COTTRELL COLUMN: Vandy's win all about parity

We’re heading into Week 7 of the college football season and Vanderbilt currently resides in the Top 15 and is 5-0.

Last I checked, the world hasn’t ended yet.

In what has been a bizarre decade in the sport, this really might take the cake.

The Commodores have beaten above-average South Carolina and Auburn teams at home and a slightly above-average Ole Miss team on the
road.

What is going on here?

Not to make light of the situation, because Vanderbilt is certainly one of the feel-good stories of all time if they’re able to keep this up and make a bowl game.

The job Bobby Johnson has done — and, it should be noted, the patience the Vanderbilt administration has shown since his 6-29 start and the fact that his record is still 25-50 — can’t be understated.

But what’s happening at Vanderbilt is really another testament to the parity that’s crept up on us in college football.

Are the currently 5-0 Commodores of 2008 appreciably better than the 3-8 Commodores of 1998? I say no.

They’re better and more athletic, but so is everyone else.

What we’ve now seen with the scholarship reductions is allowing the talent to be distributed just a little bit more, and allowed teams with a quality coach and smart players like Vandy a better chance of competing with the upper-echelon teams.

And Vandy is far from the only example of this across the country.

Take, for instance, my own personal darling at Wake Forest.

When it comes to talent, they’re doing pretty good if they’re in the top eight of the ACC, but the quality coaching they have has allowed them to become a competitive program.

And in the same conference you can look at Duke and Georgia Tech, two programs who can’t compete for the same type of talent that Florida State, Clemson, Virginia Tech and Miami can, yet who both are in the mix for a bowl trip right now since bringing in David Cutcliffe and Paul Johnson, respectively.

Illinois got to the Rose Bowl last year in the Big Ten — even while being coached by Ron Zook — largely by virtue of having a fast, talented team in a slow, clunky conference.

Out in the Pac-10, Arizona, which hasn’t had a winning record since 1998, is on track for a bowl game after a long slog with coach Mike Stoops. They’re benefitting from the current awfulness of UCLA, Washington and Washington State, but they’re there.

And that’s not even getting into the giant-crushers in the non-BCS conferences.

With the narrowed talent gap — which is the making of the NCAA moreso than many of these coaches — finding a good fit and the right players can make a program take off like never before.

We’re seeing it here in the SEC with Vanderbilt and across the nation with the programs I mentioned and more.

So don’t go building a bomb shelter yet. But stocking up on canned goods might not be a bad idea.

Tim Cottrell is sports designer of the Opelika-Auburn News. He will write a weekly column on college football during the season. You can also read him on the O-A Sports Blog at oanow.com. He can be reached at 737-2511 or tcottrell@oanow.com.