Vandy football goes off the air

Show me a college football team currently in spring practice that's getting less exposure right now than Vanderbilt.

I mean there's been nothing. Nothing in the Tennessean, nothing on the official VU site, nothing on chat boards.

Nothing. And the Commodores have been practicing for nearly a week, and those practices are closed to the public. Meanwhile, Jeff Lockridge, the Tennessean's VU beat writer, is apparently recovering from his trip out West covering the Hoopodores. The City Paper did run a story Sunday on Jordan Rodgers, but it contained nothing we didn't learn from his press conference on signing day.

Nothing. And Bobby Johnson wants it that way. After last year's Music Bowl championship, every spring practice was followed by an in-depth report on which players looked fast and which ones were competing hard and making plays and that sort of thing.

We learned that Jared Funk was a strong candidate for playing time and that Taylor Loftley was one of the most improved defensive linemen on the team.

A year later, we realize that Jared Funk's playing time came in the form of the punt coverage team and that Loftley, while dramatically improved, had not dramatically improved enough to actually play in a real game.

In other words, we spent all last spring getting excited about this team and in the fall we were bitterly disappointed. Maybe this year we'll be bitterly disappointed in the team's performance in the spring and then elated in the fall.

Oh, here's another thing: Every team in the SEC except Ole Miss, South Carolina and Vanderbilt have already received commitments for the 2011 recruiting class.