OVERVIEW
No SEC team has gone winless since South Carolina did so in 1999. In that case, South Carolina's main problem was that it was a terrible football team. But the Gamecocks also had the misfortune of playing no sub-.500 team in nonconference play -- the out of league slate consisting of 6-6 N.C. State, and bowl-bound teams in East Carolina (9-3) and Clemson (6-6).
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| Earlier this week | |
| Monday | Vanderbilt Hopes to Wake Up from the Nightmare |
| Tuesday | Vanderbilt Returns a Ton of Starters. That's Good, Right?; Three Things We Do and Don't Know |
| Wednesday | Vanderbilt Actually Plays a Schedule |
Vanderbilt has some of the same problems this year. The Commodores are not as bad as South Carolina was 11 years ago; injuries probably made the team look a bit worse than it actually was last year. But Vanderbilt has just 11 returning starters this year, and they face a nonconference schedule that might be at least as difficult as the '99 Gamecocks': Northwestern, at Connecticut and Wake Forest. Thanks to the 12-game schedule, the Commodores do have one game against an easier opponent in Eastern Michigan, but Vanderbilt wasn't much better statistically (if they were at all) than EMU.
So could Vanderbilt win zero games this year? It's possible, if not exactly probably. There are a few winnable games on the schedule in addition to Eastern Michigan -- Wake Forest and perhaps Kentucky could fit the bill. Even if the Commodores can't wax EMU, they're still a huge favorite in that game, and in other cases Vanderbilt will use its infamous smoke and mirrors routine to keep things close enough to take a win here or there. Not that it will be a good season, but it probably won't be historically bad.
SEASON RESULTS
Place: Last in the SEC East
Record: 1-11, 0-8 SEC
Could be: 0-12 to 4-8
Best chance for an upset: at Georgia
Bowl: NA
GAME-BY-GAME
9.4.10 | NORTHWESTERN | POSSIBLE LOSS
9.11.10 | LSU | LIKELY LOSS
9.18.10 | at MISSISSIPPI | PROBABLE LOSS
10.2.10 | at CONNECTICUT | LIKELY LOSS
10.9.10 | EASTERN MICHIGAN | LIKELY WIN
10.16.10 | at GEORGIA | LIKELY LOSS
10.23.10 | SOUTH CAROLINA | PROBABLE LOSS
10.30.10 | at ARKANSAS | LIKELY LOSS
11.6.10 | FLORIDA | LOSS
11.13.10 | at KENTUCKY | POSSIBLE LOSS
11.20.10 | TENNESSEE | PROBABLE LOSS
11.27.10 | WAKE FOREST | POSSIBLE LOSS