by Matthew Zemek

Bowl season roundup

Bowl recaps and analysis:

EagleBank: Wake 29, Navy 19 | CFN
New Mexico: Colo. St. 40, Fresno St. 35
St. Petersburg: S. Florida 41, Memphis 14
Las Vegas: Arizona 31, BYU 21 | CFN
New Orleans: SMU 30, Troy 27 (OT) | CFN
Poinsettia: TCU 17, Boise St. 16 | CFN
Hawaii: Notre Dame 49, Hawaii 21 | CFN
Motor City: FAU 24, Cen. Mich. 21 | CFN
Meineke: W. Virginia 31, UNC 30 | CFN
Champs Sports: Fla. St. 42, Wis. 13 | CFN
Emerald: Cal 24, Miami 17 | CFN
Independence: La. Tech 17, NIU 10 | CFN
Papajohns.com: Rutgers 29, N.C. St. 23
Alamo: Mizzou 30, N'west. 23 (OT) | CFN
Humanitarian: Maryland 42, Nevada 35
Texas: Rice 38, W. Michigan 14
Holiday: Oregon 42, Oklahoma St. 31 | CFN
Armed Forces: Houston 34, Air Force 28
Sun: Oregon St. 3, Pittsburgh 0 | CFN
Music City: Vandy 16, BC 14 | CFN
Insight: Kansas 42, Minnesota 21
Chick-fil-A: LSU 38, Georgia Tech 3
Outback: Iowa 31, South Carolina 10 | CFN
Capital One: Georgia 24, MSU 12 | CFN
Gator: Nebraska 26, Clemson 21
Rose: USC 38, Penn St. 24 | Analysis
Orange: Va. Tech 20, Cincinnati 7
Cotton: Ole Miss 47, Texas Tech 34
Liberty: Kentucky 25, East Carolina 19
Sugar: Utah 31, Alabama 17
International: UConn 38, Buffalo 20
Fiesta: Texas 24, Ohio St. 21 | Analysis
GMAC: Tulsa 45, Ball St. 13
BCS title: Florida 24, Oklahoma 14
Complete bowl schedule

Photo gallery:

• Fiesta Bowl snapshots
• Snapshots from Saturday's bowls
• Best from bowl season's 1st weekend

Shopping:

• Get your '09 BCS bowl gear!

College football has seen many improbable events in its 139-year history. But the notion that Vanderbilt could host a big game and win it flies right in the face of every logical inclination. For decades, the Commodores have been the doormat of the SEC, a program that many thought should not belong in America's most cutthroat conference. The idea that the downtrodden 'Dores — the Charlie Brown who would always have a Lucy named Arkansas, Kentucky or Tennessee pull the football away at the last moment — could conquer a program with Auburn's pedigree and stature defies the laws of common sense.

It was enough of a shock that Vanderbilt even got to this point, establishing a 4-0 record and gaining an early lead in the SEC East with a 2-0 conference mark. The 'Dores playing a game matching two top-25 teams — arguably the biggest of the week in FBS competition — ranked as an even more improbable occurrence. At a school that hasn't tasted a winning season or a bowl berth since 1982, the lessons of history — absorbed and digested with considerable mental agility at the SEC's most distinguished academic institution — suggested that Vanderbilt couldn't possibly win a game against No. 13 Auburn with the whole college football world watching, riveted. It would have been too much for the imagination to comprehend.

A lot of cranial nerves and synaptic fibers are on overload, then, for The Team that Fortune Forgot didn't merely excel enough to reach its rare dance with prime-time destiny. When given their dream date against a sexy SEC stalwart, Vanderbilt stood in the arena, traded punches for 60 minutes, largely carried the play, and won on the scoreboard. It might have been an ugly 14-13 win from a purely aesthetic standpoint, but that slim margin of victory— protected for the game's final 22 minutes by a heroic effort from the 'Dores' death-defying defense — carries more mileage than newcomers to Vandy football can possibly imagine.

In 2003, Vanderbilt experienced the official disbanding of its athletic department, which was folded into the realm of "student life" under the oversight of President E. Gordon Gee, who once led Ohio State University. When Mr. Gee reshuffled the deck at Vanderbilt, many thought that the Commodore program would cease to be competitive in big-ticket sports. It was considered anything but loony to think that Vanderbilt football's already-lengthy history of losses would continue throughout this decade, with no signs of stopping. The fact that the 'Dores nearly registered a .500 season or better in both 2005 and 2007 (finishing 5-6 and 5-7, respectively) was both a miracle and a punch in the gut for a program that had gone so far under Bobby Johnson, yet had very little to show for all its improvements.

Outsiders can't begin to really understand how much one winning season, one bowl bid, would mean to the entire Vanderbilt family. With a whole campus community in the national spotlight, a familiar mixture of high hopes and even higher anxieties coursed through the veins of any Commodore commoner. Not in the past quarter-century had a Vanderbilt team received such positive publicity; but with that benefit came its dark underside — namely, the chance to flop in the limelight and send a season crashing down.

Suffice it to say, Vandy had a lot riding on this one football game. And when Auburn thoroughly manhandled the boys in black in the game's first quarter, bolting to an easy 13-0 lead, the stage-fright factor seemed ready to slam these 'Dores into submission.

That moment of surrender, though, never came, and that's what marks the biggest difference with the new-look Vanderbilt football program. A Commodore club that, on the surface, doesn't look extraordinarily different from its 2007 incarnation has found mental magic by passing a crash course in confidence.

With the poise of a veteran team used to the rigors of an SEC season, the Commodores withstood Auburn's onslaught in the game's early stages, and pounced on their one opportunity to steal a touchdown before halftime. In the mold of a winner, Johnson's boys managed to stay close despite being dominated. Then, at halftime, they regrouped and began to take the fight to the shell-shocked Tigers, who couldn't sustain their first-quarter surge.

Vandy played a gridiron equivalent of rope-a-dope against Auburn, in a display that would have made Muhammad Ali proud. Auburn used all its punches and landed all its blows early, but Vandy — able to avoid being knocked to the canvas — outlasted its opponent as the game wore on, delivering almost all the physical punishment in the game's dying moments.

Vandy's defense — twice forced to withstand an Auburn march that crossed the 'Dores' 45 in the second half — managed to defend its end of the field with remarkable resolve. An array of blitzes featuring cornerback Myron Lewis, plus pressure from a front seven led by linebacker Patrick Benoist, harassed Auburn's two quarterbacks — Chris Todd and Kodi Burns — precisely when the Tigers were just one first down away from field-goal range in a one-point game.

At the moments when Vandy stood on the precipice of defeat, its defense, whose four interceptions keyed a win over Ole Miss two weeks ago, matched the magnitude of the moment once again. And when Lewis dropped back in coverage to pick off one final Auburn pass with 2:07 left in regulation, the Tigers — lacking any timeouts — were powerless to prevent the unthinkable from turning into a remarkable new reality: Vandy, lil' ol' Vandy, had conquered a signature SEC school to move to 5-0, 3-0 in the SEC East. The team that could never win statement games such as this one had now crossed the threshold after staring down the kind of adversity that had defeated luckless Vanderbilt teams of the past.

Try to suspend belief. Try to tell yourself it's a dream. It won't matter.

The rise from the ashes is as real as the guts and grit of a team transformed: Vanderbilt has beaten one of the big boys in the SEC to stand atop the league one week into October. The "V" on the helmet of every Vanderbilt player can finally stand for "victory."