James Franklin shows Voice of Commodores who's boss

Coach Franklin is quick to correct somebody he thinks is wrong, especially somebody involved in his football program. One example is how he lit up Josh Grady last week about his "Hey, I'm redshirting" Twitter. Another example is when he sprinted down the field and lit up players who were celebrating Vandy's second touchdown.

And then there's Joe Fisher, the Voice of the Commodores.

Last week after the game, Fisher asked Franklin about "the Larry Smith situation."

"I don't know what you're talking about, 'the Larry Smith situation,'" Franklin snapped. "I don't know what that means."

Joe said he was only referring to the injury Larry suffered toward the end of the game. Franklin said Larry was going to play in the next game.

It gets better. On Saturday, in his interview with Franklin after Vandy's big win, Fisher asked this question:

"What happened in the second half, coach? You’ve got the lead 14-3 and then UConn sort of begins to assert itself a little bit more and takes control of the game and they scored to come back and take the lead?"

I was wondering if Fisher saw the same game I did when Franklin replied in the same exasperated tone he used when referring to "the Larry Smith situation":

"They didn’t 'assert themselves' and they didn’t 'take control of the game. We just made some mistakes and didn’t play the way we’re capable of playing. The blocked punt obviously was a big play and we gotta get that cleaned up. But they didn't 'assert themselves,' and I want to make sure we’re clear on that... We just gotta play smarter. We didn’t protect the ball this week, but this will be a great opportunity for growth for us."

About a minute later, Fisher, giving it the old college try, asked this: "When you get into conference play, that puts another edge on a game, doesn’t it?"

To which Franklin replied, "No. It’s the same old deal, it’s the most important game on our schedule is the next one. They’re all important, every single one of them. We’re going to take them one game at a time. Not one game we play is any more important than the next one."

Franklin doesn't answer reporters with that same tone of voice. Fisher's not a journalist, he's employed by Vanderbilt University. And Franklin's message in every interview with Fisher seems to be "you work for me."

Can't wait to hear Joe ask one of those questions after a loss.

Joe Fisher should do all the talking when he's on 97.1

I always enjoy listening to daily updates with Joe Fisher, the voice of the Commodores.

Before Vandy switched over to 97.1, Joe was making his morning calls to Mark, Frank and Kevin at 104.5, and those guys were funny and knowledgeable about football and asked some good questions.

I'm not going to dwell on it this season, but I'll go ahead and say once that Mac (Michael McIntyre) at 97.1 may be a great rock n' roll DJ, but as a sports interviewer he is terrible. The guy likes to hear himself talk and apparently knows nothing about football. After Joe says something, he proclaims, "All right my friend!" or simply "Wow!"

On yesterday's call, Joe was going to tell Mac how many strikeouts Sonny Gray threw in 5 innings for Team USA. He set up the story by saying, "There are 15 outs in 5 innings." To which Mac exclaimed, "Wow!"

Actually, there are always 15 outs for a team in 5 innings of baseball, so there was nothing exciting or unusual about it, so when Joe finally told Mac that Sonny had thrown 14 strikeouts in those 15 outs, Mac had to muster up an even more enthusiastic "Wow!"

Here's some advice to you, Mac: Let Joe do all the talking.

Zac Stacy and Warren Norman to share backfield, Branden Barden must lead, Dexter Daniels is a beast... and more Joe Fisher knows about Vandy football

You can learn a lot from listening to Joe Fisher, the voice of the Commodores. While fans and armchair quarterbacks are beating down Larry Smith's spring performance, for example, and screaming for him to be replaced by Jordan Rodgers (did you hear his brother starts for the Green Bay Packers?), it's Fisher who's quick to remind fans that:

(1) Teams have something called an offensive line, and when the offensive line is undermanned and inexperienced, the quarterbacks are running for their lives...
(2) And all the Vandy quarterbacks were running for their lives on Saturday...
(3) Because our defense has a pretty sophisticated blitz scheme...
(4) And guys like Walker May and Tim Fugger were taking open shots at the quarterback, Smith in particular getting his bell rung by Fugger on the first drive and never recovering...
(5) But none of the quarterbacks, Rodgers included, looked very good...
(6) And they would have looked much better if Bobby Johnson had let them wear red jerseys, which he most definitely did not, even declaring open season on them because it would get them used to getting hit, and (my add) maybe one of them would be lost for the season and make the job of picking a starter easier.

OK, Joe didn't say that last part. But Joe doesn't make the kind of snap decisions that most fans do (Larry went completed only one pass so let's revoke his scholarship now, etc.)

You can access audio to a bunch of recent conversations between Fisher and the guys from 104.5 FM in Nashville about Commodore football and even other sports by clicking here.

These points came out of his conversations this week:

• Brandon Barden needs to lead the team in receiving if the team's going to be successful this season.
• Johnson plans to employ two-back sets this season, to give his quarterbacks more protection, get his best playmakers (Zac Stacy and Warren Norman) on the field at the same time and (again, my add) probably keep at least one of below-average wide receivers on the bench.
• Dexter Daniels, the linebacker who wasn't as highly touted as fellow redshirt sophomores DeAndre Jones or Tristan Strong, got added reps because of Chris Marve's shoulder surger and is having a terrific spring.
• Chris Marve's shoulder surgery went well and his injury wasn't as serious as initially thought. Marve played in a great deal of pain last season and gutted it out despite being a game-time decision during a bunch of games.
• Ryan van Rensburg, the fullback/H-back who caught a one-yard TD pass against Tennessee, is running more pass patterns, for whatever that's worth.
• Kennard Reeves, a hard-running fifth-year senior tailback who plays primarily on special teams, may get more playing time this season because of the two-back sets but also because he's improved his ability to pick up opponent's blocking schemes.

Interesting stuff, huh? Won't see much of that on the "Vandy" chat boards, which seem intent on lowering ticket sales to Commodore football games. You know, because there's no way we can win more than one game next season.

Take your Prozac, guys. I prefer not to listen. I'm listening to Joe Fisher.