I have a soft spot in my heart for Vanderbilt football.  I covered the Commodores in the late 90's when I was working in Nashville.  The coach at the time was former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Woody Widenhofer whose teams won fifteen games in five years.  With Woody's teams, it was always whatever could go wrong, did go wrong. 

There was one game against LSU where they had it won if they kicked the extra point.  That didn't happen.  There was another game against I think it was Western Michigan where they gave up three touchdowns in the last six minutes of the game, the last two off of turnovers.  And, there was the game against Alabama in 1999 where Vandy went up 17-10 at the end of the third quarter until a flu riddled Shawn Alexander took over in the fourth and the 'Dores lost a heartbreaker 21-17.

My best memories of Vandy were Woody's Monday press conferences.  Vanderbilt would invite the media to have lunch at their training table, which is one of the finest in the country.  Then, we'd listen to Woody try to explain the latest debacle without blowing a gasket.  Good times!

I left Nashville during Woody's last year, but kept my eye on Vandy, if not only for sentimental reasons.  The Vandy athletic department was always kind and cooperative which puts it light years ahead of most of the SEC athletic departments of that or this era.  When Bobby Johnson was brought in, I thought maybe he would be the guy to turn it around, given his past success at Furman.  Given the circumstances he had to work with, he did a remarkable job.

I thought his decision yesterday, given the timing, tarnishes his legacy at Vandy.  If you don't have the energy or the focus to coach another year, you need to tell someone in January, rather than in July.  All of those years of bad calls, especially on the road have taken their toll and Johnson probably just couldn't stomach another one. Not that Vandy will be a contender in the SEC East, but at least he could have given the university time to have a legitimate search for a head coach.  Coaching at Vandy is an incredible tough task, given the high, unbending acedemic standards the school has an surd Johnson didn't make it easy for Robbie Caldwell who takes over the program on an interim basis.

As far as the future is concerned, some big names are being bandied about, but I don't see any of them.  Phillip Fulmer would be a great hire, but he would have a big problem with admissions.  The same with Mike Leech, who is still tainted by the Adam James deal.  The perfect guy would be David Cuttcliffe, but it would be a sideways move going from a similar program.  Plus, the ACC is not the SEC. 

I don't begrudge Bobby Johnson's decision, especially if his health and family played into it.  You just wish for the sake of his players that he would have made it earlier.