww yeah, this shot straight to #1 on the Billboard charts in 1961. Allen Toussaint’s honky tonk piano and production. Benny Spellman’s bass voice that could rattle a window. And the greatest lyrics ever written. Did I mention the greatest lyrics ever written? Well they are.
Let’s talk about Allen Toussaint for a second, because that dude was one of the most underrated creative forces of our time. This? LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade”? Glen Campbell’s “Southern Nights?” Lee Dorsey’s “Working in a Coal Mine”? “Whipped Cream,” which Herb Alpert turned into the theme for the freaking Dating Game? It’s not just the quantity, it’s the absolutely absurd variety.
But really, “She think her advice is a contribution, but if she would leave that would be the solution. And don’t come back no more.” Amazing. Poetry really.
2.) Hank Williams - Jambalaya (on the Bayou)
Some would technically call this a cheat, but feh. After getting rejected by the Opry, Hank signed on with the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport, which was the Opry’s biggest rival at the time. The Opry picked up him a year later, in 1949, where he had to play six encores of “Lovesick Blues” in his debut. (Seriously. SIX ENCORES. I mean, what. How is that even a thing.)
After he got booted from the Opry in 1952 for “habitual drunkenness” (sigh) and missing shows, he was welcomed by the Louisiana Hayride. And then he was dead four months later at age 29, which kind of makes me wonder what I’ve done with my own life.
All of that to say this isn’t just the quintessential Hank Williams tribute to Louisiana -- he actually took the tune from an actual Cajun song called “Grand Texas.” And here’s a bonus video of that, so there you go.
3.) Clifton Chenier - Zydeco Sont Pas Salés
You know what gets a song included in this contest? The lead singer standing in front of a crowd and saying “This is my brother Cleveland on washboard.” That is easily the best sentence ever spoken.
And accordion. Accordion gets you in too. (And drummer Robert from Louisiana.)
Anyway, this basically translates as “The Snap Beans Ain’t Salty.” It’s a lament that times are hard and he’s broke. If he wasn’t, there’d be some salt pork or other meat (or at least some, you know, salt) mixed in the pot. Not that you’d ever know it how from unbelievably happy he looks just to be alive, to say nothing of the music itself.
4.) Mahalia Jackson - Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho
You know what else gets you included in this contest? Friggin’ Nat King Cole standing up on national television and calling you the world’s greatest gospel singer.
I know the walls of Jericho collapsed with a shout, but I’m pretty sure Mahalia Jackson could’ve just sang the walls to the ground. And probably converted the heathen Canaanites while she was at it, which would’ve saved a lot of trouble later on, come to think of it.
I don’t know why the uploader disabled embedding for her TV appearance with Nat King Cole (2.3 million views!), but click that link and listen to that version. She’s somehow even more forceful doing it live than in studio. I’m honestly speechless. Tremendous.
You know, we need an entry that’s not as old as our parents:
5.) Britney Spears, Baby One More Time
Oh screw it, I hate myself and...1.1 BILLION views? I’m sorry, where was I?
You know good and well this is what planted the seeds in Young Tom’s mind that later sprouted into him putting Alexandra Stan into Anchor Drops, and listening to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild” for four hours straight or whatever it was instead of watching the second half of the Virginia Tech game.
She’s from Kentwood. It counts. Enjoy your final entry.
(squee)
Honorable Mentions
Lil Wayne - Lollipop
Remember when right after this came out, a bunch of radio station trolls actually convinced half the Internet that Kidz Bop had released a version of it? Good times! And then we wondered how people could ever be susceptible to AI brainrot.
Al Hirt, Java
More Allen Toussaint genius! That’s Floyd Cramer on piano and Boots Randolph on saxophone, so this is as fresh as it gets. I have NO idea what’s going with the dancers, but I’m extremely glad they’re there. The “Java” is definitely supposed to represent coffee percolating, but I’m pretty sure the dancers aren’t doing anything related to the island of Java either. I’ve said this a lot, but let’s just go with it. It was the 1960s. People just did whatever.
Did you know Al Hirt also played four Super Bowl halftimes, including the very first one? No fooling! He also played Super Bowls IV, VI, and XII, all in New Orleans.
Who says these posts aren’t educational? (“Everyone.” “I know.”)
Speaking of educational hits from 1964:
Louis Armstrong, Hello Dolly
February 1964: The British Invasion kicks off, as the Beatles stranglehold the #1 spot on the Billboard charts for 14 weeks in a row with “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You,” and “Can’t Buy Me Love.” Who can possibly put a stop to their tyrannical, mop-topped reign?
That’s right baby, SIXTY-TWO year old Satchmo with this gem.
And then Lorne Greene had a #1 song, because it was the 1960s, and people just did whatever. (“Ben Cartwright from Bonanza?!” “Yes.”)
I sincerely hope every single one of you finds someone that makes you smile as radiantly as Louis Armstrong.
Vote in the Polls
Apparently setting these to automatically close continues to work! Let’s see how long this continues to last before our vague competence runs into a brick wall.
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Let’s Get Weird Again—All World All Time Best Song Competition: Missouri
by parlagi
Jul 5, 2026, 6:11 AM UTC
See our list of all previous winners.
Hank Sr. and “Jambalaya” held on to a slim but consistent lead, holding off a challenge from Ernie K-Doe’s “Mother in Law.” (If the letter “O” was for “One Hit Wonders,” I’m pretty sure “Mother in Law” would’ve been a strong contender there too. Should there be a “one hit wonder” contest? Opine below.)
In contrast, Missouri jumped out to an enormous lead, enough to hold off a late surge from (checks notes) Moldova. Mali also had two protest votes and finished a distant third. Is Mali full of Libertarians? Did I vote for Mali? We’ll have answers to none of these questions.
Should we get going with the Show Me State? What do you think, Norm Stewart?
I agree, my good man! Let’s show ourselves some songs!
Starting off in 1908? Yes indeed! Joplin lapsed into obscurity for decades, before The Sting’s soundtrack led to a revival in the 70s. He’s obviously better known these days for “The Entertainer” thanks to that film. “Maple Leaf Rag” was actually the big hit in his lifetime, and the song with actual Missouri ties: the Maple Leaf Club was located in Sedalia.
But we’re going with the Pineapple Rag here for a few reasons. It’s from later in Joplin’s career, and his composing abilities kept improving. More importantly, we get to hear Tom Brier absolutely lighting a 1920s honky-tonk piano on fire.
For those not familiar with Tom Brier and his admittedly impressive neckbeard, he’s the guy who got handed a copy of the Super Mario World ending theme without ever having heard the song, and then managed to knock this out while sight reading the sheet music:
Honest to God, I don’t know what you want me to say here, so I’m just going to babble on. It’s friggin’ Chuck Berry and Johnny B. Goode. His cousin Marvin was working the Entrapment on the Moon dance, called him up, and altered the course of music history.
I’m being handed a note by Pinman saying it was the Enchantment Under the Sea dance instead. Boo.
I truly, genuinely don’t think we appreciate exactly how dangerous Chuck Berry’s music was to Middle America, and not just because of the whole racial aspect. As best I can tell, in 1954 the music industry was catering entirely to adults who still wanted aggressively polite, heavily sedated comfort food in the aftermath of World War II and Korea. There was no such thing as “youth culture” music on the mainstream charts.
Do you know what was the #1 song in 1954? Well neither did I, but here’s Kitty Kallen with “Little Things Mean a Lot”:
And here’s your #2 song from the same year. Please welcome Perry Como (nooooooo) with “Wanted”!
Imagine jamming out to this at the local sock hop or malt shop or wherever the hell teenagers went in 1954. I mean, you can’t. It’s ludicrous.
Chuck Berry wandered into the midst of THAT in 1955 and said “lol, what if we bludgeon everyone over the head with a guitar and sing about drag racing against a Cadillac in a thunderstorm?”
Look, I know that “If You Want to Get to Heaven” is what most people would’ve picked. They are objectively wrong.
I’m not even sure what you’d call this, but let’s go with psychedelic blue-eyed soul. Is that a thing? Did the Righteous Brothers do anything psychedelic? Well they should have.
Larry Lee’s original lyrics were, no kidding, about the throes of drug addiction. Thankfully everyone’s common sense quickly prevailed and they changed the subject matter to a socially withdrawn lady instead. Good call, everyone. Although I suppose the psychedelic part might have fit with the former too. We’ll never know.
And then the Montreal Gazette criticized the song as “an outrageous knockoff of Fleetwood Mac’s sound, down to the female lead.” I don’t know if they were deaf, brain damaged, or perhaps merely bewildered by the concept of falsetto. I hope they never got their hands on a Frankie Valli album, lest they crap right in the middle of their poutine. They’re probably in the same group who goes “hurr durr, ELO sounds like the Beatles,” because apparently every band from the UK sounds like the Beatles.
And now our work-friendly entry in the contest! No really, it’s the edited version that was actually played on radios, back when terrestrial radio was a thing. It’s his YouTube channel and it’s his choice, so I’m respecting it.
This is easily the most definitively Missouri song on the list. Or at least definitively St. Louis, but you know what I mean.
Credit to him for wearing jerseys of the Cardinals, Blues, and Rams (good times!) throughout the video. A shame he couldn’t find an old Spirits of St. Louis ABA jersey to throw in there and round it out. Not sure why the one guy is wearing a Jamal Anderson Falcons jersey at 1:45, but God love him for doing so. (Fun fact: I mow the yard in a worn out Jamal Anderson jersey. Absolutely no one reading this could possibly care.)
Every single time we enter a 2020s song, it gets zero votes. And we’ve basically learned that, but to be fair a good portion of those songs really have been terrible. But not this!
This has 2.1 billion streams on Spotify, but let’s ignore that and look at that video. LOOK AT IT. This is her official lyric video, on her official YouTube channel, and it looks like a confused 1998 5th grader on GeoCities has decided graphic design is their passion. We’re just going to baffle everyone into thinking it’s from the 20th Century.
I think we’re finally going to do it, you guys! We’re finally going to get a 2020s song a vote this time! (And if we don’t, perhaps we’ll threaten to run “All Time All World Best Song Competition: 2020s Teen Girl Squad Edition.” But probably not.)
Someone had to get left out, and your primary chronological competitor went all out to say “look at St. Louis I am, and also here’s a Jamal Anderson jersey” while you’re singing about Los Angeles. Should’ve embraced your roots.
Let’s run this through…let’s say Tuesday.
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by parlagi
Jul 5, 2026, 6:11 AM UTC
Previous Result
See our list of all previous winners.
Hank Sr. and “Jambalaya” held on to a slim but consistent lead, holding off a challenge from Ernie K-Doe’s “Mother in Law.” (If the letter “O” was for “One Hit Wonders,” I’m pretty sure “Mother in Law” would’ve been a strong contender there too. Should there be a “one hit wonder” contest? Opine below.)
In contrast, Missouri jumped out to an enormous lead, enough to hold off a late surge from (checks notes) Moldova. Mali also had two protest votes and finished a distant third. Is Mali full of Libertarians? Did I vote for Mali? We’ll have answers to none of these questions.
Should we get going with the Show Me State? What do you think, Norm Stewart?
I agree, my good man! Let’s show ourselves some songs!
The Songs
1.) Scott Joplin - Pineapple Rag
Starting off in 1908? Yes indeed! Joplin lapsed into obscurity for decades, before The Sting’s soundtrack led to a revival in the 70s. He’s obviously better known these days for “The Entertainer” thanks to that film. “Maple Leaf Rag” was actually the big hit in his lifetime, and the song with actual Missouri ties: the Maple Leaf Club was located in Sedalia.
But we’re going with the Pineapple Rag here for a few reasons. It’s from later in Joplin’s career, and his composing abilities kept improving. More importantly, we get to hear Tom Brier absolutely lighting a 1920s honky-tonk piano on fire.
For those not familiar with Tom Brier and his admittedly impressive neckbeard, he’s the guy who got handed a copy of the Super Mario World ending theme without ever having heard the song, and then managed to knock this out while sight reading the sheet music:
2.) Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode
Honest to God, I don’t know what you want me to say here, so I’m just going to babble on. It’s friggin’ Chuck Berry and Johnny B. Goode. His cousin Marvin was working the Entrapment on the Moon dance, called him up, and altered the course of music history.
I’m being handed a note by Pinman saying it was the Enchantment Under the Sea dance instead. Boo.
I truly, genuinely don’t think we appreciate exactly how dangerous Chuck Berry’s music was to Middle America, and not just because of the whole racial aspect. As best I can tell, in 1954 the music industry was catering entirely to adults who still wanted aggressively polite, heavily sedated comfort food in the aftermath of World War II and Korea. There was no such thing as “youth culture” music on the mainstream charts.
Do you know what was the #1 song in 1954? Well neither did I, but here’s Kitty Kallen with “Little Things Mean a Lot”:
And here’s your #2 song from the same year. Please welcome Perry Como (nooooooo) with “Wanted”!
Imagine jamming out to this at the local sock hop or malt shop or wherever the hell teenagers went in 1954. I mean, you can’t. It’s ludicrous.
Chuck Berry wandered into the midst of THAT in 1955 and said “lol, what if we bludgeon everyone over the head with a guitar and sing about drag racing against a Cadillac in a thunderstorm?”
3.) Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Jackie Blue
Look, I know that “If You Want to Get to Heaven” is what most people would’ve picked. They are objectively wrong.
I’m not even sure what you’d call this, but let’s go with psychedelic blue-eyed soul. Is that a thing? Did the Righteous Brothers do anything psychedelic? Well they should have.
Larry Lee’s original lyrics were, no kidding, about the throes of drug addiction. Thankfully everyone’s common sense quickly prevailed and they changed the subject matter to a socially withdrawn lady instead. Good call, everyone. Although I suppose the psychedelic part might have fit with the former too. We’ll never know.
And then the Montreal Gazette criticized the song as “an outrageous knockoff of Fleetwood Mac’s sound, down to the female lead.” I don’t know if they were deaf, brain damaged, or perhaps merely bewildered by the concept of falsetto. I hope they never got their hands on a Frankie Valli album, lest they crap right in the middle of their poutine. They’re probably in the same group who goes “hurr durr, ELO sounds like the Beatles,” because apparently every band from the UK sounds like the Beatles.
4.) Nelly - Country Grammar
And now our work-friendly entry in the contest! No really, it’s the edited version that was actually played on radios, back when terrestrial radio was a thing. It’s his YouTube channel and it’s his choice, so I’m respecting it.
This is easily the most definitively Missouri song on the list. Or at least definitively St. Louis, but you know what I mean.
Credit to him for wearing jerseys of the Cardinals, Blues, and Rams (good times!) throughout the video. A shame he couldn’t find an old Spirits of St. Louis ABA jersey to throw in there and round it out. Not sure why the one guy is wearing a Jamal Anderson Falcons jersey at 1:45, but God love him for doing so. (Fun fact: I mow the yard in a worn out Jamal Anderson jersey. Absolutely no one reading this could possibly care.)
5.) Chappell Roan - Good Luck Babe!
Every single time we enter a 2020s song, it gets zero votes. And we’ve basically learned that, but to be fair a good portion of those songs really have been terrible. But not this!
This has 2.1 billion streams on Spotify, but let’s ignore that and look at that video. LOOK AT IT. This is her official lyric video, on her official YouTube channel, and it looks like a confused 1998 5th grader on GeoCities has decided graphic design is their passion. We’re just going to baffle everyone into thinking it’s from the 20th Century.
I think we’re finally going to do it, you guys! We’re finally going to get a 2020s song a vote this time! (And if we don’t, perhaps we’ll threaten to run “All Time All World Best Song Competition: 2020s Teen Girl Squad Edition.” But probably not.)
Honorable Mention
Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do
Someone had to get left out, and your primary chronological competitor went all out to say “look at St. Louis I am, and also here’s a Jamal Anderson jersey” while you’re singing about Los Angeles. Should’ve embraced your roots.
Vote in the Polls
Let’s run this through…let’s say Tuesday.
Up Next: The Letter N
Go ahead and vote, but I HAZ AN IDEA for a bonus article and it’s a stupid one. (No, not the 2020s Teen Girl Squad thing I threatened above.)
But in the meantime, maybe someone else will get excited about whatever wins here and run with it.
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2026 MLB Draft Primer: Current Players
by Andrew VU '04
Jul 10, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC
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Day One of the MLB Draft is Saturday July 11th (1pm ET; 12pm CT) on NBC, Peacock, and MLB Network, and will be rounds 1 through 4. Day Two (rounds 5-20) is on MLB.com at 11:30am ET; 10:30am CT. Don’t expect to hear any of these names on Day One, but here are the current players I expect to get drafted at some point before round 20 wraps up.
*Note: Coverage of this years draft will be, in a word, weird. Best to just paste in this nonsense here:
• 1:00-2:30 p.m. - Picks 1-10 (NBC and Peacock)
• 2:30-4:30 p.m. - Picks 11-40 (MLB Network, MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
• 4:30-7:45 p.m. - Picks 41-135 (MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
• 11:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. (MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
Anyway… onto the draft preview:
*Note: Like the past two years, there are no current Diamond Dores players either I or any draftnik project to be first rounders. This is a problem, but I would be pretty shocked if Brodie Johnston isn’t a first rounder next year.
Very likely none, though I could see Holcomb in round 4 as a possibility.
2026 Stats: .352/.434/.621 with 19 2B, 0 3B, 14 HR, 54 RBI and 6-8 steals.
Here’s his MLB.com scouting report:
Range: Rounds 5-10.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 226.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 189.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 88.
Prediction: To be honest, a guy with The Hulk’s physical tools and 2026 numbers should be a top 100 prospect chosen in the first three rounds of any draft. In fact, those 2026 numbers scream first round pick, don’t they? I suspect his swing and miss concerns from 2024 and 2025, as well as his defensive position (corner OF or IF, basically) are the reason he’s not ranked as highly, but, frankly, that’s pretty dumb. He’s not some plodding big man with the cement feet of a first baseman/DH. That boy can move, and has a RF arm. Again, I think MLB teams are grossly undervaluing his skillset. That said, I expect Holcomb to still be drafted somewhere around round 5 on Day Two as long as a team matches his signing bonus demands. With NIL money as an option, I’d hazard a guess that if MLB teams don’t offer Holcomb at least 5th round slot value (basically $400k-$550K), Vanderbilt will find a way to keep his power bat in the lineup. In the pre-NIL days, I’d list Holcomb as a 99.999% likely to sign, but now, there is at least a chance he returns.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 90%.
*Note: Braden Holcomb is the only current player ranked in either the MLB top 250 or ESPN top 250, and this has never before happened in the Tim Corbin era. Oof. 2026 truly was a cursed season.
2026 Stats: 4-2; 4.96 ERA; 10.76 K/9
Range: Rounds 11-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 259.
Prediction: Frankly, I’ve expected Connor Fennell to be wearing a Vanderbilt uniform as a senior since he first took the mound in 2025. He’s the classic “college senior starter,” as he can flat out pitch, and is a whale of a competitor, but doesn’t light up the radar guns. If anything, MLB teams have focused even more on velocity in recent years, and poor man’s Aaron Nola types (movement and precision pitchers who struggle to reach 90 mph) aren’t even in most systems any more. I’d bet The Spice is still our Friday Ace in 2027, and spends all offseason trying to get 1-2 more mph out of his arm in the pitching lab to give him a shot at being a senior draftee next year. If things go right, he could have a senior year like Cal State Fullerton’s Thomas Eshelman in 2015 or any number of senior South Cackalacky soft-tossers in 2010 or 2011.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 20%.
2026 Stats: .263/.341/.576 with 4 2B, 0 3B, 11 HR, and 28 RBI.
Range: Rounds 11-UDFA.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 304.
Prediction: Barczi demonstrated light tower power, but injuries kept him from catching for most of 2026. Recent reports are that Bar Rescue just underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum. This means he will not be catching in 2027, but he should be able to hit. As such, it’s probably better for him to have an MLB team pay for his rehab, but if they don’t want to, I’m sure he’ll be welcomed back to DH for the Diamond Dores. Don’t expect him to be able to do any more than that, though.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 50%.
2026 Stats: 3-3; 6.18 ERA; 11.13 K/9
Range: Rounds 11-UDFA.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: N/A
Prediction: The Kranz would probably have preferred to be draft eligible last year, as 2026 was a rough one. Partially because we were short on starting pitching candidates and partially because Corbs tries to give obvious reliever-only pitchers the chance to start in their junior years (see Nick Maldonado et al) so as to, in theory, bump up their draft stock. He’s a reliever and will always be a reliever, despite being able to throw a grab-bag full of different pitches. Luckily for The Kranz, relief pitching is starting to be valued a bit more highly by MLB teams, and further, he has an MLB reliever arm. While he’s not going to be selected Saturday, I’ll stake my claim that whether or not he’s a late round pick on Sunday, he will pitch in a major league bullpen by 2031. If he’s undrafted and/or teams just don’t hit his number, we will gladly welcome him back to the back of our pen in ‘27.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 50%.
Mike Mancini (not ranked) and Logan Johnstone (Perfect Game # 283).
*Note: You can listen to The Tennesseean beat writer Aria Gerson’s thoughts on the draft and the transfer portal additions here if you want.
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by Andrew VU '04
Jul 10, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC
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Day One of the MLB Draft is Saturday July 11th (1pm ET; 12pm CT) on NBC, Peacock, and MLB Network, and will be rounds 1 through 4. Day Two (rounds 5-20) is on MLB.com at 11:30am ET; 10:30am CT. Don’t expect to hear any of these names on Day One, but here are the current players I expect to get drafted at some point before round 20 wraps up.
*Note: Coverage of this years draft will be, in a word, weird. Best to just paste in this nonsense here:
Saturday, July 11: Rounds 1-4
• 1:00-2:30 p.m. - Picks 1-10 (NBC and Peacock)
• 2:30-4:30 p.m. - Picks 11-40 (MLB Network, MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
• 4:30-7:45 p.m. - Picks 41-135 (MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
Sunday, July 12: Rounds 5-20
• 11:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. (MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
Anyway… onto the draft preview:
*Note: Like the past two years, there are no current Diamond Dores players either I or any draftnik project to be first rounders. This is a problem, but I would be pretty shocked if Brodie Johnston isn’t a first rounder next year.
Current Players Who May Hear Their Names Called on Day One (Rounds 1-4):
Very likely none, though I could see Holcomb in round 4 as a possibility.
Current Players Who May Hear Their Names Called on Day Two (Rounds 5-20):
#26 Jr. OF Braden “The Hulk” Holcomb
2026 Stats: .352/.434/.621 with 19 2B, 0 3B, 14 HR, 54 RBI and 6-8 steals.
Here’s his MLB.com scouting report:
Range: Rounds 5-10.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 226.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 189.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 88.
Prediction: To be honest, a guy with The Hulk’s physical tools and 2026 numbers should be a top 100 prospect chosen in the first three rounds of any draft. In fact, those 2026 numbers scream first round pick, don’t they? I suspect his swing and miss concerns from 2024 and 2025, as well as his defensive position (corner OF or IF, basically) are the reason he’s not ranked as highly, but, frankly, that’s pretty dumb. He’s not some plodding big man with the cement feet of a first baseman/DH. That boy can move, and has a RF arm. Again, I think MLB teams are grossly undervaluing his skillset. That said, I expect Holcomb to still be drafted somewhere around round 5 on Day Two as long as a team matches his signing bonus demands. With NIL money as an option, I’d hazard a guess that if MLB teams don’t offer Holcomb at least 5th round slot value (basically $400k-$550K), Vanderbilt will find a way to keep his power bat in the lineup. In the pre-NIL days, I’d list Holcomb as a 99.999% likely to sign, but now, there is at least a chance he returns.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 90%.
*Note: Braden Holcomb is the only current player ranked in either the MLB top 250 or ESPN top 250, and this has never before happened in the Tim Corbin era. Oof. 2026 truly was a cursed season.
#39 Jr. RHP Connor “The Spice” Fennell
2026 Stats: 4-2; 4.96 ERA; 10.76 K/9
Range: Rounds 11-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 259.
Prediction: Frankly, I’ve expected Connor Fennell to be wearing a Vanderbilt uniform as a senior since he first took the mound in 2025. He’s the classic “college senior starter,” as he can flat out pitch, and is a whale of a competitor, but doesn’t light up the radar guns. If anything, MLB teams have focused even more on velocity in recent years, and poor man’s Aaron Nola types (movement and precision pitchers who struggle to reach 90 mph) aren’t even in most systems any more. I’d bet The Spice is still our Friday Ace in 2027, and spends all offseason trying to get 1-2 more mph out of his arm in the pitching lab to give him a shot at being a senior draftee next year. If things go right, he could have a senior year like Cal State Fullerton’s Thomas Eshelman in 2015 or any number of senior South Cackalacky soft-tossers in 2010 or 2011.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 20%.
#44 Jr. C/DH Colin “Bar Rescue” Barczi
2026 Stats: .263/.341/.576 with 4 2B, 0 3B, 11 HR, and 28 RBI.
Range: Rounds 11-UDFA.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 304.
Prediction: Barczi demonstrated light tower power, but injuries kept him from catching for most of 2026. Recent reports are that Bar Rescue just underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum. This means he will not be catching in 2027, but he should be able to hit. As such, it’s probably better for him to have an MLB team pay for his rehab, but if they don’t want to, I’m sure he’ll be welcomed back to DH for the Diamond Dores. Don’t expect him to be able to do any more than that, though.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 50%.
#77 Jr. RHP Alex “The Kranz” Kranzler
2026 Stats: 3-3; 6.18 ERA; 11.13 K/9
Range: Rounds 11-UDFA.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: N/A
Prediction: The Kranz would probably have preferred to be draft eligible last year, as 2026 was a rough one. Partially because we were short on starting pitching candidates and partially because Corbs tries to give obvious reliever-only pitchers the chance to start in their junior years (see Nick Maldonado et al) so as to, in theory, bump up their draft stock. He’s a reliever and will always be a reliever, despite being able to throw a grab-bag full of different pitches. Luckily for The Kranz, relief pitching is starting to be valued a bit more highly by MLB teams, and further, he has an MLB reliever arm. While he’s not going to be selected Saturday, I’ll stake my claim that whether or not he’s a late round pick on Sunday, he will pitch in a major league bullpen by 2031. If he’s undrafted and/or teams just don’t hit his number, we will gladly welcome him back to the back of our pen in ‘27.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 50%.
Players With No Eligibility Remaining Who May Hear Their Names Called on Day Two (Rounds 5-20) or Sign as an UDFA:
Mike Mancini (not ranked) and Logan Johnstone (Perfect Game # 283).
*Note: You can listen to The Tennesseean beat writer Aria Gerson’s thoughts on the draft and the transfer portal additions here if you want.
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2026 MLB Draft Primer: The Commits
by Andrew VU '04
Jul 10, 2026, 7:30 PM UTC
If you buy something from a link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
Day One of the MLB Draft is Saturday July 11th (1pm ET; 12pm CT) on NBC, Peacock, and MLB Network, and will be rounds 1 through 4. Day Two (rounds 5-20) is on MLB.com at 11:30am ET; 10:30am CT. Here are the names you will be praying not to hear called. Get 4-5 of these commits I’ve placed in the “Might Be Selected on Day One” range to campus and it’s a major win for the Diamond Dores.
*Note: Coverage of this years draft will be, in a word, weird. Best to just paste in this nonsense here:
• 1:00-2:30 p.m. - Picks 1-10 (NBC and Peacock)
• 2:30-4:30 p.m. - Picks 11-40 (MLB Network, MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
• 4:30-7:45 p.m. - Picks 41-135 (MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
• 11:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. (MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
Profiled below is not everyone in this ‘26 class, but rather the ones who find themselves in at least two of the following three categories: 1) the MLB.com Top 250 Prospects list, 2) Kylie McDaniel’s ESPN Top 250 Prospects list, and 3) are in the Top 500 according to Perfect Game. Generally speaking, if a prospect is none of those things, it’s extremely unlikely they will be signed away from a Vanderbilt commitment, so go ahead and put them in the “100% likely to get to campus” pile.
*For the bulk of our ‘25 commit list, click here for the Perfect Game list.
Overall: This class has the potential to put Vanderbilt back into the upper echelon of SEC baseball teams within two or three years, and even the potential for a handful of immediate impact starters to put the Diamond Dores back in the ‘27 postseason, competing for a #1 seed. It really can be that good, provided we do not get completely decimated by the MLB draft. Don’t get me wrong, we are absolutely going to lose about a handful of these guys to the early portion of the draft, but this is a deep enough class that I expect this group to be the strongest class of freshmen we will have gotten to campus in quite some time.
Range: Top half of Round 1.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 6.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 5.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 6.
Prediction: Literally everyone expects Booth to be taken within the top 10 picks of the draft. Forget his name. He’s not coming.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 99.999%.
Range: Bottom half of Round 1 to Round 2.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 32.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 47.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 47.
Prediction: Ruiz is also likely gone, provided his agent’s asking for slot value commensurate to where he’s ranked (let’s say this is $1.5-$2 million). If he’s got a Tyler Beede sized number in mind, then, like Beede, he’s likely coming to The Hawk. I’d forget his name unless I tell you otherwise.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 95%.
Range: Rounds 2-3.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 66.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 54.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 58.
Prediction: No matter what happens in the draft, Duncan is not pitching in 2027 due to injury. If that arm injury scares off MLB teams, then we have an eventual stud on the mound as a sophomore like we did with Jordan Sheffield. What we’re hearing is Duncan is still likely to be chosen relatively early and given his desired signing bonus. Still, this is the first name on this list who is even a possibility to come to campus, due to his injury.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 80%.
Range: Rounds 2-3.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 64.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 82.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 41.
Prediction: Generally speaking, the sons of former MLB All-Stars who have already struck out Aaron Judge in international competition tend to attract the eye of MLB scouts. I would be pretty shocked if Contreras ever pitches for the Diamond Dores.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 90%.
Range: Rounds 2-10.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 170.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 73.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 66.
Prediction: As you can see from the rankings above, there is not exactly an industry consensus on the Harvard Westlake SS. This, however, has been the type of player Tim Corbin has been able to convince to come to Vanderbilt time and again, with the promise of turning him into the next Dansby the Mansby. I think Tronstein is a Dore, but if not, we have a lot of interesting shortstops in this class.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 50%.
Range: Rounds 2-10.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 90.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 57.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 109.
Prediction: The speedy SS from the land of Yinzers is a recent flip from a commitment to the University of Virginia. He’s an uber-athlete who could turn into something special with three years development and polish under Tim Corbin. With Mancini graduating, we need a leadoff hitter, and Williams fits the prototype. Again, some of these uber-athletic shortstops are going to make it to campus… we just don’t know who yet. He’s a coin flip.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 50%.
Range: Rounds 2-4.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 82.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 87.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 73.
Prediction: Holloway is another commit I could see coming to campus, provided teams see him more as a future reliever than a future starter. He’s the type of projectable big lefty that Scott Brown gets to campus, but that same upside could cause him to shoot up draft boards in a draft light on star power like this one.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 50%.
Range: Rounds 3-10.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 130.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 92.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 220.
Prediction: Helter Skelton was 100% going to be a Dore until we chose to send him to the Appy league this summer and he completely tore it up. Now? Shit, it wouldn’t shock me if he’s taken super early and signs. It would piss me the hell off, but it wouldn’t shock me. On the other hand, a .386/.434/.700 monster slash with the Johnson City Doughboys might just push his asking price so high, he comes to Vanderbilt and immediately becomes a Brody Johnston-esque force in the middle of the lineup. Does the fact that I’ve already given him the perfect Diamond Dore nickname push him our way? I’mma go with yes.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 33.333%.
Range: Rounds 3-10.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 119.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 99.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 102.
Prediction: Keon Johnson is more of a contact hitting prospect than a power hitter at the moment, but has the frame to develop some future power. At least one of these SS commits will make it to campus, and while I’m higher on Helter Skelton and James Tronstein, Keon Johnson can absolutely be someone who balls out in the SEC. His speed regression likely spooks teams from tabbing him this year, as he doesn’t currently have the power to be a corner IF/OF bat. I’d say he’s coming to campus, more likely than not.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 33.333%.
Range: Rounds 3-10.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 94.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 127.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 64.
Prediction: Noah Wilson is someone we absolutely need to get to campus, as 1) We need a new CF, 2) He’s a power/speed demon who could contribute immediately, and 3) We can absolutely sell him on developing him into an Enrique Shockwave with power. That’s a future first rounder, or even top of the first round type. Because he’ll be sophomore draft eligible, I think Wilson can pretty much demand first round money and not really worry his financial future if he doesn’t get it. This is a class that already required us to put together a massive hoard of NIL promise money, so it would be malpractice not to bring Wilson to campus (you know, unless a Sal Stewart situation happens and he gets offered first round money already).
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 33.333%.
Range: Rounds 7-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 231.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 211.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 265.
Prediction: Herst has the type of control to push for a starting role (Sunday or Midweek starter) as a freshman, and with his velo currently in the low-90s, he’s likely coming to campus. He is a huge righty with a projectable frame, so I’d bet he’s closer to the 95 mph range by the end of his time at Vanderbilt
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 10%.
Range: Rounds 11-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 238.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: N/A.
Prediction: Bradley is another projectable big RHP who I expect to suit up in Gangster Pajamas.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 5%.
Range: Rounds 11-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 216.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: N/A.
Prediction: Kaleb “Tractor” Traylor is a big boy from The Bronx who is likely to make it to campus. Heck, Perfect Game only has him at a 9.5 (generally speaking, pretty much every prospect who starts at Vandy is a PG 10 coming in). Still, Kylie McDaniel has him on his top 250, so at least one scout must have told him something. Here’s to hoping Traylor joins the long list of Northeastern ballers who has proven to be an under the radar stud in gangster pajamas.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 5%.
Range: Rounds 11-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 171.
Prediction: Cope is already 6’8‘ and 250 lbs, so it’s safe to say people will notice him in gangster pajamas. Will Corbs allow Cope to play both ways, or does his 95 mph heat from the sinistro side mean he’s a Brownie project? Either way, I’d be relatively shocked if he’s drafted and signs.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 5%.
Range: Rounds 11-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 182.
Prediction: Bland has a pretty loud power tool, but I’d think he’s more likely to back up Tommy Goodin and/or push for some DH ABs at The Hawk than in the minors next year.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 5%.
Range: Rounds 7-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 249.
Prediction: Hinojosa throws 94 mph. He’s from NY. Another hard-throwing Brownie project.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 5%.
Check Perfect Game for reports on the rest of the 2026 signing class.
*Note: You can listen to The Tennesseean beat writer Aria Gerson’s thoughts on the draft and the transfer portal additions here if you want.
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Continue reading...
by Andrew VU '04
Jul 10, 2026, 7:30 PM UTC
If you buy something from a link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
Day One of the MLB Draft is Saturday July 11th (1pm ET; 12pm CT) on NBC, Peacock, and MLB Network, and will be rounds 1 through 4. Day Two (rounds 5-20) is on MLB.com at 11:30am ET; 10:30am CT. Here are the names you will be praying not to hear called. Get 4-5 of these commits I’ve placed in the “Might Be Selected on Day One” range to campus and it’s a major win for the Diamond Dores.
*Note: Coverage of this years draft will be, in a word, weird. Best to just paste in this nonsense here:
Saturday, July 11: Rounds 1-4
• 1:00-2:30 p.m. - Picks 1-10 (NBC and Peacock)
• 2:30-4:30 p.m. - Picks 11-40 (MLB Network, MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
• 4:30-7:45 p.m. - Picks 41-135 (MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
Sunday, July 12: Rounds 5-20
• 11:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. (MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
Profiled below is not everyone in this ‘26 class, but rather the ones who find themselves in at least two of the following three categories: 1) the MLB.com Top 250 Prospects list, 2) Kylie McDaniel’s ESPN Top 250 Prospects list, and 3) are in the Top 500 according to Perfect Game. Generally speaking, if a prospect is none of those things, it’s extremely unlikely they will be signed away from a Vanderbilt commitment, so go ahead and put them in the “100% likely to get to campus” pile.
*For the bulk of our ‘25 commit list, click here for the Perfect Game list.
Overall: This class has the potential to put Vanderbilt back into the upper echelon of SEC baseball teams within two or three years, and even the potential for a handful of immediate impact starters to put the Diamond Dores back in the ‘27 postseason, competing for a #1 seed. It really can be that good, provided we do not get completely decimated by the MLB draft. Don’t get me wrong, we are absolutely going to lose about a handful of these guys to the early portion of the draft, but this is a deep enough class that I expect this group to be the strongest class of freshmen we will have gotten to campus in quite some time.
Vanderbilt Commits Who Might Be Selected on Day One (Rounds 1-4):
OF Eric Booth Jr.
MLB.com Scouting Report:
Range: Top half of Round 1.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 6.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 5.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 6.
Prediction: Literally everyone expects Booth to be taken within the top 10 picks of the draft. Forget his name. He’s not coming.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 99.999%.
SS Aiden Ruiz
MLB.com Scouting Report:
Range: Bottom half of Round 1 to Round 2.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 32.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 47.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 47.
Prediction: Ruiz is also likely gone, provided his agent’s asking for slot value commensurate to where he’s ranked (let’s say this is $1.5-$2 million). If he’s got a Tyler Beede sized number in mind, then, like Beede, he’s likely coming to The Hawk. I’d forget his name unless I tell you otherwise.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 95%.
LHP Sean Duncan
MLB.com Scouting Report:
Range: Rounds 2-3.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 66.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 54.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 58.
Prediction: No matter what happens in the draft, Duncan is not pitching in 2027 due to injury. If that arm injury scares off MLB teams, then we have an eventual stud on the mound as a sophomore like we did with Jordan Sheffield. What we’re hearing is Duncan is still likely to be chosen relatively early and given his desired signing bonus. Still, this is the first name on this list who is even a possibility to come to campus, due to his injury.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 80%.
RHP Joseph Contreras
MLB.com Scouting Report:
Range: Rounds 2-3.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 64.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 82.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 41.
Prediction: Generally speaking, the sons of former MLB All-Stars who have already struck out Aaron Judge in international competition tend to attract the eye of MLB scouts. I would be pretty shocked if Contreras ever pitches for the Diamond Dores.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 90%.
SS James Tronstein
MLB.com Scouting Report:
Range: Rounds 2-10.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 170.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 73.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 66.
Prediction: As you can see from the rankings above, there is not exactly an industry consensus on the Harvard Westlake SS. This, however, has been the type of player Tim Corbin has been able to convince to come to Vanderbilt time and again, with the promise of turning him into the next Dansby the Mansby. I think Tronstein is a Dore, but if not, we have a lot of interesting shortstops in this class.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 50%.
SS Luke Williams
MLB.com Scouting Report:
Range: Rounds 2-10.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 90.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 57.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 109.
Prediction: The speedy SS from the land of Yinzers is a recent flip from a commitment to the University of Virginia. He’s an uber-athlete who could turn into something special with three years development and polish under Tim Corbin. With Mancini graduating, we need a leadoff hitter, and Williams fits the prototype. Again, some of these uber-athletic shortstops are going to make it to campus… we just don’t know who yet. He’s a coin flip.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 50%.
LHP Bo Holloway
MLB.com Scouting Report:
Range: Rounds 2-4.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 82.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 87.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 73.
Prediction: Holloway is another commit I could see coming to campus, provided teams see him more as a future reliever than a future starter. He’s the type of projectable big lefty that Scott Brown gets to campus, but that same upside could cause him to shoot up draft boards in a draft light on star power like this one.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 50%.
3B/SS Gunner “Helter” Skelton
MLB.com Scouting Report:
Range: Rounds 3-10.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 130.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 92.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 220.
Prediction: Helter Skelton was 100% going to be a Dore until we chose to send him to the Appy league this summer and he completely tore it up. Now? Shit, it wouldn’t shock me if he’s taken super early and signs. It would piss me the hell off, but it wouldn’t shock me. On the other hand, a .386/.434/.700 monster slash with the Johnson City Doughboys might just push his asking price so high, he comes to Vanderbilt and immediately becomes a Brody Johnston-esque force in the middle of the lineup. Does the fact that I’ve already given him the perfect Diamond Dore nickname push him our way? I’mma go with yes.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 33.333%.
SS Keon Johnson
MLB.com Scouting Report:
Range: Rounds 3-10.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 119.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 99.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 102.
Prediction: Keon Johnson is more of a contact hitting prospect than a power hitter at the moment, but has the frame to develop some future power. At least one of these SS commits will make it to campus, and while I’m higher on Helter Skelton and James Tronstein, Keon Johnson can absolutely be someone who balls out in the SEC. His speed regression likely spooks teams from tabbing him this year, as he doesn’t currently have the power to be a corner IF/OF bat. I’d say he’s coming to campus, more likely than not.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 33.333%.
CF Noah Wilson
MLB.com Scouting Report:
Range: Rounds 3-10.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 94.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 127.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 64.
Prediction: Noah Wilson is someone we absolutely need to get to campus, as 1) We need a new CF, 2) He’s a power/speed demon who could contribute immediately, and 3) We can absolutely sell him on developing him into an Enrique Shockwave with power. That’s a future first rounder, or even top of the first round type. Because he’ll be sophomore draft eligible, I think Wilson can pretty much demand first round money and not really worry his financial future if he doesn’t get it. This is a class that already required us to put together a massive hoard of NIL promise money, so it would be malpractice not to bring Wilson to campus (you know, unless a Sal Stewart situation happens and he gets offered first round money already).
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 33.333%.
Vanderbilt Commits Who Might Be Selected on Day Two (Rounds 5-20):
RHP Eli Herst
MLB.com Scouting Report:
Range: Rounds 7-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 231.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 211.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 265.
Prediction: Herst has the type of control to push for a starting role (Sunday or Midweek starter) as a freshman, and with his velo currently in the low-90s, he’s likely coming to campus. He is a huge righty with a projectable frame, so I’d bet he’s closer to the 95 mph range by the end of his time at Vanderbilt
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 10%.
Vanderbilt Commits To Keep An Eye On (Commits Show Up on One of the Three Top 250 Lists):
RHP Keller Bradley
MLB.com Scouting Report:
Range: Rounds 11-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: 238.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: N/A.
Prediction: Bradley is another projectable big RHP who I expect to suit up in Gangster Pajamas.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 5%.
3B/SS Kaleb Traylor
MLB.com Scouting Report: N/A.
Range: Rounds 11-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: 216.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: N/A.
Prediction: Kaleb “Tractor” Traylor is a big boy from The Bronx who is likely to make it to campus. Heck, Perfect Game only has him at a 9.5 (generally speaking, pretty much every prospect who starts at Vandy is a PG 10 coming in). Still, Kylie McDaniel has him on his top 250, so at least one scout must have told him something. Here’s to hoping Traylor joins the long list of Northeastern ballers who has proven to be an under the radar stud in gangster pajamas.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 5%.
LHP/1B RJ Cope
MLB.com Scouting Report: N/A.
Range: Rounds 11-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 171.
Prediction: Cope is already 6’8‘ and 250 lbs, so it’s safe to say people will notice him in gangster pajamas. Will Corbs allow Cope to play both ways, or does his 95 mph heat from the sinistro side mean he’s a Brownie project? Either way, I’d be relatively shocked if he’s drafted and signs.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 5%.
1B Collin Bland
MLB.com Scouting Report: N/A.
Range: Rounds 11-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 182.
Prediction: Bland has a pretty loud power tool, but I’d think he’s more likely to back up Tommy Goodin and/or push for some DH ABs at The Hawk than in the minors next year.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 5%.
RHP David Hinojosa
MLB.com Scouting Report: N/A.
Range: Rounds 7-20.
MLB.com Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
ESPN Top 250 Ranking: N/A.
Perfect Game Top 500 Ranking: 249.
Prediction: Hinojosa throws 94 mph. He’s from NY. Another hard-throwing Brownie project.
Chance He Signs With an MLB Team: 5%.
Check Perfect Game for reports on the rest of the 2026 signing class.
*Note: You can listen to The Tennesseean beat writer Aria Gerson’s thoughts on the draft and the transfer portal additions here if you want.
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2026 MLB Draft: Day One Live Thread
by Andrew VU '04
Jul 11, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC
• 1:00-2:30 p.m. - Picks 1-10 (NBC and Peacock)
• 2:30-4:30 p.m. - Picks 11-40 (MLB Network, MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
• 4:30-7:45 p.m. - Picks 41-135 (MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
It’s Draft Day. For most sports, it’s a celebratory day where you’re glad to hear the names of your boys, cheering them on as they jump to the next level. For college baseball fans, it’s a PTSD-laden war of attrition where your mood is dependent on hearing the fewest amount of names of your potential incoming freshman class. Zero names is ideal, of course, but when you ‘croot at Vanderbilt’s level, that’s never (or almost never, it did happen once) a realistic ask.
Here are the names we don’t want to hear.
In short, go ahead and forget the names of OF Eric Booth Jr. (expected to go in the top 10 picks of the 1st round) and SS Aiden Ruiz (a slick-fielding defensive maven likely to get tabbed in the first 50 or so picks). Expect also to lose top pitchers LHP Sean Duncan and RHP Joseph Contreras (though there’s an outside chance one makes it to campus) and at least one of our two top SS commits, SS James Tronstein and SS Luke Williams. Keep it to losing 4 or 5 of them, and none of our remaining members of the #1 ‘crootin’ class in the nation, and we have set ourselves up to return to the postseason, challenge for a #1 seed this year, and challenge for a title in 2-3 years. Get decimated and… well, remember when Krusty drank gasoline and woke up on Bart’s lawn?
Then there’s our boys (you know, the ones who haven’t transferred out like pretty much our entire 2026 bullpen). Honestly, not a lot of Diamond Dores are expected to get drafted, and none (well, maybe Braden Holcomb) should expect to hear their names today (rounds 1-4).
Regardless, join up in the comments to collectively white knuckle the worst weekend of the year for college baseball fans with us at Anchor of Gold. Pour Jobu his rum, Hail Pinman, and scream “OO!” at Vocockyteps. It’s Draft Day.
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by Andrew VU '04
Jul 11, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC
Saturday, July 11: Rounds 1-4
• 1:00-2:30 p.m. - Picks 1-10 (NBC and Peacock)
• 2:30-4:30 p.m. - Picks 11-40 (MLB Network, MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
• 4:30-7:45 p.m. - Picks 41-135 (MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
It’s Draft Day. For most sports, it’s a celebratory day where you’re glad to hear the names of your boys, cheering them on as they jump to the next level. For college baseball fans, it’s a PTSD-laden war of attrition where your mood is dependent on hearing the fewest amount of names of your potential incoming freshman class. Zero names is ideal, of course, but when you ‘croot at Vanderbilt’s level, that’s never (or almost never, it did happen once) a realistic ask.
Here are the names we don’t want to hear.
In short, go ahead and forget the names of OF Eric Booth Jr. (expected to go in the top 10 picks of the 1st round) and SS Aiden Ruiz (a slick-fielding defensive maven likely to get tabbed in the first 50 or so picks). Expect also to lose top pitchers LHP Sean Duncan and RHP Joseph Contreras (though there’s an outside chance one makes it to campus) and at least one of our two top SS commits, SS James Tronstein and SS Luke Williams. Keep it to losing 4 or 5 of them, and none of our remaining members of the #1 ‘crootin’ class in the nation, and we have set ourselves up to return to the postseason, challenge for a #1 seed this year, and challenge for a title in 2-3 years. Get decimated and… well, remember when Krusty drank gasoline and woke up on Bart’s lawn?
Then there’s our boys (you know, the ones who haven’t transferred out like pretty much our entire 2026 bullpen). Honestly, not a lot of Diamond Dores are expected to get drafted, and none (well, maybe Braden Holcomb) should expect to hear their names today (rounds 1-4).
Regardless, join up in the comments to collectively white knuckle the worst weekend of the year for college baseball fans with us at Anchor of Gold. Pour Jobu his rum, Hail Pinman, and scream “OO!” at Vocockyteps. It’s Draft Day.
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2026 MLB Draft: Day Two Live Thread
by Andrew VU '04
Jul 12, 2026, 2:24 PM UTC
• 11:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. ET (MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
Yesterday certainly could have gone better for the Diamond Dores, as no current players were chosen in the first 4 rounds (yeah… we earned that postseason miss this year), but 6 commits were.
The latter part of that sentence likely frightens you, but it was pretty much expected. Well, that OF Eric Booth Jr. went in the 1st (Orioles), SS Aiden Ruiz in the 2nd (Pirates), LHP Sean Duncan in the 2nd (Yankees), recently flipped from UVA commit SS Luke Williams in the 3rd (Gnats), and SS Keon Johnson in the 3rd (Houston) was pretty par for the course. The only shocker was 1B Collin Bland being tabbed by the Devil Rays in the 4th. Most thought he was pretty safe to get to campus, as he’s a 1B/DH type, and those only get taken out of HS if their bats are unreal, but… you know… you only need one team to like you and whatnot.
In normal years, losing 6 potential incoming freshmen would mean our class was completely raided by the pros, and we’d be pretty apoplectic. Heck, losing 3 guys who could take over for Ryker Waite at SS in a year even sounds like something that would kill a class, right?
Well, no. Not this class. Not yet.
Note that there are more guys in this class than Aria listed… those are the Perfect Game top 100 ‘croots still on the board. CF Wilson (11), RHP Contreras (21), LHP Holloway (23), SS Tronstein (40), LHP Cope (46), SS Skelton (56), and though RHP Herst is ranked outside of those confines, he was still on the Top 250 lists (for the overall draft… not just high school guys) for MLB, ESPN, and Perfect Game, and is the most starter ready of any of our pitching ‘croots. Oh, and Baseball America has Herst as a 5 star:
That doesn’t even count RHP Hinojosa (150) and others who are prized 4 star commits.
Seriously, we still have two 5 star types left at SS after having already lost 3 in the draft. One of those, Gunner Skelton, is my pick to have an immediate Brodie Johnston-level impact at the plate, as he straight up destroyed the Appy League this summer. Esposito, Corbs, and Brownie did work in this class.
Make no mistake, if no other commits are chosen today, that would be the #1 class in the nation and a massive jumpstart to get The Diamond Dores back to the top of the heap.
…but we’re not out of the woods yet. With the new draft schedule (rounds 1-4 on Day 1; rounds 5-20 on Day 2), it is expected that teams will have made the calls to all the remaining over-slot HS players (think players with $2 million asking prices) to see who’s actually signable. With that said, expect the 5th round to be the danger zone for our commits, and once we’re past that, you can exhale a bit. Further, it would not shock me if Corbs and the boys went nuclear with NIL asks to boosters last night, especially with Contreras, Wilson, and Holloway still on the board.
Today, we want to hear current player names, like The Hulk and The Kranz, and (refills Jobu’s rum; prays to Pinman) none of our remaining commits, please and thank you.
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by Andrew VU '04
Jul 12, 2026, 2:24 PM UTC
Sunday, July 12: Rounds 5-20
• 11:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. ET (MLB.com, MLB TV, MLB+)
Yesterday certainly could have gone better for the Diamond Dores, as no current players were chosen in the first 4 rounds (yeah… we earned that postseason miss this year), but 6 commits were.
The latter part of that sentence likely frightens you, but it was pretty much expected. Well, that OF Eric Booth Jr. went in the 1st (Orioles), SS Aiden Ruiz in the 2nd (Pirates), LHP Sean Duncan in the 2nd (Yankees), recently flipped from UVA commit SS Luke Williams in the 3rd (Gnats), and SS Keon Johnson in the 3rd (Houston) was pretty par for the course. The only shocker was 1B Collin Bland being tabbed by the Devil Rays in the 4th. Most thought he was pretty safe to get to campus, as he’s a 1B/DH type, and those only get taken out of HS if their bats are unreal, but… you know… you only need one team to like you and whatnot.
In normal years, losing 6 potential incoming freshmen would mean our class was completely raided by the pros, and we’d be pretty apoplectic. Heck, losing 3 guys who could take over for Ryker Waite at SS in a year even sounds like something that would kill a class, right?
Well, no. Not this class. Not yet.
Note that there are more guys in this class than Aria listed… those are the Perfect Game top 100 ‘croots still on the board. CF Wilson (11), RHP Contreras (21), LHP Holloway (23), SS Tronstein (40), LHP Cope (46), SS Skelton (56), and though RHP Herst is ranked outside of those confines, he was still on the Top 250 lists (for the overall draft… not just high school guys) for MLB, ESPN, and Perfect Game, and is the most starter ready of any of our pitching ‘croots. Oh, and Baseball America has Herst as a 5 star:
That doesn’t even count RHP Hinojosa (150) and others who are prized 4 star commits.
Seriously, we still have two 5 star types left at SS after having already lost 3 in the draft. One of those, Gunner Skelton, is my pick to have an immediate Brodie Johnston-level impact at the plate, as he straight up destroyed the Appy League this summer. Esposito, Corbs, and Brownie did work in this class.
Make no mistake, if no other commits are chosen today, that would be the #1 class in the nation and a massive jumpstart to get The Diamond Dores back to the top of the heap.
…but we’re not out of the woods yet. With the new draft schedule (rounds 1-4 on Day 1; rounds 5-20 on Day 2), it is expected that teams will have made the calls to all the remaining over-slot HS players (think players with $2 million asking prices) to see who’s actually signable. With that said, expect the 5th round to be the danger zone for our commits, and once we’re past that, you can exhale a bit. Further, it would not shock me if Corbs and the boys went nuclear with NIL asks to boosters last night, especially with Contreras, Wilson, and Holloway still on the board.
Today, we want to hear current player names, like The Hulk and The Kranz, and (refills Jobu’s rum; prays to Pinman) none of our remaining commits, please and thank you.
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Let’s Get Weird Again—All World All Time Best Song Competition: A-M Country Mixtape
by parlagi
Jul 14, 2026, 12:30 PM UTC
Wasn’t it nice to have actual sports content for a weekend thanks to the MLB draft? Were you expecting a follow-up article on the bowling team’s recruiting? Actually, so was I. We don’t have any news on that front though, so let’s get weird again.
Hopefully you didn’t read the “A-M Country Mixtape” title and expect the classic country music you might hear on WSM 650 AM. No, you’re getting six entries from countries who didn’t get a chance to be represented, but who I felt had an entry that deserved a shot. I mean, fine, every country probably has a song like that but I don’t really know anything from Monaco. Has Monaco ever won Eurovision? Probably not.
[Note: And having typed that, Monaco did win Eurovision in 1971, and their final entry in 2006 was apparently half sung in Tahitian?! And both singers were named Séverine? You do you, Monaco. This article will feature neither of those songs.]
See our list of all previous winners.
Johnny B. Goode and Chuck Berry pretty much romped the rest of the Missouri competition, rolling up 62.5% of the vote. Go Johnny go, go. Johnny B. Goode.
We actually had a few more votes, thanks to home state voters from the Missouri blog showing up. Somehow I don’t expect any home area voting to happen this time.
The only Afghan song to ever be featured in an Anchor Drop!
They released this in 2019, because what could possibly go wrong over the next 2 years? A worldwide pandemic? Their country’s entire government falling? Oh. Oh, I see.
Apparently political turmoil (that’s certainly a polite term for it, isn’t it) produces some solid rock music, because let’s keep going here.
Let’s go ahead and note that’s an outstanding band name, and maybe an even better album cover.
This managed the rare feat of pissing off virtually everyone in 1968 Brazil. The authoritarian military dictatorship that was running the country accused them of being filthy hippies and moral degenerates. Fine, that’s basically the normal playbook there.
But the anti-establishment college student crowd hated them too! At the time, they were deeply nationalistic about art and music, to the point of holding a March Against the Electric Guitar the previous year. So when Os Mutantes showed up at national song festivals, the students booed, and threw fruit, and turned their backs.
Best part: Both the guitars and the incredible distortion pedal are homebrew devices created by the band’s genius older brother. It was nearly impossible to get actual equipment into Brazil due to government regulations and outrageous tariffs, so he just cobbled it together in their garage from crappy, locally-sourced electronics.
They literally invented their own instruments to be called “American sellouts” by the left and right. SCIENCE!
I linked this in the comments a few weeks ago, but just listen to it. Legitimately amazing late 60s Cambodian rock music, who knew?
And then the Vietnam War spilled over the border, the Khmer Rouge happened, and she disappeared in the mid 70s along with a quarter of the country. We are never, ever allowed to have nice things.
I particularly like the background singers. They only have the one line over and over, and they sound like they really ought to be on a Dion and the Belmonts recording instead. But somehow it works, so carry on.
Finally, an entry that isn’t marred by horrifying political realities! I mean they technically recorded while Viktor Orbán was running their country, but as far as I know at least they flew under his radar. (“We recorded this in Viktor Orbán’s first term, so things were mostly normal.” Truly the bar has fallen through the floor, and is currently digging to China.)
This song is basically the equivalent of a caffeine jolt, as they manage to get more and more wired as the song goes before abruptly ending.
Backstory: This was originally released under the band’s real name (Ternipe) as “Az Úton.” That’s the actual Hungarian name, and translates as “On the Road.” Then it got re-released several years under the Romani translation “Po Drom.” Unfortunately that caused a bunch of licensing issues, and this is no longer available for streaming in the US in a bunch of places as a result. So boo. Boo for all that.
Oh my God, hello Okinawan folk music earworm.
I’m not even completely sure what’s happening with the lyrics. It’s a conversation between a young boy (portrayed by the male singers), and a guy who appears to be a cynical middle-aged drunk (portrayed by the female backup singers, because of course).
Boy: Hey, old man! Hey, old man! If there’s a drop of sake left in last night’s little bottle, can I have it?
Old Guy: Hey, boy! Hey, boy! You think I’m satisfied with a little bottle? Don’t say there’s none left!
Boy: Okay, old man! If a little bottle wasn’t enough, give me the big one!
So basically a Tuesday in the Anchor of Gold Diamond Encrusted Bunker.
That screenshot has the greatest caption in the history of electronic media.
This is from back in 2010. Just a Band put together a music video for a made-up movie on roughly the budget of a 5th grader’s allowance, took the Internet by storm, and became Kenya’s first legitimate meme.
It’s also catchy as hell. That bassline is tremendous, and I don’t even know what you’d call this genre. Retro Kenyan indie house? Those are all words that describe music, right?
MAKMENDE AMERUDI!
Still the greatest music video ever created. “What if we take the Shadows’ moody classic, added all the keyboard, and also all the booze?” GREAT WARRIORS. RIDERS OF THE PLAINS.
It almost bothers me how musically competent it actually is.
Setting aside how absurdly giddy this is (I cracked up 3 seconds in), let’s talk about the lyrics. And the full title, which is basically “How Holy Mary caused a chop of meat to be found which was stolen from some pilgrims in the city of Rocamadour.”
9 pilgrims buy pork chops and go to pray while the meat’s cooking. While they’re gone, a servant girl steals one of the chops and hides it in a trunk. The pilgrims come back and find it missing, and call on Mary to help them find it. So far, so good. Relatively.
Then the pork chop starts dancing and clapping inside the trunk, demanding to be found. So they open the trunk, and there it is, carrying on like Michigan J. Frog.
Instead of eating it, they hang it on a silk thread and dedicate it to Mary, because that’s the sort of thing people in the 13th Century did.
I kind of think I should’ve included this in the main article now.
The Platters on theremin? The Platters on theremin.
Presumably back to your regularly scheduled nonsense, as we already voted for N.
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by parlagi
Jul 14, 2026, 12:30 PM UTC
Wasn’t it nice to have actual sports content for a weekend thanks to the MLB draft? Were you expecting a follow-up article on the bowling team’s recruiting? Actually, so was I. We don’t have any news on that front though, so let’s get weird again.
Hopefully you didn’t read the “A-M Country Mixtape” title and expect the classic country music you might hear on WSM 650 AM. No, you’re getting six entries from countries who didn’t get a chance to be represented, but who I felt had an entry that deserved a shot. I mean, fine, every country probably has a song like that but I don’t really know anything from Monaco. Has Monaco ever won Eurovision? Probably not.
[Note: And having typed that, Monaco did win Eurovision in 1971, and their final entry in 2006 was apparently half sung in Tahitian?! And both singers were named Séverine? You do you, Monaco. This article will feature neither of those songs.]
Previous Result
See our list of all previous winners.
Johnny B. Goode and Chuck Berry pretty much romped the rest of the Missouri competition, rolling up 62.5% of the vote. Go Johnny go, go. Johnny B. Goode.
We actually had a few more votes, thanks to home state voters from the Missouri blog showing up. Somehow I don’t expect any home area voting to happen this time.
The Songs
1.) Afghanistan: Kabul Dreams, “Fasl”
The only Afghan song to ever be featured in an Anchor Drop!
They released this in 2019, because what could possibly go wrong over the next 2 years? A worldwide pandemic? Their country’s entire government falling? Oh. Oh, I see.
Apparently political turmoil (that’s certainly a polite term for it, isn’t it) produces some solid rock music, because let’s keep going here.
2.) Brazil: Os Mutantes, “A Minha Menina”
Let’s go ahead and note that’s an outstanding band name, and maybe an even better album cover.
This managed the rare feat of pissing off virtually everyone in 1968 Brazil. The authoritarian military dictatorship that was running the country accused them of being filthy hippies and moral degenerates. Fine, that’s basically the normal playbook there.
But the anti-establishment college student crowd hated them too! At the time, they were deeply nationalistic about art and music, to the point of holding a March Against the Electric Guitar the previous year. So when Os Mutantes showed up at national song festivals, the students booed, and threw fruit, and turned their backs.
Best part: Both the guitars and the incredible distortion pedal are homebrew devices created by the band’s genius older brother. It was nearly impossible to get actual equipment into Brazil due to government regulations and outrageous tariffs, so he just cobbled it together in their garage from crappy, locally-sourced electronics.
They literally invented their own instruments to be called “American sellouts” by the left and right. SCIENCE!
3.) Cambodia: Ros Sereysothea, “Chnam oun Dop-Pram Muy”
I linked this in the comments a few weeks ago, but just listen to it. Legitimately amazing late 60s Cambodian rock music, who knew?
And then the Vietnam War spilled over the border, the Khmer Rouge happened, and she disappeared in the mid 70s along with a quarter of the country. We are never, ever allowed to have nice things.
I particularly like the background singers. They only have the one line over and over, and they sound like they really ought to be on a Dion and the Belmonts recording instead. But somehow it works, so carry on.
4.) Hungary: Bela Lakatos & the Gypsy Youth Project, “Po Drom”
Finally, an entry that isn’t marred by horrifying political realities! I mean they technically recorded while Viktor Orbán was running their country, but as far as I know at least they flew under his radar. (“We recorded this in Viktor Orbán’s first term, so things were mostly normal.” Truly the bar has fallen through the floor, and is currently digging to China.)
This song is basically the equivalent of a caffeine jolt, as they manage to get more and more wired as the song goes before abruptly ending.
Backstory: This was originally released under the band’s real name (Ternipe) as “Az Úton.” That’s the actual Hungarian name, and translates as “On the Road.” Then it got re-released several years under the Romani translation “Po Drom.” Unfortunately that caused a bunch of licensing issues, and this is no longer available for streaming in the US in a bunch of places as a result. So boo. Boo for all that.
5.) Japan: Shoukichi Kina & Champloose, “Hai-sai Ojisan”
Oh my God, hello Okinawan folk music earworm.
I’m not even completely sure what’s happening with the lyrics. It’s a conversation between a young boy (portrayed by the male singers), and a guy who appears to be a cynical middle-aged drunk (portrayed by the female backup singers, because of course).
Boy: Hey, old man! Hey, old man! If there’s a drop of sake left in last night’s little bottle, can I have it?
Old Guy: Hey, boy! Hey, boy! You think I’m satisfied with a little bottle? Don’t say there’s none left!
Boy: Okay, old man! If a little bottle wasn’t enough, give me the big one!
So basically a Tuesday in the Anchor of Gold Diamond Encrusted Bunker.
6.) Kenya: Just a Band, “Ha-He”
That screenshot has the greatest caption in the history of electronic media.
This is from back in 2010. Just a Band put together a music video for a made-up movie on roughly the budget of a 5th grader’s allowance, took the Internet by storm, and became Kenya’s first legitimate meme.
It’s also catchy as hell. That bassline is tremendous, and I don’t even know what you’d call this genre. Retro Kenyan indie house? Those are all words that describe music, right?
MAKMENDE AMERUDI!
Honorable Mentions
Denmark: Tommy Seebach Band, “Apache”
Still the greatest music video ever created. “What if we take the Shadows’ moody classic, added all the keyboard, and also all the booze?” GREAT WARRIORS. RIDERS OF THE PLAINS.
It almost bothers me how musically competent it actually is.
Kingdom of Leon: Cantigas de Santa Maria, Cantiga 159, “Non sofre Santa María”
Setting aside how absurdly giddy this is (I cracked up 3 seconds in), let’s talk about the lyrics. And the full title, which is basically “How Holy Mary caused a chop of meat to be found which was stolen from some pilgrims in the city of Rocamadour.”
9 pilgrims buy pork chops and go to pray while the meat’s cooking. While they’re gone, a servant girl steals one of the chops and hides it in a trunk. The pilgrims come back and find it missing, and call on Mary to help them find it. So far, so good. Relatively.
Then the pork chop starts dancing and clapping inside the trunk, demanding to be found. So they open the trunk, and there it is, carrying on like Michigan J. Frog.
Instead of eating it, they hang it on a silk thread and dedicate it to Mary, because that’s the sort of thing people in the 13th Century did.
I kind of think I should’ve included this in the main article now.
Hungary: Katica Illenyi, “Only You”
The Platters on theremin? The Platters on theremin.
Vote in the Polls
Up Next
Presumably back to your regularly scheduled nonsense, as we already voted for N.
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Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537). Hope is here. GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support (MA). Visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD). Call 877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). 21+ (18+ D.C.) and present in select states (for KS, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino). Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT) or visit FanDuel.com/RG.
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The Spice Returns
by Andrew VU '04
Jul 17, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC
After the most disappointing season in the Tim Corbin era, resulting in the first time the Diamond Dores missed the postseason since most of the team has been alive, Corbs famously said something to the effect of, “Fuck that noise. Hail Pinman” (possibly misquoted) and then refilled Jobu’s rum.
Since then, The Diamond Dores got the #1 ‘crootin’ class in baseball to campus (seriously, they lost 6 commits to the draft and still have the #1 class in all of baseball) led by Perfect Game top 100 players CF Noah Wilson (11), RHP Joseph Contreras (21), LHP Bo Holloway (23), LHP/1B RJ Cope (46), SS/3B Gunner “Helter” Skelton (56), and maybe even SS James Tronstein (40), who was chosen by Houston in the 15th round, but has shown no indication of signing; added some stud transfers like OF Bud Coombs, C Matt Conte, LHP Shane Brinham, and SS/2B Blaize Ward; and just today, got their Friday starter back:
Prior to this announcement, the starting rotation was the one potentially shaky aspect of the 2027 Diamond Dores roster, but now we’ll have RHP Connor Fennell and LHP Shane Brinham anchoring the rotation, with a metric crapton of young arm talent battering down the door to join them in the remaining two spots.
If RHP Austin Nye is fully recovered from arm surgery, he will join them in the rotation, with the potential to the best of the bunch. If he’s not back to health, you’ve still got to like the depth and potential of our young future aces. So. LHP Aidan Stillman was our top commit from last year’s class. Jr. LHP Matthew “Shoresy” Shorey was looking to be a starting pitching candidate last year before injuries laid him low. And then you have the cadre of freshmen, led by corner-dotter RHP Eli Herst, who’s the most college ready of the crew, and the tantalizing potential of Contreras, Holloway, and Cope.
Hell, that might be enough arm talent to piggyback Sunday and Midweek starts, giving 4 innings each to four of the above, and thus keeping everyone happy.
Last year sucked. It sucked hard. However, we’re basically only losing Holcomb, Mancini, and The Kranz to pro ball, Logan Johnston to graduation, and though we had a handful of transfer departures, the only one of note is LHP Miller Green. In short, after the roughest year in memory, we all have a reason to get John Wick levels of cocky whilst saying:
Oh, and nothing sucks like a big orange.
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by Andrew VU '04
Jul 17, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC
After the most disappointing season in the Tim Corbin era, resulting in the first time the Diamond Dores missed the postseason since most of the team has been alive, Corbs famously said something to the effect of, “Fuck that noise. Hail Pinman” (possibly misquoted) and then refilled Jobu’s rum.
Since then, The Diamond Dores got the #1 ‘crootin’ class in baseball to campus (seriously, they lost 6 commits to the draft and still have the #1 class in all of baseball) led by Perfect Game top 100 players CF Noah Wilson (11), RHP Joseph Contreras (21), LHP Bo Holloway (23), LHP/1B RJ Cope (46), SS/3B Gunner “Helter” Skelton (56), and maybe even SS James Tronstein (40), who was chosen by Houston in the 15th round, but has shown no indication of signing; added some stud transfers like OF Bud Coombs, C Matt Conte, LHP Shane Brinham, and SS/2B Blaize Ward; and just today, got their Friday starter back:
Prior to this announcement, the starting rotation was the one potentially shaky aspect of the 2027 Diamond Dores roster, but now we’ll have RHP Connor Fennell and LHP Shane Brinham anchoring the rotation, with a metric crapton of young arm talent battering down the door to join them in the remaining two spots.
If RHP Austin Nye is fully recovered from arm surgery, he will join them in the rotation, with the potential to the best of the bunch. If he’s not back to health, you’ve still got to like the depth and potential of our young future aces. So. LHP Aidan Stillman was our top commit from last year’s class. Jr. LHP Matthew “Shoresy” Shorey was looking to be a starting pitching candidate last year before injuries laid him low. And then you have the cadre of freshmen, led by corner-dotter RHP Eli Herst, who’s the most college ready of the crew, and the tantalizing potential of Contreras, Holloway, and Cope.
Hell, that might be enough arm talent to piggyback Sunday and Midweek starts, giving 4 innings each to four of the above, and thus keeping everyone happy.
Last year sucked. It sucked hard. However, we’re basically only losing Holcomb, Mancini, and The Kranz to pro ball, Logan Johnston to graduation, and though we had a handful of transfer departures, the only one of note is LHP Miller Green. In short, after the roughest year in memory, we all have a reason to get John Wick levels of cocky whilst saying:
Oh, and nothing sucks like a big orange.
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Let’s Get Weird Again—All World All Time Best Song Competition: The New States
by parlagi
Jul 20, 2026, 6:03 AM UTC
See our list of all previous winners.
“Ha-He” by Kenya’s Just a Band won the mixtape competition (MAKMENDE AMERUDI!), but with a paltry 5 votes. Granted, there was a 5-way race going on, but only 16 votes total. Not sure if I erred by posting mid-week, or if we just didn’t have any interest in world music.
So we’ll move this back to Sunday night and do what Anchor of Gold does best: Be weird.
Theoretically parts of Canada should be repping the letter N, but since democracy doesn’t work, we’re applying ranked choice voting and you’re getting “The four New states, and it’s 100% shitposting.” You’re welcome.
Oh. My. God.
So here’s the story: These three girls’ father was wildly superstitious, and got a palm reading from his mother. She made 3 predictions: He’d marry a strawberry blonde (check), he’d have two sons after she died (check, never mind that they had like 7 kids), and that his daughters would be a world famous band. Keep in mind that palm reading was obviously done *before* he got married, which means this lunatic had to have held onto said dream for at least 20 years.
To fulfill his mother’s canonical destiny, he pulled his daughters out of school, forbade them to listen to any music, and made them practice for hours a day.
And his reward was the musical equivalent of Rod Dowhower’s 1995 Vanderbilt offense.
I guess to be fair, his mother didn’t say why the band would be world famous. After all, Rod Dowhower’s offenses were world famous for ineptness too.
Anyway, it’s incredible how all 3 girls are playing completely different songs and somehow hit the same downbeat. Particularly since the drummer’s elastic time signature sounds like she invented the Continuously Variable Transmission.
Frank Zappa said they were “better than the Beatles,” but to be fair, I think Frank was kind of a weirdo. Wasn’t he? I mean, he named his kids Dweezil and Moon Unit? Hang on, there’s a knock on my door.
…I’ve been handed a note from the spokesman for the Amalgamated Association of Weirdos, Local 6 7/8 (who looked a lot like Pinman, come to think of it), that just says “You better believe it.” Well, there we go then.
Oh boy, I hope I’m not the only one who’s familiar with “Stairway to Stardom.” It was a legendarily awful public access “talent” show in New York for years, run by a guy named Frank Masi.
Calling this “New Jersey” is a bit of a cheat, but if you watch the actual episode, the bass guy says their song is being played on WNJR, Newark radio. That’s good enough for me.
And honestly, what you see above pretty much sums up the entire show. Four guys in a basement, with a hole in the wall behind them, who cannot synchronize their dance moves to save their lives. The song itself is admittedly funky indeed, but you’re here for the dancing.
Actually, that’s a lie. These guys were easily the most talented performers to ever show up. Feel free to look up “Stairway on Stardom” on YouTube and lose an hour off your day, and several years off your life.
(Side note: It really is a shame that we’ve lost the absolute joy that was public access television. Do you think John Daker of Peoria, Illinois was ever going to sing “Amore” on TikTok? No. No, you do not.)
Back in 1964 or so, Tom Paxton (an indie folk singer-songwriter, and boy there’s a description guaranteed to make me get up and go home) wrote “Bottle of Wine.” He intended it to be a melancholy, overwrought description of an alcoholic’s cravings and desperation. Then he gave it to Judy Collins to record, which didn’t help anything.
Then the Fireballs here looked at it and said “lol what if we turn it into a goodtime frat boys drinking song”? And so they did. And then it hit the Top 10 on the Billboard charts because, as always, it was the 1960s and people just did whatever. One of those retro Top 40 countdowns had Arthur Brown yelling I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE in between Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were the Days” and the Beatles singing “Hey Jude,” because of course it did.
Ignore that vinyl in the screenshot, this is an actual Edison wax cylinder recording from 1901! It’s why the announcer guy’s yelling the song title at the start — the cylinders had no way to put a label on them for identification.
In fact, pretty much *everyone* had to yell in the wax cylinder era — they all but screamed the songs into those long megaphone-looking cones that transmuted the sound into grooves on the cylinder. In fact, this was a year before Edison came up with the gold molding process. Before then, a popular singer just had to sing the same damn song hundreds (or even thousands) of times to cut enough cylinders to keep up with public demand.
But enough history, let’s talk about the lyrics. When it comes out that Mrs. Murphy accidentally left the overalls in the pot where she was washing earlier in the day, no one even gives a second thought to her using the same pot for laundry and cooking. It was the 1900s, sanitation was a polite suggestion and the plum pudding model explained the atom. They all just take it in stride and “what ho, cheerio and pip pip” or whatever slang people said in 1901.
You know who else recording this madness? BING CROSBY. No fooling.
Yeah guys, I’m thinking the four-part harmonies there don’t quite mesh with the material.
That’d be the same Bing Crosby who recorded “Christmas Dinner Country Style,” and THANK YOU again to whoever submitted that during the Christmas goofiness. Man, for a bona fide legend, old Bing recorded some … let’s call it really esoteric material.
A convent of nuns from upstate New York armed with a slightly off-key ragtime piano and kazoos. Shut it down, this is the greatest thing in history. Nothing I can type can possibly add to this.
I don’t really know what I was expecting to find from Nunavut, but it wasn’t legitimately enjoyable Inuit country rock. So there you go, consider this your reward for surviving this article.
Here, have another hypnotic Shaggs song. Scare the neighborhood children. Play it at your funeral.
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by parlagi
Jul 20, 2026, 6:03 AM UTC
Previous Result
See our list of all previous winners.
“Ha-He” by Kenya’s Just a Band won the mixtape competition (MAKMENDE AMERUDI!), but with a paltry 5 votes. Granted, there was a 5-way race going on, but only 16 votes total. Not sure if I erred by posting mid-week, or if we just didn’t have any interest in world music.
So we’ll move this back to Sunday night and do what Anchor of Gold does best: Be weird.
Theoretically parts of Canada should be repping the letter N, but since democracy doesn’t work, we’re applying ranked choice voting and you’re getting “The four New states, and it’s 100% shitposting.” You’re welcome.
The Songs
1.) New Hampshire: The Shaggs, “My Pal Foot Foot”
Oh. My. God.
So here’s the story: These three girls’ father was wildly superstitious, and got a palm reading from his mother. She made 3 predictions: He’d marry a strawberry blonde (check), he’d have two sons after she died (check, never mind that they had like 7 kids), and that his daughters would be a world famous band. Keep in mind that palm reading was obviously done *before* he got married, which means this lunatic had to have held onto said dream for at least 20 years.
To fulfill his mother’s canonical destiny, he pulled his daughters out of school, forbade them to listen to any music, and made them practice for hours a day.
And his reward was the musical equivalent of Rod Dowhower’s 1995 Vanderbilt offense.
I guess to be fair, his mother didn’t say why the band would be world famous. After all, Rod Dowhower’s offenses were world famous for ineptness too.
Anyway, it’s incredible how all 3 girls are playing completely different songs and somehow hit the same downbeat. Particularly since the drummer’s elastic time signature sounds like she invented the Continuously Variable Transmission.
Frank Zappa said they were “better than the Beatles,” but to be fair, I think Frank was kind of a weirdo. Wasn’t he? I mean, he named his kids Dweezil and Moon Unit? Hang on, there’s a knock on my door.
…I’ve been handed a note from the spokesman for the Amalgamated Association of Weirdos, Local 6 7/8 (who looked a lot like Pinman, come to think of it), that just says “You better believe it.” Well, there we go then.
2.) New Jersey: Reason to Live, “Funky Groove”
Oh boy, I hope I’m not the only one who’s familiar with “Stairway to Stardom.” It was a legendarily awful public access “talent” show in New York for years, run by a guy named Frank Masi.
Calling this “New Jersey” is a bit of a cheat, but if you watch the actual episode, the bass guy says their song is being played on WNJR, Newark radio. That’s good enough for me.
And honestly, what you see above pretty much sums up the entire show. Four guys in a basement, with a hole in the wall behind them, who cannot synchronize their dance moves to save their lives. The song itself is admittedly funky indeed, but you’re here for the dancing.
Actually, that’s a lie. These guys were easily the most talented performers to ever show up. Feel free to look up “Stairway on Stardom” on YouTube and lose an hour off your day, and several years off your life.
(Side note: It really is a shame that we’ve lost the absolute joy that was public access television. Do you think John Daker of Peoria, Illinois was ever going to sing “Amore” on TikTok? No. No, you do not.)
3.) New Mexico - The Fireballs, “Bottle of Wine”
Back in 1964 or so, Tom Paxton (an indie folk singer-songwriter, and boy there’s a description guaranteed to make me get up and go home) wrote “Bottle of Wine.” He intended it to be a melancholy, overwrought description of an alcoholic’s cravings and desperation. Then he gave it to Judy Collins to record, which didn’t help anything.
Then the Fireballs here looked at it and said “lol what if we turn it into a goodtime frat boys drinking song”? And so they did. And then it hit the Top 10 on the Billboard charts because, as always, it was the 1960s and people just did whatever. One of those retro Top 40 countdowns had Arthur Brown yelling I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE in between Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were the Days” and the Beatles singing “Hey Jude,” because of course it did.
4.) New York - Edward M. Favor, “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?”
Ignore that vinyl in the screenshot, this is an actual Edison wax cylinder recording from 1901! It’s why the announcer guy’s yelling the song title at the start — the cylinders had no way to put a label on them for identification.
In fact, pretty much *everyone* had to yell in the wax cylinder era — they all but screamed the songs into those long megaphone-looking cones that transmuted the sound into grooves on the cylinder. In fact, this was a year before Edison came up with the gold molding process. Before then, a popular singer just had to sing the same damn song hundreds (or even thousands) of times to cut enough cylinders to keep up with public demand.
But enough history, let’s talk about the lyrics. When it comes out that Mrs. Murphy accidentally left the overalls in the pot where she was washing earlier in the day, no one even gives a second thought to her using the same pot for laundry and cooking. It was the 1900s, sanitation was a polite suggestion and the plum pudding model explained the atom. They all just take it in stride and “what ho, cheerio and pip pip” or whatever slang people said in 1901.
You know who else recording this madness? BING CROSBY. No fooling.
Yeah guys, I’m thinking the four-part harmonies there don’t quite mesh with the material.
That’d be the same Bing Crosby who recorded “Christmas Dinner Country Style,” and THANK YOU again to whoever submitted that during the Christmas goofiness. Man, for a bona fide legend, old Bing recorded some … let’s call it really esoteric material.
5.) New York - Singing Sisters of Syracuse, “Shine on Harvest Moon”
A convent of nuns from upstate New York armed with a slightly off-key ragtime piano and kazoos. Shut it down, this is the greatest thing in history. Nothing I can type can possibly add to this.
Honorable Mentions
Nunavut: The Jerry Cans, “Iqanajarumanngittunga”
I don’t really know what I was expecting to find from Nunavut, but it wasn’t legitimately enjoyable Inuit country rock. So there you go, consider this your reward for surviving this article.
The Shaggs, “Philosophy of the World”
Here, have another hypnotic Shaggs song. Scare the neighborhood children. Play it at your funeral.
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Clark Lea isn’t naming a starter because he doesn’t have to
by Thomas Stephenson
Jul 22, 2026, 2:11 AM UTC
As Vanderbilt’s 2026 football season approaches, the biggest question facing the Commodores is who will replace Diego Pavia, who led Vanderbilt to its first 10-win season in school history in 2025.
And Vanderbilt has, by some accounts, the top-ranked freshman quarterback coming in to fall camp. This should be an obvious answer, right? And yet Clark Lea still hasn’t named a starting quarterback. Even though all signs point to the aforesaid Jared Curtis being the starter, we don’t know that officially. And that’s fine.
There is an art to naming a starting quarterback. Do you have a returning starter who played well the previous season? Or do you have a transfer portal addition who everybody knows you spent a lot of money to add to the roster? Fine, then, go ahead and name him the starter before fall camp. Those are the situations where nobody will question the decision.
If those don’t apply, though, the coach gains nothing by naming a starter before he absolutely has to. Lea learned this the hard way in 2022, when he named Mike Wright — who was a serviceable quarterback in relief of Ken Seals in 2021, but hadn’t established himself as a clear number 1 — the starting quarterback prior to fall camp, only to pull Wright three games into the season for true freshman AJ Swann, then spent much of the remainder of the season playing musical chairs. Had Lea not jumped the gun in naming a starter, switching quarterbacks in September might not have seemed like a knee-jerk reaction — nor would going back to Wright later in the season.
(This, of course, looked even worse in 2023 when Swann got benched in favor of 2021 starter and TCU bowl game legend Ken Seals.)
This is all to say that as obvious as it looks on paper that Curtis will be the starter, there’s no reason to come out and say that now. What happens if Curtis struggles early in the season? Do you bench him for Blaze Berlowitz? What does that then say about the coaching staff’s ability to evaluate quarterbacks?
As disastrous as the early Derek Mason years were, one thing that I think back to here was how he handled the quarterback room prior to the 2015 season. After the debacle in 2014, nobody had a clear claim on the starting quarterback job entering the 2015 season (okay, okay, Piece of String was there all along.) Vanderbilt did have a quarterback prospect coming in in Kyle Shurmur who, while not on Curtis’s level as a recruit, looked like a guy who was the future at the position. Mason spent all fall camp holding a “quarterback competition” before naming Johnny McCrary the starter immediately prior to the season opener but making very clear that it was a close call. That made it a much more defensible decision when McCrary was pulled for Shurmur after a poor performance at South Carolina.
There’s nothing wrong with making Curtis earn it, or at least letting fans believe it.
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by Thomas Stephenson
Jul 22, 2026, 2:11 AM UTC
As Vanderbilt’s 2026 football season approaches, the biggest question facing the Commodores is who will replace Diego Pavia, who led Vanderbilt to its first 10-win season in school history in 2025.
And Vanderbilt has, by some accounts, the top-ranked freshman quarterback coming in to fall camp. This should be an obvious answer, right? And yet Clark Lea still hasn’t named a starting quarterback. Even though all signs point to the aforesaid Jared Curtis being the starter, we don’t know that officially. And that’s fine.
There is an art to naming a starting quarterback. Do you have a returning starter who played well the previous season? Or do you have a transfer portal addition who everybody knows you spent a lot of money to add to the roster? Fine, then, go ahead and name him the starter before fall camp. Those are the situations where nobody will question the decision.
If those don’t apply, though, the coach gains nothing by naming a starter before he absolutely has to. Lea learned this the hard way in 2022, when he named Mike Wright — who was a serviceable quarterback in relief of Ken Seals in 2021, but hadn’t established himself as a clear number 1 — the starting quarterback prior to fall camp, only to pull Wright three games into the season for true freshman AJ Swann, then spent much of the remainder of the season playing musical chairs. Had Lea not jumped the gun in naming a starter, switching quarterbacks in September might not have seemed like a knee-jerk reaction — nor would going back to Wright later in the season.
(This, of course, looked even worse in 2023 when Swann got benched in favor of 2021 starter and TCU bowl game legend Ken Seals.)
This is all to say that as obvious as it looks on paper that Curtis will be the starter, there’s no reason to come out and say that now. What happens if Curtis struggles early in the season? Do you bench him for Blaze Berlowitz? What does that then say about the coaching staff’s ability to evaluate quarterbacks?
As disastrous as the early Derek Mason years were, one thing that I think back to here was how he handled the quarterback room prior to the 2015 season. After the debacle in 2014, nobody had a clear claim on the starting quarterback job entering the 2015 season (okay, okay, Piece of String was there all along.) Vanderbilt did have a quarterback prospect coming in in Kyle Shurmur who, while not on Curtis’s level as a recruit, looked like a guy who was the future at the position. Mason spent all fall camp holding a “quarterback competition” before naming Johnny McCrary the starter immediately prior to the season opener but making very clear that it was a close call. That made it a much more defensible decision when McCrary was pulled for Shurmur after a poor performance at South Carolina.
There’s nothing wrong with making Curtis earn it, or at least letting fans believe it.
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Let’s Make Spirit of Gold Play Jozin z Bazin
by Andrew VU '04
Jul 23, 2026, 12:29 AM UTC
So I was scrolling after dinner and saw this:
…to which I replied:
…and just like that, I give you all your marching orders. Now you give those band nerds those orders. Fill up that tweet with likes and replies also suggesting the classic Ivan Mladek song about a Prague monster until we bend them to our collective wills.
Hail Pinman.
For those of you who are confused, you can just click the link embedded in my tweet and listen to the song. Why does this confuse you?
Or, I guess you can just click this link, read the article from about 6 years back, and then join our inside joke. That ought to clear it up.
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by Andrew VU '04
Jul 23, 2026, 12:29 AM UTC
So I was scrolling after dinner and saw this:
…to which I replied:
…and just like that, I give you all your marching orders. Now you give those band nerds those orders. Fill up that tweet with likes and replies also suggesting the classic Ivan Mladek song about a Prague monster until we bend them to our collective wills.
Hail Pinman.
For those of you who are confused, you can just click the link embedded in my tweet and listen to the song. Why does this confuse you?
Or, I guess you can just click this link, read the article from about 6 years back, and then join our inside joke. That ought to clear it up.
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Vanderbilt Football 2026 Position Preview: Quarterbacks
by PatrickSawyer
Jul 27, 2026, 9:00 PM UTC
The Vanderbilt Commodores are 40 days from kicking off the 2026 football season to defend the first 10-win season in program history. They have a number of impactful players to replace, and the backfill for Diego Pavia is receiving the most attention. The 2-year starter and 2025 Heisman runner-up quarterbacked Vanderbilt in a way that Commodore fans have never seen.
Pavia used a combination of moxie and playmaking ability to be the driving force in turning a 2-10 (0-8 in the SEC) 2023 season into a 7-6 (3-5) 2024 and a 10-3 (6-2) 2025 where the Commodores were ranked 14th in the final CFP poll and 15th in the final AP poll, even with a disappointing bowl loss. The brash signal caller left West End holding Vanderbilt’s single season passing records for yards (3,539) and TDs (29) from 2025. He also racked up 1,663 rushing yards, which is the career mark for a Vanderbilt QB. His 5,382 career passing yards put him 6th all-time for the Dores in just 2 seasons at the helm. Another year of his 2025 production would have put him solidly ahead of Kyle Shurmur’s 8,865 career total.
He has left big shoes (only figuratively) to fill. And Vanderbilt may have an unprecedented freshman taking the helm. Or it could be Pavia’s long-time understudy. Officially, Head Coach Clark Lea has also floated two other names as being part of the competition, but it would be a massive shock if either of them were actually the starter.
When Vanderbilt hosted College GameDay for the October 25th contest against Missouri, guest picker Nate Bargatze took multiple opportunities to campaign for Jared Curtis to change his commitment from Georgia to Vanderbilt. Curtis was a local prospect from Nashville Christian and was ranked either as the #1 or #2 QB in the 2026 recruiting class. Rumors had been swirling that Vanderbilt was putting the full court press on Curtis to keep him in the 615. Then, on December 2nd, it happened. Curtis announced his change in commitment, and Vanderbilt had its highest rated recruit ever. Which, when the player is a Top 5 player nationally, it is setting the bar as high as it could go. For a school who had never had a Top 50 player, it was a HUGE recruiting win.
Curtis is a much more prototypical build for a QB than the 5’ 10” (and 1/8!) Pavia at 6’ 3”. He may offer some similar playmaking ability in a larger frame. For his high school career, Per MaxPreps, Curtis completed 624 of 998 passes thrown for 9,738 yards and 128 TDs. He also tacked on 2,277 yards rushing with 5 100-yard performances. He carried the ball 316 times and scored 49 TDs. He only threw 25 interceptions in 4 years with 6 as a senior and 3 as a junior.
As you would expect with a recruit ranked so high, the notes of every recruiting analyst rave about his ability. The arm talent tops the reasons to be excited with elite arm strength coupled with excellent accuracy along with a knack for the off-platform throws that Pavia often had to make facing SEC defenses. He was, even before the Vanderbilt commitment, often compared to former Commodore and NFL 1st Round Pick Jay Cutler.
The concern of starting a true freshman in the SEC is compounded by the level of competition Nashville Christian plays. The Eagles compete in Division II-A, which is the lowest classification for private schools in Tennessee. They are the largest school by enrollment at 261 students. Curtis is going from that to the SEC. It is a concern. It is not a guarantee or prediction of failure. He would get a chance to relatively ease into college football with Austin Peay then Delaware then NC State before back to back trips to Auburn and Georgia, who will surely not have any ill will towards him after the change in commitment 1 day before the early signing period opened.
Until Curtis’s decision, it was pretty clear that Blaze Berlowitz would be the starting QB in 2026 unless a splash was made in the transfer portal. He was a 3-star recruit from Rivals/On3 and was the #115 QB in the class. Berlowitz went to New Mexico State for the 2023 season then followed former NMSU Head Coach Jerry Kill and Offensive Coordinator Tim Beck to Nashville along with Pavia, Stowers, and others.
We have not seen much of Berlowitz. He went 10 of 19 for 134 yards with 1 TD and 1 INT in his true freshman season at NMSU then did not throw a pass in a game until last season. He was 9 of 17 for 131 yards and a TD. In Spring Game performances and from practice reports, Blaze has flashed the ability to make big plays while sometimes risking the ball too much. He is very athletic and is listed at 6’ 3”. With limited information from spring practices available, it does sound like he has reigned in the turnovers a bit.
Berlowitz has the advantage of playing in Beck’s system and being involved in every part of preparing for games at the SEC level with this coaching staff. He knows how this coaching staff thinks and exactly what they expect from a QB. It is hard to know what the ceiling is with him as a lower-rated recruit who has not had significant game action. He has certainly grown from where he was rated. It is just a very limited sample size with 3 passes against Charleston Southern, 2 throws at Virginia Tech, 1 at South Carolina, 5 against Georgia State, 1 against Utah State, and 5 against Kentucky. He did go 4 of 5 for 55 yards against Kentucky. He also had a 43-yard TD run against Georgia State.
Whit Muschamp is the son of current Texas Defensive Coordinator Will Muschamp. His father’s lineage as a safety at Georgia from 1991 to 1994 then having 26 years of coaching experience in the SEC (3 more if you count then Big XII member Texas from 2008 to 2010) with 9 of them as head coach with a stint each at Florida and South Carolina. Whit was a 3-star recruit out of high school and is in his 3rd year on campus. He was ranked among the Top 60 QBs in the 2024 recruiting class.
The extent of Muschamp’s live action is 3 passes and a carry against Georgia State in 2025. He completed 2 of them for 40 yards while the run was for 8 yards. Whit has never really been the focal point of any QB competitions, so the media has generally glossed over him for practice reports. In the past, he has been behind both Berlowitz and Drew Dickey, who has transferred to Arkansas State for a chance to start after missing 2025 with a cardiac issue.
First, no, I am not saying Jack Elliott is a Diego Pavia clone. I am saying that he is 5’ 11.5” according to his recruiting profile with Vanderbilt listing him at 6’ exactly. He was rated as 3-star recruit in the 2025 class with position rankings varying from 20 (Rivals) to 99 (247).
Elliot did not play in 2025. Everything that I have seen from him in recruiting highlights and Spring Game appearances suggests he is a quarterback with a strong competitive drive and who does fit the Point Guard type of QB play that Pavia was so successful with in this system. Still, he is not Pavia. Diego did go from junior college to NMSU to Vanderbilt, but that is rare enough that I am not predicting anything until I see strong evidence.
Drew Cowart transferred in from Utah, likely as the staff prepared for potential Jared Curtis-related exits. Cowart was a 2-star recruit who did not play during his freshman season at Utah. The fact he has not been added to the theoretically 4-man QB competition strongly indicates Cowart seeing the field would require a cataclysmic event.
Bluntly, take Whit Muschamp and Jack Elliott out of the conversation. I do not care what Clark Lea has said about the QB Battle. Blaze Berlowitz was QB2 all of 2025 with Drew Dickey listed 3rd until he was ruled out for the season in mid-October. Neither Muschamp nor Elliott were added to the depth chart as QB3 to fill the spot Dickey vacated. They are not going to start over Berlowitz.
When it comes down to Berlowitz and Curtis, it would be a shock if Curtis is not the starter from Day 1. Again, he is the highest rated recruit in Vanderbilt history playing at the most important position on the field with no incumbent starter. No, I will not be ringing alarm bells if he is not starting Game 1 against Austin Peay, but it will be a surprise.
Berlowitz may give the Commodores their best chance to win at Auburn and Georgia, so Clark Lea and his offenseive brain trust of Jerry Kill and Tim Beck need to decide how to balance the upside of Curtis with potentially winning right now. Whatever they do cannot resemble the handling of AJ Swann in 2022 and 2023. Or Ken Seals and Mike Wright. I can support a plan for Austin Peay and Delaware where Curtis starts and Berlowitz gets every 3rd or 4th series to give Curtis time to breathe and be coached in the fire. However, the changes need to be preplanned and not reactionary to performance. Surely Kill and Beck will handle this well.
My final prediction is Curtis starting from snap one and only relinquishing control in garbage time. How effective he can be as a true freshman starter is so difficult to predict but he should provide glimpses of an electric future behind that right arm.
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by PatrickSawyer
Jul 27, 2026, 9:00 PM UTC
The Vanderbilt Commodores are 40 days from kicking off the 2026 football season to defend the first 10-win season in program history. They have a number of impactful players to replace, and the backfill for Diego Pavia is receiving the most attention. The 2-year starter and 2025 Heisman runner-up quarterbacked Vanderbilt in a way that Commodore fans have never seen.
Pavia used a combination of moxie and playmaking ability to be the driving force in turning a 2-10 (0-8 in the SEC) 2023 season into a 7-6 (3-5) 2024 and a 10-3 (6-2) 2025 where the Commodores were ranked 14th in the final CFP poll and 15th in the final AP poll, even with a disappointing bowl loss. The brash signal caller left West End holding Vanderbilt’s single season passing records for yards (3,539) and TDs (29) from 2025. He also racked up 1,663 rushing yards, which is the career mark for a Vanderbilt QB. His 5,382 career passing yards put him 6th all-time for the Dores in just 2 seasons at the helm. Another year of his 2025 production would have put him solidly ahead of Kyle Shurmur’s 8,865 career total.
He has left big shoes (only figuratively) to fill. And Vanderbilt may have an unprecedented freshman taking the helm. Or it could be Pavia’s long-time understudy. Officially, Head Coach Clark Lea has also floated two other names as being part of the competition, but it would be a massive shock if either of them were actually the starter.
The Freshman Phenom
When Vanderbilt hosted College GameDay for the October 25th contest against Missouri, guest picker Nate Bargatze took multiple opportunities to campaign for Jared Curtis to change his commitment from Georgia to Vanderbilt. Curtis was a local prospect from Nashville Christian and was ranked either as the #1 or #2 QB in the 2026 recruiting class. Rumors had been swirling that Vanderbilt was putting the full court press on Curtis to keep him in the 615. Then, on December 2nd, it happened. Curtis announced his change in commitment, and Vanderbilt had its highest rated recruit ever. Which, when the player is a Top 5 player nationally, it is setting the bar as high as it could go. For a school who had never had a Top 50 player, it was a HUGE recruiting win.
Curtis is a much more prototypical build for a QB than the 5’ 10” (and 1/8!) Pavia at 6’ 3”. He may offer some similar playmaking ability in a larger frame. For his high school career, Per MaxPreps, Curtis completed 624 of 998 passes thrown for 9,738 yards and 128 TDs. He also tacked on 2,277 yards rushing with 5 100-yard performances. He carried the ball 316 times and scored 49 TDs. He only threw 25 interceptions in 4 years with 6 as a senior and 3 as a junior.
As you would expect with a recruit ranked so high, the notes of every recruiting analyst rave about his ability. The arm talent tops the reasons to be excited with elite arm strength coupled with excellent accuracy along with a knack for the off-platform throws that Pavia often had to make facing SEC defenses. He was, even before the Vanderbilt commitment, often compared to former Commodore and NFL 1st Round Pick Jay Cutler.
The concern of starting a true freshman in the SEC is compounded by the level of competition Nashville Christian plays. The Eagles compete in Division II-A, which is the lowest classification for private schools in Tennessee. They are the largest school by enrollment at 261 students. Curtis is going from that to the SEC. It is a concern. It is not a guarantee or prediction of failure. He would get a chance to relatively ease into college football with Austin Peay then Delaware then NC State before back to back trips to Auburn and Georgia, who will surely not have any ill will towards him after the change in commitment 1 day before the early signing period opened.
The Heir Apparent
Until Curtis’s decision, it was pretty clear that Blaze Berlowitz would be the starting QB in 2026 unless a splash was made in the transfer portal. He was a 3-star recruit from Rivals/On3 and was the #115 QB in the class. Berlowitz went to New Mexico State for the 2023 season then followed former NMSU Head Coach Jerry Kill and Offensive Coordinator Tim Beck to Nashville along with Pavia, Stowers, and others.
We have not seen much of Berlowitz. He went 10 of 19 for 134 yards with 1 TD and 1 INT in his true freshman season at NMSU then did not throw a pass in a game until last season. He was 9 of 17 for 131 yards and a TD. In Spring Game performances and from practice reports, Blaze has flashed the ability to make big plays while sometimes risking the ball too much. He is very athletic and is listed at 6’ 3”. With limited information from spring practices available, it does sound like he has reigned in the turnovers a bit.
Berlowitz has the advantage of playing in Beck’s system and being involved in every part of preparing for games at the SEC level with this coaching staff. He knows how this coaching staff thinks and exactly what they expect from a QB. It is hard to know what the ceiling is with him as a lower-rated recruit who has not had significant game action. He has certainly grown from where he was rated. It is just a very limited sample size with 3 passes against Charleston Southern, 2 throws at Virginia Tech, 1 at South Carolina, 5 against Georgia State, 1 against Utah State, and 5 against Kentucky. He did go 4 of 5 for 55 yards against Kentucky. He also had a 43-yard TD run against Georgia State.
The Coach’s Kid
Whit Muschamp is the son of current Texas Defensive Coordinator Will Muschamp. His father’s lineage as a safety at Georgia from 1991 to 1994 then having 26 years of coaching experience in the SEC (3 more if you count then Big XII member Texas from 2008 to 2010) with 9 of them as head coach with a stint each at Florida and South Carolina. Whit was a 3-star recruit out of high school and is in his 3rd year on campus. He was ranked among the Top 60 QBs in the 2024 recruiting class.
The extent of Muschamp’s live action is 3 passes and a carry against Georgia State in 2025. He completed 2 of them for 40 yards while the run was for 8 yards. Whit has never really been the focal point of any QB competitions, so the media has generally glossed over him for practice reports. In the past, he has been behind both Berlowitz and Drew Dickey, who has transferred to Arkansas State for a chance to start after missing 2025 with a cardiac issue.
The Pavia Replica
First, no, I am not saying Jack Elliott is a Diego Pavia clone. I am saying that he is 5’ 11.5” according to his recruiting profile with Vanderbilt listing him at 6’ exactly. He was rated as 3-star recruit in the 2025 class with position rankings varying from 20 (Rivals) to 99 (247).
Elliot did not play in 2025. Everything that I have seen from him in recruiting highlights and Spring Game appearances suggests he is a quarterback with a strong competitive drive and who does fit the Point Guard type of QB play that Pavia was so successful with in this system. Still, he is not Pavia. Diego did go from junior college to NMSU to Vanderbilt, but that is rare enough that I am not predicting anything until I see strong evidence.
Here for the Degree
Drew Cowart transferred in from Utah, likely as the staff prepared for potential Jared Curtis-related exits. Cowart was a 2-star recruit who did not play during his freshman season at Utah. The fact he has not been added to the theoretically 4-man QB competition strongly indicates Cowart seeing the field would require a cataclysmic event.
Who starts?
Bluntly, take Whit Muschamp and Jack Elliott out of the conversation. I do not care what Clark Lea has said about the QB Battle. Blaze Berlowitz was QB2 all of 2025 with Drew Dickey listed 3rd until he was ruled out for the season in mid-October. Neither Muschamp nor Elliott were added to the depth chart as QB3 to fill the spot Dickey vacated. They are not going to start over Berlowitz.
When it comes down to Berlowitz and Curtis, it would be a shock if Curtis is not the starter from Day 1. Again, he is the highest rated recruit in Vanderbilt history playing at the most important position on the field with no incumbent starter. No, I will not be ringing alarm bells if he is not starting Game 1 against Austin Peay, but it will be a surprise.
Berlowitz may give the Commodores their best chance to win at Auburn and Georgia, so Clark Lea and his offenseive brain trust of Jerry Kill and Tim Beck need to decide how to balance the upside of Curtis with potentially winning right now. Whatever they do cannot resemble the handling of AJ Swann in 2022 and 2023. Or Ken Seals and Mike Wright. I can support a plan for Austin Peay and Delaware where Curtis starts and Berlowitz gets every 3rd or 4th series to give Curtis time to breathe and be coached in the fire. However, the changes need to be preplanned and not reactionary to performance. Surely Kill and Beck will handle this well.
My final prediction is Curtis starting from snap one and only relinquishing control in garbage time. How effective he can be as a true freshman starter is so difficult to predict but he should provide glimpses of an electric future behind that right arm.
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Let’s Get Weird Again—All World All Time Best Song Competition: Ottoman Empire
by parlagi
Jul 31, 2026, 7:37 AM UTC
See our list of all previous winners.
The New states gave us another widely divided field! Eventually the Singing Sisters of Syracuse, with their ragtime piano and kazoo-laden version of “Shine On Harvest Moon,” managed to outpace a strong group of contenders** for the win.
You know what wasn’t a widely divided field? The votes for O, where the Ottoman Empire ran away with 68% of the vote. Were you really expecting actual Ottoman music and research? Will you get any? Of course, this is a serious and sacred responsibility.**
[** — blatant lies]
You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard this done as a symphonic piece instead of piano music until now. I’m going to assume everyone here has watched “Amadeus,” but if you haven’t, now you have.
The Ottomans were fast on their way to becoming the Sick Old Man of Europe by this point, and sparking a fascinating movement among many corners of Christianity — prophetic historicism interpreted them straight into Daniel 11, where their wars were a literal countdown to the end of time. So that was a wild time to be alive. Meanwhile Mozart’s up there checking out an admittedly impressive set of bosoms and getting an entire candelabra heaved at his head. See, I told you to watch “Amadeus.”
Are we just going to ignore that while the Turkish Janissary music was all the rage in Europe at this time, largely thanks to their unique percussion (cymbals, triangles, bass drums, and Turkish crescents), this song doesn’t actually have anything to do with the Ottoman Empire? You bet your sweet ass we are.
Oh fine, let’s listen to some actual Ottoman Empire music. Performed by the Red Army Choir, which is admittedly weird in light of Russian/Ottoman relations during the Napoleonic Era, and the Crimean War, and World War I, and maybe I should stop there. But they’re performing in Turkey, and the crowd sounds wildly appreciative, so let’s call it good.
Vaguely amusing backstory: Back in 1826, Sultan Mahmud II abolished the Janissaries, and a big revolt ensued. So he didn’t just disband the soldiers, he outright banned the military bands, destroyed the instruments, and burned the sheet music.
When the Ottomans decided to revive the bands in the early 20th Century to boost nationalist morale, they had a big old problem: Everyone looked around and went “Uh, we have no good way to play the traditional songs.”
So they recycled an old melody, added new lyrics, and called it “Your Ancestor and Your Grandfather.” Basically it’s reminding the Ottoman Army of their brave past (which I suppose was sort of necessary; they weren’t even the Sick Man of Europe in 1911, their territorial sovereignty over the Balkans returned a 404 error). Screaming about loving their empire with pride, slaying the enemy of their country, and letting the damned suffer in disgrace. You know, the usual motifs Air Supply would popularize. A million Klingons somewhere just beamed with pride and have no idea why.
I freely admit I would crap my pants and run the other direction if an army showed up playing this at me.
Oh hello, They Might Be Giants and Tiny Toons Adventures mashup.
No kidding, this aired on national TV in 1990 and nobody batted an eye. Why? HOW? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.
How did we go from this to Minecraft YouTube brain rot and Blippi and Cocomelon? Kids of today, I am so sorry. At least you have Bluey, I guess?
(Aside: Speaking of terrible new cartoons, I’m just now learning about the HBO attempt at a TV-MA rated Scooby-Doo origin story series for Velma, and it’s rated 1.7 stars of 10 on IMDB with 82,000 votes? That is impressively terrible. That’s like “offer Karl Dorrell a head coaching position in Colorado, what could go wrong” territory. I don’t really know what I missed, and I’m thankful for it.)
Anyway, this was originally a song from the 1950s by the Four Lads. Feel free to look that up. Let’s play some more historical Ottoman music now!
Okay this is straight up awesome. This is some “load up on kofta and hummus, boys, we’re about to go lay out some godless Byzantines” levels of inspiring.
Best part: This is about Osman Nuri Pasha, who was such a badass they wrote a paean to him for losing.
During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, Osman here was tasked with defending the city of Pleven (now located in Bulgaria). He was wildly outnumbered to begin with, but kept fighting off Russian attacks in increasingly hilarious fashion. It reached the point where the Russians insisted on the Romanians sending an additional 40,000 soldiers for assistance.
So now, outnumbered 100,000 to 30,000, the invading army goes “what could possibly go wrong?” Over 20,000 casualties at the hands of Winchester 1866 repeaters later, the Russians finally have two thoughts:
The Russians refused to accept his sword in surrender and just treated him as a visiting dignitary because they were so glad to be done fighting this guy.
I mean, would you mess with a man who looks like this?
Back in the early 80s, when Conan set the whole sword and sandals movie craze on fire, an Italian crew ran off to Turkey to get in on the action too. But you can’t have a movie without a theme song, so they hired thefinest first musicians who knew a few English words they could find.
And that’s how we wound up with lyrics like “He never sees the sun” playing while Yor runs through the desert at noontime during the opening credits.
“Lost in the world of past. In the echo of ancient blast. There is a man from future. A man of mystery. YOR’S WORLD.”
The evil guy (the OVERLORD, played by incredible, over the top camp by the ever-reliable John Steiner) wanted to make Yor and Ka-Laa, two cave people / nuclear holocaust survivors (I think?) bonk to create a master race of human-android hybrids, but then he gets speared by a barber pole. I have no idea what I just typed.
I honestly don’t know how MST3K never managed to get their hands on this.
I’m more than a little sad this soundtrack didn’t go platinum on the charts. Perhaps it did in a remote village in the hinterlands of Tibet. But probably not.
They’d play this one when commencing a frontal assault. I kinda think it’s more menacing before it speeds up at 1:15 and comes perilously close to Looney Tunes territory. Speaking of…
Flippity flappity floop. (Open sarsaparilla? Open saddle soap?)
I think we’re legally obligated to include a Eurovision song...oh, apparently Turkey dropped out after 2013. I wonder what they used 20 years ago, then.
...oh my God. This cannot possibly be real. A blond woman with tattoos and a miniskirt, like some sort of proto-Lady Gaga, shrieking off-key. I would’ve guessed for 1000 years and never picked this out as Turkey’s entry.
It’s like finding out your college crush became a middle-aged hardcore Facebook Libertarian, except the kind who gets mad at Thomas Massie every time he votes against Trump. Wait no, that makes no sense.
It’s like a quiet honors student joining a cult to worship an anthropomorphic bowling pin.ooooooooooh
Let’s run this thing through Monday night, for all the people who want to start off their work week right.
(“what are you doing?!” I have no idea.)
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by parlagi
Jul 31, 2026, 7:37 AM UTC
Previous Result
See our list of all previous winners.
The New states gave us another widely divided field! Eventually the Singing Sisters of Syracuse, with their ragtime piano and kazoo-laden version of “Shine On Harvest Moon,” managed to outpace a strong group of contenders** for the win.
You know what wasn’t a widely divided field? The votes for O, where the Ottoman Empire ran away with 68% of the vote. Were you really expecting actual Ottoman music and research? Will you get any? Of course, this is a serious and sacred responsibility.**
[** — blatant lies]
The Songs
1.) Rondo Alla Turca
You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard this done as a symphonic piece instead of piano music until now. I’m going to assume everyone here has watched “Amadeus,” but if you haven’t, now you have.
The Ottomans were fast on their way to becoming the Sick Old Man of Europe by this point, and sparking a fascinating movement among many corners of Christianity — prophetic historicism interpreted them straight into Daniel 11, where their wars were a literal countdown to the end of time. So that was a wild time to be alive. Meanwhile Mozart’s up there checking out an admittedly impressive set of bosoms and getting an entire candelabra heaved at his head. See, I told you to watch “Amadeus.”
Are we just going to ignore that while the Turkish Janissary music was all the rage in Europe at this time, largely thanks to their unique percussion (cymbals, triangles, bass drums, and Turkish crescents), this song doesn’t actually have anything to do with the Ottoman Empire? You bet your sweet ass we are.
2.) Ceddin Deden
Oh fine, let’s listen to some actual Ottoman Empire music. Performed by the Red Army Choir, which is admittedly weird in light of Russian/Ottoman relations during the Napoleonic Era, and the Crimean War, and World War I, and maybe I should stop there. But they’re performing in Turkey, and the crowd sounds wildly appreciative, so let’s call it good.
Vaguely amusing backstory: Back in 1826, Sultan Mahmud II abolished the Janissaries, and a big revolt ensued. So he didn’t just disband the soldiers, he outright banned the military bands, destroyed the instruments, and burned the sheet music.
When the Ottomans decided to revive the bands in the early 20th Century to boost nationalist morale, they had a big old problem: Everyone looked around and went “Uh, we have no good way to play the traditional songs.”
So they recycled an old melody, added new lyrics, and called it “Your Ancestor and Your Grandfather.” Basically it’s reminding the Ottoman Army of their brave past (which I suppose was sort of necessary; they weren’t even the Sick Man of Europe in 1911, their territorial sovereignty over the Balkans returned a 404 error). Screaming about loving their empire with pride, slaying the enemy of their country, and letting the damned suffer in disgrace. You know, the usual motifs Air Supply would popularize. A million Klingons somewhere just beamed with pride and have no idea why.
I freely admit I would crap my pants and run the other direction if an army showed up playing this at me.
3.) Istanbul, Not Constantinople
Oh hello, They Might Be Giants and Tiny Toons Adventures mashup.
No kidding, this aired on national TV in 1990 and nobody batted an eye. Why? HOW? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.
How did we go from this to Minecraft YouTube brain rot and Blippi and Cocomelon? Kids of today, I am so sorry. At least you have Bluey, I guess?
(Aside: Speaking of terrible new cartoons, I’m just now learning about the HBO attempt at a TV-MA rated Scooby-Doo origin story series for Velma, and it’s rated 1.7 stars of 10 on IMDB with 82,000 votes? That is impressively terrible. That’s like “offer Karl Dorrell a head coaching position in Colorado, what could go wrong” territory. I don’t really know what I missed, and I’m thankful for it.)
Anyway, this was originally a song from the 1950s by the Four Lads. Feel free to look that up. Let’s play some more historical Ottoman music now!
4.) Plevna March
Okay this is straight up awesome. This is some “load up on kofta and hummus, boys, we’re about to go lay out some godless Byzantines” levels of inspiring.
Best part: This is about Osman Nuri Pasha, who was such a badass they wrote a paean to him for losing.
During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, Osman here was tasked with defending the city of Pleven (now located in Bulgaria). He was wildly outnumbered to begin with, but kept fighting off Russian attacks in increasingly hilarious fashion. It reached the point where the Russians insisted on the Romanians sending an additional 40,000 soldiers for assistance.
So now, outnumbered 100,000 to 30,000, the invading army goes “what could possibly go wrong?” Over 20,000 casualties at the hands of Winchester 1866 repeaters later, the Russians finally have two thoughts:
- “You know, maybe arming soldiers with single-shot Berdan rifles is a really stupid idea.”
- “Fine, we’ll just sit here and starve them out,” which eventually worked after months.
The Russians refused to accept his sword in surrender and just treated him as a visiting dignitary because they were so glad to be done fighting this guy.
I mean, would you mess with a man who looks like this?
5.) Yor, The Hunter from the Future
Back in the early 80s, when Conan set the whole sword and sandals movie craze on fire, an Italian crew ran off to Turkey to get in on the action too. But you can’t have a movie without a theme song, so they hired the
And that’s how we wound up with lyrics like “He never sees the sun” playing while Yor runs through the desert at noontime during the opening credits.
“Lost in the world of past. In the echo of ancient blast. There is a man from future. A man of mystery. YOR’S WORLD.”
The evil guy (the OVERLORD, played by incredible, over the top camp by the ever-reliable John Steiner) wanted to make Yor and Ka-Laa, two cave people / nuclear holocaust survivors (I think?) bonk to create a master race of human-android hybrids, but then he gets speared by a barber pole. I have no idea what I just typed.
I honestly don’t know how MST3K never managed to get their hands on this.
I’m more than a little sad this soundtrack didn’t go platinum on the charts. Perhaps it did in a remote village in the hinterlands of Tibet. But probably not.
Honorable Mentions
Hücum Marşı (Attack March)
They’d play this one when commencing a frontal assault. I kinda think it’s more menacing before it speeds up at 1:15 and comes perilously close to Looney Tunes territory. Speaking of…
Ickity Ackity Oop
Flippity flappity floop. (Open sarsaparilla? Open saddle soap?)
Sibel Tüzün - Superstar
I think we’re legally obligated to include a Eurovision song...oh, apparently Turkey dropped out after 2013. I wonder what they used 20 years ago, then.
...oh my God. This cannot possibly be real. A blond woman with tattoos and a miniskirt, like some sort of proto-Lady Gaga, shrieking off-key. I would’ve guessed for 1000 years and never picked this out as Turkey’s entry.
It’s like finding out your college crush became a middle-aged hardcore Facebook Libertarian, except the kind who gets mad at Thomas Massie every time he votes against Trump. Wait no, that makes no sense.
It’s like a quiet honors student joining a cult to worship an anthropomorphic bowling pin.
Vote in the Poll
Let’s run this thing through Monday night, for all the people who want to start off their work week right.
Up Next
(“what are you doing?!” I have no idea.)
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Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537). Hope is here. GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support (MA). Visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD). Call 877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). 21+ (18+ D.C.) and present in select states (for KS, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino). Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT) or visit FanDuel.com/RG.
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Vanderbilt Football 2026 Position Preview: Running Backs
by PatrickSawyer
Jul 31, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC
Moving along in these position previews, we stay in the backfield. The player closest to Vanderbilt’s new starting Quarterback will be a familiar face. Of the 185 carries and 1,195 yards gained by Commodore Running Backs in 2025, the squad returns 165 attempts and 1,132 yards. Diego Pavia was the leading rusher with 167 rushes for 862 yards, so that slack will need to be picked up by a combination of the new QB and the backfield partners.
Sedrick Alexander and Makhilyn Young are going to continue to carry the bulk of the load. In 2025, Alexander carried the ball 105 times for 567 yards while Young had a lesser 46 carries but an extremely efficient 414 yards. Respectively, they made up 57% and 25% of RB rushes along with 47% and 36% of the yardage.
They are both very smart runners with good vision that can slip into and through small gaps to keep the Commodores ahead of the chains. Alexander is an incredible pass blocker, too, often taking on blitzing LBs with explosive, blitz halting results. Young has not gotten quite the same acclaim for his protection work, but he does the job more than adequately.
Alexander’s 5.4 Yards Per Carry is a very good number. It has him 85th among all ball carriers with more than 6.25 attempts per team’s games played, from last season. To be clear, that includes players like Deuce Knight who carried the ball 13 times in 2 games played. Young clearly has the advantage in explosive ability at 9.0 YPC. That average would have ranked 4th if he qualified, but he was at 3.5 carries per game. Sedrick Alexander was at 8.1 carries per game for reference.
Both backs will likely see their load increase, but they should easily have the capacity to had 5 carries or more each per game. Concern for how they, especially Young, will handle an increase in wear and tear is certainly understandable. Alexander had 164 carries (12.6 carries per game), which would be right about that +5 carries per game increase, in 2024. He was much less successful at only 3.6 yards per carry, but the entire team went from 3.8 in 2024 to 5.6 in 2025, which suggests changes in scheme, playcalling, or OL ability did more for the average than just reducing usage.
Makhilyn Young does not have any such season-long reference for high usage. However, he has an explosiveness that may be key with a new QB. He did not have any games with more than 8 carries, but he had 3 games with 85+ yards. They were all in important games, too. Against Virginia Tech, he toted the rock 8 times for 95 yards. He went for 85 yards on 6 attempts against LSU. He had an 86-yard performance against Missouri with an 80-yard scamper that was Vanderbilt’s first TD and made the game 10-3 late in the 3rd quarter. For the season, he also caught 14 passes for 133 yards, so Young is the type of electric playmaker that can make a new QB’s life so much easier if he can have 2 or 3 electric plays out of somewhere around 10 touches per game.
Jamezell Lassiter’s first 4 touches of 2025 were a 35-yard TD run against Charleston Southern, a 26-yard reception to Virginia Tech’s 8-yard line, an 11-yard reception against South Carolina, and a 44-yard TD run later in that game.
Unfortunately, something kept Lassiter from continuing to contribute. At 5’8 and 192 pounds, it is possible his body wore down early. Or his stature may have had the staff concerned about pass protection and tilting their hand too much when he was in the game. Lassiter would end the season with 9 carries for 143 yards and 4 catches for 57 yards. It seems unlikely that he takes too much load off of Young and Alexander, but Lassiter can be a player who provides a moment of pop intermittently.
The other returning RB who saw action is Gabe Fields. He only played in 2 games with only 5 carries for 8 yards. Fields was a 3-star recruit who was ranked between 88th and 140th among RBs in the 2025 recruiting class. He is the largest Vanderbilt running back at a listed stature of 6’ and 217 pounds. That, frankly, was my father’s biggest Spring Game takeaway – Vanderbilt lacks any real bruisers in the backfield.
Evan Hampton is a 4-star recruit according to Rivals and a 3-star recruit from ESPN and 247. Both the 247 and On3 composites have him at #30 and #32 among RBs, respectively. Hampton was named Gatorade Player of the Year in Kentucky thanks to a 173-carry senior season that saw him rack up 2,035 yards and 31 TDs. The 11.8 yards per carry and 135.7 yards per game are very impressive marks. Hampton amassed 100+ yards in 8 of his 15 contests as a senior.
His threat as a backfield receiver showed up on 19 catches for 288 yards. He appears to have played WR as a sophomore based on having 35 catches for 448 yards while only carrying the ball 71 times that season. It is possible he was also a 3rd down specialist back that season.
At 6’ and 215 pounds, Hampton is one of Vanderbilt’s bigger backs already, and, according to an article from On3, boasts a 4.40 40-yard dash. It will be interesting to see how Hampton fits into Vanderbilt’s offense. I could see him having the 3rd most touches among RBs.
His fellow freshman Izayah Lee was slightly lower ranked with composite rankings of 64 and 68. He was a unanimous 3-star recruit. It appears he did play football his senior season, presumably due to injury, since MaxPreps only shows stats for his junior season. Vanderbilt does not list any accolades or stats for his senior season either. He had 1,400 all-purpose yards as a junior with 1,294 of them coming via rushing attempts.
The most intriguing part of Lee is his athleticism. He ran track in high school and had an 11.18s 100-meter and a 23.52s 200-meter. The athleticism may not be enough to spend much, if any, time on the field in a crowded backfield.
Sophomore Jake Balis did not play in 2024. He was not rated by any recruiting services. The most notable detail from his Vanderbilt biography is being named the National High School Stretch Coaches Association National Athlete of the Year. By the way, his father is former Notre Dame Head Football Strength and Conditioning Coach. His father’s time overlapping with Clark Lea is likely the only reason Balis is on Vanderbilt’s roster. I am sure he is a great practice squad player and challenges guys in the weight room. If he is playing anything other than special teams or in deep garbage time, the Commodores have likely had a rash of injuries at RB.
I love the RB room. A lot. Alexander and Young obviously can produce. Lassiter is DANGEROUS in small doses. Hampton could be a “back of the future” in 2027 while being in the rotation for 2026. Fields probably has some potential to be effective as a rotation back. I do not have any real gauge on Lee, and Balis likely never cracks the rotation seriously.
A position preview also glosses over how Vanderbilt’s OC Tim Beck and his mentor Jerry Kill approach the rushing attack. Outside of Pavia, Blaze Berlowitz and Tre Richardson both had 11 carries. Kayleb Barnett (6) and Junior Sherrill (4) also popped up for carries. If Berlowitz is the QB, he will likely run the ball 100-125 times in comparison to Pavia’s 167. Curtis is probably a 50-ish time rusher, but will that mean just throwing the ball more or will it be more slack for other ball carriers to reel in?
However that balance shifts, Vanderbilt’s running backs should be a strength of the team that can help a new QB by consistently keeping the offense ahead of schedule as long as the offensive line does not take a big step backwards.
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by PatrickSawyer
Jul 31, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC
Moving along in these position previews, we stay in the backfield. The player closest to Vanderbilt’s new starting Quarterback will be a familiar face. Of the 185 carries and 1,195 yards gained by Commodore Running Backs in 2025, the squad returns 165 attempts and 1,132 yards. Diego Pavia was the leading rusher with 167 rushes for 862 yards, so that slack will need to be picked up by a combination of the new QB and the backfield partners.
Two-Headed Monster
Sedrick Alexander and Makhilyn Young are going to continue to carry the bulk of the load. In 2025, Alexander carried the ball 105 times for 567 yards while Young had a lesser 46 carries but an extremely efficient 414 yards. Respectively, they made up 57% and 25% of RB rushes along with 47% and 36% of the yardage.
They are both very smart runners with good vision that can slip into and through small gaps to keep the Commodores ahead of the chains. Alexander is an incredible pass blocker, too, often taking on blitzing LBs with explosive, blitz halting results. Young has not gotten quite the same acclaim for his protection work, but he does the job more than adequately.
Alexander’s 5.4 Yards Per Carry is a very good number. It has him 85th among all ball carriers with more than 6.25 attempts per team’s games played, from last season. To be clear, that includes players like Deuce Knight who carried the ball 13 times in 2 games played. Young clearly has the advantage in explosive ability at 9.0 YPC. That average would have ranked 4th if he qualified, but he was at 3.5 carries per game. Sedrick Alexander was at 8.1 carries per game for reference.
Both backs will likely see their load increase, but they should easily have the capacity to had 5 carries or more each per game. Concern for how they, especially Young, will handle an increase in wear and tear is certainly understandable. Alexander had 164 carries (12.6 carries per game), which would be right about that +5 carries per game increase, in 2024. He was much less successful at only 3.6 yards per carry, but the entire team went from 3.8 in 2024 to 5.6 in 2025, which suggests changes in scheme, playcalling, or OL ability did more for the average than just reducing usage.
Makhilyn Young does not have any such season-long reference for high usage. However, he has an explosiveness that may be key with a new QB. He did not have any games with more than 8 carries, but he had 3 games with 85+ yards. They were all in important games, too. Against Virginia Tech, he toted the rock 8 times for 95 yards. He went for 85 yards on 6 attempts against LSU. He had an 86-yard performance against Missouri with an 80-yard scamper that was Vanderbilt’s first TD and made the game 10-3 late in the 3rd quarter. For the season, he also caught 14 passes for 133 yards, so Young is the type of electric playmaker that can make a new QB’s life so much easier if he can have 2 or 3 electric plays out of somewhere around 10 touches per game.
Little Lightning
Jamezell Lassiter’s first 4 touches of 2025 were a 35-yard TD run against Charleston Southern, a 26-yard reception to Virginia Tech’s 8-yard line, an 11-yard reception against South Carolina, and a 44-yard TD run later in that game.
Unfortunately, something kept Lassiter from continuing to contribute. At 5’8 and 192 pounds, it is possible his body wore down early. Or his stature may have had the staff concerned about pass protection and tilting their hand too much when he was in the game. Lassiter would end the season with 9 carries for 143 yards and 4 catches for 57 yards. It seems unlikely that he takes too much load off of Young and Alexander, but Lassiter can be a player who provides a moment of pop intermittently.
Potential Fields Day
The other returning RB who saw action is Gabe Fields. He only played in 2 games with only 5 carries for 8 yards. Fields was a 3-star recruit who was ranked between 88th and 140th among RBs in the 2025 recruiting class. He is the largest Vanderbilt running back at a listed stature of 6’ and 217 pounds. That, frankly, was my father’s biggest Spring Game takeaway – Vanderbilt lacks any real bruisers in the backfield.
Freshmen Contenders
Evan Hampton is a 4-star recruit according to Rivals and a 3-star recruit from ESPN and 247. Both the 247 and On3 composites have him at #30 and #32 among RBs, respectively. Hampton was named Gatorade Player of the Year in Kentucky thanks to a 173-carry senior season that saw him rack up 2,035 yards and 31 TDs. The 11.8 yards per carry and 135.7 yards per game are very impressive marks. Hampton amassed 100+ yards in 8 of his 15 contests as a senior.
His threat as a backfield receiver showed up on 19 catches for 288 yards. He appears to have played WR as a sophomore based on having 35 catches for 448 yards while only carrying the ball 71 times that season. It is possible he was also a 3rd down specialist back that season.
At 6’ and 215 pounds, Hampton is one of Vanderbilt’s bigger backs already, and, according to an article from On3, boasts a 4.40 40-yard dash. It will be interesting to see how Hampton fits into Vanderbilt’s offense. I could see him having the 3rd most touches among RBs.
His fellow freshman Izayah Lee was slightly lower ranked with composite rankings of 64 and 68. He was a unanimous 3-star recruit. It appears he did play football his senior season, presumably due to injury, since MaxPreps only shows stats for his junior season. Vanderbilt does not list any accolades or stats for his senior season either. He had 1,400 all-purpose yards as a junior with 1,294 of them coming via rushing attempts.
The most intriguing part of Lee is his athleticism. He ran track in high school and had an 11.18s 100-meter and a 23.52s 200-meter. The athleticism may not be enough to spend much, if any, time on the field in a crowded backfield.
The Weightroom Warrior
Sophomore Jake Balis did not play in 2024. He was not rated by any recruiting services. The most notable detail from his Vanderbilt biography is being named the National High School Stretch Coaches Association National Athlete of the Year. By the way, his father is former Notre Dame Head Football Strength and Conditioning Coach. His father’s time overlapping with Clark Lea is likely the only reason Balis is on Vanderbilt’s roster. I am sure he is a great practice squad player and challenges guys in the weight room. If he is playing anything other than special teams or in deep garbage time, the Commodores have likely had a rash of injuries at RB.
Final Verdict
I love the RB room. A lot. Alexander and Young obviously can produce. Lassiter is DANGEROUS in small doses. Hampton could be a “back of the future” in 2027 while being in the rotation for 2026. Fields probably has some potential to be effective as a rotation back. I do not have any real gauge on Lee, and Balis likely never cracks the rotation seriously.
A position preview also glosses over how Vanderbilt’s OC Tim Beck and his mentor Jerry Kill approach the rushing attack. Outside of Pavia, Blaze Berlowitz and Tre Richardson both had 11 carries. Kayleb Barnett (6) and Junior Sherrill (4) also popped up for carries. If Berlowitz is the QB, he will likely run the ball 100-125 times in comparison to Pavia’s 167. Curtis is probably a 50-ish time rusher, but will that mean just throwing the ball more or will it be more slack for other ball carriers to reel in?
However that balance shifts, Vanderbilt’s running backs should be a strength of the team that can help a new QB by consistently keeping the offense ahead of schedule as long as the offensive line does not take a big step backwards.
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Vanderbilt Soccer: Black-Gold Scrimmage
by PatrickSawyer
Aug 1, 2026, 9:00 PM UTC
Vanderbilt soccer has decided to open the public access portion of the pre-season early in 2026. The annual Black vs Gold contest comprises of a number of on- and off-field contests ranging from silly party games to competitions at practice that culminates in an intrasquad match. Until this season, this has been a closed doors contests. Kickoff is set for 6 PM Central from the Vanderbilt Soccer/Lacrosse Complex.
With no other preseason exhibitions announced, this may be the only chance to see the Commodores in action for free. Vanderbilt has made soccer a ticketed sport in 2026. Before anyone is too sad, the price is still very reasonable. A season ticket is $50 for all 10 home matches. Single match tickets are $7 each ($10 after taxes and fees) except Florida which is $ 1 ($1.97 after taxes and fees).
Full previews for positions will follow next week in the lead up to the August 12th season opener at home against SMU. From a broad view, Vanderbilt returns plenty of firepower with an attack led by SEC Forward of the Year and leading scorer Sydney Watts and SEC All-Freshman team member and US U-19 WNT representative Olivia Stafford. The midfield has All-SEC 1st Teamer Courtney Jones and All-SEC Freshman Reagan Pentz back. Defensively, Mary Beth McLaughlin and Margo Matula both played over 2,000 total minutes on the season.
Only goalkeeper is a serious question mark with SEC Goalkeeper of the Year and All-American (3rd Team by TopDrawer Soccer and 2nd Team by United Soccer Coaches) Sara Wojdelko gone. Like the football team, this position battle between 2025 backup Alexa Gianoplus, 2025 3rd choice Kennadie Marchand, UCLA transfer Layla Armas, and incoming freshman Kellyane Dumas. Today’s scrimmage may give us some idea of where that competition stands.
Unsurprisingly, there is no stream or broadcast for tonight’s scrimmage. I will give some updates as I will be in attendance. Please fire off some questions about the team that I can both answer tonight through commentary and as I get into the position previews in the upcoming week.
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by PatrickSawyer
Aug 1, 2026, 9:00 PM UTC
Vanderbilt soccer has decided to open the public access portion of the pre-season early in 2026. The annual Black vs Gold contest comprises of a number of on- and off-field contests ranging from silly party games to competitions at practice that culminates in an intrasquad match. Until this season, this has been a closed doors contests. Kickoff is set for 6 PM Central from the Vanderbilt Soccer/Lacrosse Complex.
With no other preseason exhibitions announced, this may be the only chance to see the Commodores in action for free. Vanderbilt has made soccer a ticketed sport in 2026. Before anyone is too sad, the price is still very reasonable. A season ticket is $50 for all 10 home matches. Single match tickets are $7 each ($10 after taxes and fees) except Florida which is $ 1 ($1.97 after taxes and fees).
Full previews for positions will follow next week in the lead up to the August 12th season opener at home against SMU. From a broad view, Vanderbilt returns plenty of firepower with an attack led by SEC Forward of the Year and leading scorer Sydney Watts and SEC All-Freshman team member and US U-19 WNT representative Olivia Stafford. The midfield has All-SEC 1st Teamer Courtney Jones and All-SEC Freshman Reagan Pentz back. Defensively, Mary Beth McLaughlin and Margo Matula both played over 2,000 total minutes on the season.
Only goalkeeper is a serious question mark with SEC Goalkeeper of the Year and All-American (3rd Team by TopDrawer Soccer and 2nd Team by United Soccer Coaches) Sara Wojdelko gone. Like the football team, this position battle between 2025 backup Alexa Gianoplus, 2025 3rd choice Kennadie Marchand, UCLA transfer Layla Armas, and incoming freshman Kellyane Dumas. Today’s scrimmage may give us some idea of where that competition stands.
Unsurprisingly, there is no stream or broadcast for tonight’s scrimmage. I will give some updates as I will be in attendance. Please fire off some questions about the team that I can both answer tonight through commentary and as I get into the position previews in the upcoming week.
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Vanderbilt Football 2026 Position Preview: Wide Receivers
by PatrickSawyer
Aug 5, 2026, 10:30 PM UTC
Vanderbilt’s aerial attack will have a new starting QB, which is getting most of the attention, but the players on the receiving end will be largely different, too. TE Eli Stowers was the leader in receptions at 62, and WR Tre Richardson was the yardage leader at 806. Both of them are gone. For today’s preview, we are just looking at the designated WRs even though the TEs will try to pick up most of Stowers’s production collectively.
Even though he led in neither category, Junior Sherrill was second for both receptions (54) and yards (784) in 2025. In 2024, Sherrill was tied with Quincy Skinner Jr for 2nd on the team in catches (29), again behind Stowers, and behind only Stowers in yardage at 411. He has consistently averaged 14 yards and change per reception as a Commodore with season average yards per reception of 14.6 in 2023, 14.2 in 2024, and 14.5 in 2025. His receptions have risen from 20 to 29 to 54, and the yardage has gone from 293 to 411 to 784.
His totals and averages will probably stagnate in 2026 with a new QB. My expectation is that the offense will not be quite as explosive or as efficient as it was a season ago. Sherrill will be the steadying force. He is an effective route runner who can create separation without having elite speed, and his 5’ 11” does not make him an imposing figure to post up or outjump defenders. Sherrill just makes the smart, effective plays that keep this offense on schedule and rolling along. Then, if the defense gets too comfortable, he may find himself going deep like he did against Alabama on 4th and 1 in 2024.
Ja’Cory Thomas would have been 4th on the Commodores in 2025 in both receptions (41) and yardage (719). He was at Old Dominion. Prior to that, he spent a season at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas where he caught an unknown number of passes for 477 yards over 12 games. 247Sports ranked Thomas as the 44th best WR in the portal. On3 had him at #41. ProFootballFocus ranks Thomas as the 5th best “returning” WR in the SEC with a grade of 75.1 and also included Junior Sherrill at #8 (73.3).
Thomas is almost certainly going to be WR2. He provides more size than Sherrill at 6’3 and 215 pounds. He does not have the same raw speed that Tre Richardson, who departed for Louisville, had. His spring game performance was limited with only 2 catches, but they went for 51 yards. He caught a 32-yard TD from Whit Muschamp.
Thomas is the next most prolific pass catcher on the roster behind Sherrill. He will need to step into that WR2 role. If he can be effective outside the numbers, whether that is over the top or on short routes where his height and length can come into play, the plethora of options behind him and Sherrill should be able to shine in different ways.
Kayleb Barnett and Tristen Brown are 5’8 and 5’10. Barnett had early success with 3 catches for 30 yards against Charleston Southern. The speed was obvious. The size, at 155 pounds to go with his short stature, limited his effectiveness to 6 catches for 53 yards and 6 carries for 29 yards. The speed was obvious though. He will likely be tasked with being the deep threat who, when defenses back off, can catch a screen and burst out for yardage. Jet sweeps and similar extensions of the running game will also be where he can shine.
Brown has been more of a traditional slot receiver. He only has 2 carries for 3 yards in 2 seasons of play. He jumped up to 10 catches for 137 yards in 2025 after only catching 3 balls for 27 yards in 2024. His role almost certainly increases, but how effective can he be? The speed is good but is not game-breaking.
Brycen Coleman had Commodore fans buzzing as some preseason highlight reel catches filtered out of fall camp in 2024. The true freshman then suffered a broken collarbone and would be limited enough that the decision was made to redshirt him. Coleman would get into 5 games, including the Birmingham Bowl, but was only targeted once. He has been unable to put on the weight necessary to stay at TE at 6’5 and only 215 pounds. He made 3 catches for 67 yards in 2025, including a 54-yard TD against Virginia Tech very early in the 2nd quarter that cut the Hokies’ lead from 10-0 to 10-7.
Coleman is a taller figure but should probably be expected to shoulder most of Richie Hoskin’s role. He will also do some part to fill the gaping Eli Stowers-shaped hole in the offense on formations where Stowers would split out from the line. He is going to be a plus-blocker as a WR based on his time at TE, even if the body never developed into a formidable enough figure to stay inside and battle DEs and LBs.
Joseph McVary made a SPLASH as a freshman when he caught a 65-yard TD to give Vanderbilt, fresh off a loss to Georgia State, a 7-0 lead over the #7 Missouri Tigers. McVay would not record another catch in 2024 and was only able to snag 2 passes in 2025. He was the 71st best WR in his class according to 247’s Composite, but their internal rankings had him at 44. The best thing he could do for Vanderbilt would be to replicate, obviously at a prorated effectiveness, what Junior Sherrill does. He has similar athleticism and size but may even have an advantage in top end speed.
Cole Adams came over from the Crimson Tide but only had 13 catches for 176 yards in 3 seasons. He is likely going to be a punt returner with 30 returns over the last 2 seasons. He has averaged 7.1 yards per return. At 5’10 and 183 pounds, he is another undersized wideout but could also be a shifty option on screens with those return skills. Whether he has the speed to be an explosive threat remains to be seen.
Cameran Dickson, Lebron Hill, and Wils Jackson are all sophomores who did not see action in 2025 but will try to force themselves into some role. Dickson was the highest rated recruit as a 3* and the 126th ranked WR per 247’s Composite. He is a shorter but not diminutive 6’0 and 185 pound target. Hill is 6’5 and 190 pounds, so he presents a large target. He was just behind Dickson in the 2025 class at #135.
Jackson was unrated but is another 6’5 frame with a little more meat at 205 pounds. He likely is only going to see action on special teams.
Owen Cabell and Kahden Smith were similarly rated recruits to Dickson and Hill in the class before them. There is obviously a gaggle of older players ahead of them and neither of them seems set for a major role this season. With the new “5 to play 5” eligibility rule, they may seem some action, especially on special teams to help take snaps off older players. If either of them can work into the rotation, either they have been extremely impressive or the players presumably ahead of them are injured or massive disappointments.
Neither of Ty Burd nor Claiborne Richards have seen any game action, even on special teams, in their time on campus. There is no reason to expect that to change. I am sure they are useful practice squad players and appreciate their service to the team.
Sherrill is not a typical SEC WR1. He does the job in a more understated way than most. His best role would probably be in the slot if a McVay, Hill, or other player can step up opposite Thomas. There is a whole cluster of slot types in Barnett, Brown, Adams, and Coleman, who will obviously fill the spot differently than the first three. The WR corps really neds a top-end threat. Losing Tre Richardson’s game-breaking speed while still having enough height (6’3) to be tough to defend for smaller DBs was a massive loss. Thomas fills the size but not the vertical threat.
The best Vanderbilt fans can probably expect is a group that has enough depth that teams struggle to key on who may be the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd reads on each play with an occasional explosive play when that unpredictably paired with the Beck/Kill scheme frees someone streaking downfield.
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by PatrickSawyer
Aug 5, 2026, 10:30 PM UTC
Vanderbilt’s aerial attack will have a new starting QB, which is getting most of the attention, but the players on the receiving end will be largely different, too. TE Eli Stowers was the leader in receptions at 62, and WR Tre Richardson was the yardage leader at 806. Both of them are gone. For today’s preview, we are just looking at the designated WRs even though the TEs will try to pick up most of Stowers’s production collectively.
The Returning WR1
Even though he led in neither category, Junior Sherrill was second for both receptions (54) and yards (784) in 2025. In 2024, Sherrill was tied with Quincy Skinner Jr for 2nd on the team in catches (29), again behind Stowers, and behind only Stowers in yardage at 411. He has consistently averaged 14 yards and change per reception as a Commodore with season average yards per reception of 14.6 in 2023, 14.2 in 2024, and 14.5 in 2025. His receptions have risen from 20 to 29 to 54, and the yardage has gone from 293 to 411 to 784.
His totals and averages will probably stagnate in 2026 with a new QB. My expectation is that the offense will not be quite as explosive or as efficient as it was a season ago. Sherrill will be the steadying force. He is an effective route runner who can create separation without having elite speed, and his 5’ 11” does not make him an imposing figure to post up or outjump defenders. Sherrill just makes the smart, effective plays that keep this offense on schedule and rolling along. Then, if the defense gets too comfortable, he may find himself going deep like he did against Alabama on 4th and 1 in 2024.
The Transfer Threat
Ja’Cory Thomas would have been 4th on the Commodores in 2025 in both receptions (41) and yardage (719). He was at Old Dominion. Prior to that, he spent a season at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas where he caught an unknown number of passes for 477 yards over 12 games. 247Sports ranked Thomas as the 44th best WR in the portal. On3 had him at #41. ProFootballFocus ranks Thomas as the 5th best “returning” WR in the SEC with a grade of 75.1 and also included Junior Sherrill at #8 (73.3).
Thomas is almost certainly going to be WR2. He provides more size than Sherrill at 6’3 and 215 pounds. He does not have the same raw speed that Tre Richardson, who departed for Louisville, had. His spring game performance was limited with only 2 catches, but they went for 51 yards. He caught a 32-yard TD from Whit Muschamp.
Thomas is the next most prolific pass catcher on the roster behind Sherrill. He will need to step into that WR2 role. If he can be effective outside the numbers, whether that is over the top or on short routes where his height and length can come into play, the plethora of options behind him and Sherrill should be able to shine in different ways.
The Little Big Threats
Kayleb Barnett and Tristen Brown are 5’8 and 5’10. Barnett had early success with 3 catches for 30 yards against Charleston Southern. The speed was obvious. The size, at 155 pounds to go with his short stature, limited his effectiveness to 6 catches for 53 yards and 6 carries for 29 yards. The speed was obvious though. He will likely be tasked with being the deep threat who, when defenses back off, can catch a screen and burst out for yardage. Jet sweeps and similar extensions of the running game will also be where he can shine.
Brown has been more of a traditional slot receiver. He only has 2 carries for 3 yards in 2 seasons of play. He jumped up to 10 catches for 137 yards in 2025 after only catching 3 balls for 27 yards in 2024. His role almost certainly increases, but how effective can he be? The speed is good but is not game-breaking.
The Converted Tight End
Brycen Coleman had Commodore fans buzzing as some preseason highlight reel catches filtered out of fall camp in 2024. The true freshman then suffered a broken collarbone and would be limited enough that the decision was made to redshirt him. Coleman would get into 5 games, including the Birmingham Bowl, but was only targeted once. He has been unable to put on the weight necessary to stay at TE at 6’5 and only 215 pounds. He made 3 catches for 67 yards in 2025, including a 54-yard TD against Virginia Tech very early in the 2nd quarter that cut the Hokies’ lead from 10-0 to 10-7.
Coleman is a taller figure but should probably be expected to shoulder most of Richie Hoskin’s role. He will also do some part to fill the gaping Eli Stowers-shaped hole in the offense on formations where Stowers would split out from the line. He is going to be a plus-blocker as a WR based on his time at TE, even if the body never developed into a formidable enough figure to stay inside and battle DEs and LBs.
The Unrealized (as of yet) Potential
Joseph McVary made a SPLASH as a freshman when he caught a 65-yard TD to give Vanderbilt, fresh off a loss to Georgia State, a 7-0 lead over the #7 Missouri Tigers. McVay would not record another catch in 2024 and was only able to snag 2 passes in 2025. He was the 71st best WR in his class according to 247’s Composite, but their internal rankings had him at 44. The best thing he could do for Vanderbilt would be to replicate, obviously at a prorated effectiveness, what Junior Sherrill does. He has similar athleticism and size but may even have an advantage in top end speed.
The Alabama Transfer
Cole Adams came over from the Crimson Tide but only had 13 catches for 176 yards in 3 seasons. He is likely going to be a punt returner with 30 returns over the last 2 seasons. He has averaged 7.1 yards per return. At 5’10 and 183 pounds, he is another undersized wideout but could also be a shifty option on screens with those return skills. Whether he has the speed to be an explosive threat remains to be seen.
The Sophomore Hopefuls
Cameran Dickson, Lebron Hill, and Wils Jackson are all sophomores who did not see action in 2025 but will try to force themselves into some role. Dickson was the highest rated recruit as a 3* and the 126th ranked WR per 247’s Composite. He is a shorter but not diminutive 6’0 and 185 pound target. Hill is 6’5 and 190 pounds, so he presents a large target. He was just behind Dickson in the 2025 class at #135.
Jackson was unrated but is another 6’5 frame with a little more meat at 205 pounds. He likely is only going to see action on special teams.
The Freshman Pair
Owen Cabell and Kahden Smith were similarly rated recruits to Dickson and Hill in the class before them. There is obviously a gaggle of older players ahead of them and neither of them seems set for a major role this season. With the new “5 to play 5” eligibility rule, they may seem some action, especially on special teams to help take snaps off older players. If either of them can work into the rotation, either they have been extremely impressive or the players presumably ahead of them are injured or massive disappointments.
Seniors Hoping for Special Team Time
Neither of Ty Burd nor Claiborne Richards have seen any game action, even on special teams, in their time on campus. There is no reason to expect that to change. I am sure they are useful practice squad players and appreciate their service to the team.
Final Verdict
Sherrill is not a typical SEC WR1. He does the job in a more understated way than most. His best role would probably be in the slot if a McVay, Hill, or other player can step up opposite Thomas. There is a whole cluster of slot types in Barnett, Brown, Adams, and Coleman, who will obviously fill the spot differently than the first three. The WR corps really neds a top-end threat. Losing Tre Richardson’s game-breaking speed while still having enough height (6’3) to be tough to defend for smaller DBs was a massive loss. Thomas fills the size but not the vertical threat.
The best Vanderbilt fans can probably expect is a group that has enough depth that teams struggle to key on who may be the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd reads on each play with an occasional explosive play when that unpredictably paired with the Beck/Kill scheme frees someone streaking downfield.
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Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537). Hope is here. GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support (MA). Visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD). Call 877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). 21+ (18+ D.C.) and present in select states (for KS, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino). Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT) or visit FanDuel.com/RG.
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