It's actually a good sign for the Vanderbilt program that Auburn is still in the Top 25 after losing to the Commodores. In the past, a loss to Vanderbilt meant that a team would fall out of the Top 25 and its coach instantly would be put on the hot seat, if not fired immediately.
It's happened this season. Take South Carolina, for example. The Gamecocks were No. 24 and would have jumped higher with a win over Vanderbilt. But South Carolina lost. Not only did the Gamecocks fall out of the Top 25, they didn't even receive votes in the coaches poll. And the next week, after scaring the daylights out of No. 2 Georgia and losing 14-7, South Carolina completely fell out of the voting for both polls, and Georgia dropped a notch. You know, because Georgia had narrowly beaten South Carolina who had lost to a Vanderbilt team that nobody realized was any good.
Now South Carolina just went on the road and beat the same Ole Miss team that upset Florida a week earlier. Now the Gamecocks are 4-2 and I'd say as good as any 4-2 team in the country, having lost by a touchdown to the No. 10 and No. 13 teams in the nation. But still, they received only one vote in the coaches poll, which puts them at about No. 45 in the nation.
The Gamecocks, with the SEC's top defense, are at least as good as Auburn and are improving on offense every week, something you can't say about the Tigers. But because South Carolina lost to a Commodore team that wasn't even listed under "also receiving votes" and Auburn lost to a Commodore team that was No. 19 in the nation, Auburn gets to stay in the Top 25.
But it was the same Commodore team in both games, right?
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