THE TAILGATE: A Graphical Preview of Texas A&M at Vanderbilt

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Mike Matthews

C: He'll have his hands full with Cunningham in the middle. Now would be as good a time as any for the OL to gel against a solid Commodore defense and provide consistent production against a quality opponent. Well, a better time would have been a while back, but still.

Joseph Cheek

RG: The Vanderbilt defense is ranked 17th in the country. They are physical up front. JC needs to play a mistake-free game stationed between a pair of three-year starters to solidify the line and help the offense solve some of their recent woes.

Germain Ifedi

RT: If #74 is still considering going pro early, this would be a good game for him to showcase his skills. Vandy allows a shade over three and a half yards per rush and is in the top half of the conference in sacks. Protecting the edge for [insert QB here] will be important, probably.

Ralph Webb

RB: With 1100+ yards of offense he's far and away their most productive player. It's almost like they have an offensive iden---never mind what it's almost like. All the defense has to do is not let them do the one thing they've gotten good at doing. And then also not let them do anything else.

Oren Burks

S: The sophomore has three of Vandy's six interceptions this year, and returned one for a TD against Kentucky last week. Perhaps Kyler could sneak onto their half of the field during pregame warmups and throw one right to him to get that out of the way before they're keeping track of that sort of thing.

Zach Cunningham

LB: Another sophomore, he's the team leader in tackles, TFL (13.5) and sacks as an inside linebacker. In case you were wondering: an inside linebacker is a player who plays upright a couple yards behind the line of scrimmage and flies to the ball to make tackles and also sometimes drops back into coverage to disrupt passing lanes.

Zombie Offense Showdown with Joe Bob Briggs

Hey folks, Vanderbilt alum Joe Bob Briggs here. You might be wondering what a world-famous film critic is doing breaking down an SEC football matchup, but make no mistake: we all know deep down this is B-Movie fare at its best.

This game features a pair of zombie offenses: The 'Dores are the "O.Z." or what I call Original Zombie: one of the first corpses from the apocalypse and he's been stumbling around just outside of everyone's vision for the entire season. Texas A&M on the other hand is the rebar pincushion: he's been bludgeoned and nearly dispatched for good a dozen times over but still manages to shuffle on to the next scuffle.

You might think each of these zombies has a little spark in 'em now after a tiny shift of luck last week. I wouldn't wager on it, friends. These two are destined to bumble and bump into each other as ineffectively as a pair of bees hitting each other through a pane of glass.

2 QBs, 3 points, 192 yards (A&M)
1 TD, 4.6 yards/pass, 3.0 yards/rush (Vandy)

These stats are from their games against their common opponent, the Ole Miss Rebels. Downright scary stuff, y'all. Tune in for some truly horrifying offense.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Offensiveness

This season Kevin Sumlin's Bugatti offense turned out to be a Honda Civic with a series of increasingly poorly installed body kits and some glasspacks his buddy Spav hooked him up with on the cheap. The only SEC team to score fewer points this season than Vanderbilt is Missouri, and those two teams combine for 3 conference victories. Think of this game as Pop Warner without all those completed passes. Also Kyle Allen's mom forgot to bring orange slices. They're still gonna have an end of the season pizza party at Mr. Gatti's, though. (they have those in Houston, right?)

Defense

Derek Mason's offense may not be able to score on your very loose sister (who admittedly recently called A&M's defense a tart), but his defense is exactly as advertised when Vandy bought him. Meanwhile, the Chief has his work cut out for him with Vanderbilt's run-heavy offense playing right into the Aggies' "pardon me, ball carrier, but I'm late for a date with the quarterback" defense. Remember kids, L = 2V + 40, where V equals Vandy's rushing yards and L equals the war crime that LSU's Leonard Fournette will be committing Thanksgiving weekend.

Nashvillians

No, not the locals. This weekend Aggies will descend on Nashville to partake of its beauty, fine dining, live music, and boozohol. At least one Ag is bound to cap off his night on Broadway by declaring war on "Nashville country", attempting to play Songs About Texas on an inflatable guitar with Bud Light logos on it, and then waking up to wonder how the hell he ended up in Greece. Commodores, please treat this man gently as he is only confused by your pork barbecue and lush, rolling terrain.

ELSEWHERE IN THE SEC

#15 LSU @ #22 OLE MISS

Like the leaves changing color and pumpkin spice ruining all of your beverages, there is no surer sign of the holiday season than the traditional SEC Feast Of St. Cupcake. This weekend most of the league will dine on such diminutive fare as Florida Atlantic, The Citadel, Idaho, Charleston Southern, Georgia Southern, and Kentucky.

Ole Miss and LSU decided to piss a fine stream of mostly ethanol on that tradition this year, choosing instead a top 25 matchup to determine once and for all who got closest to challenging Alabama for its inevitable SEC West title. These two teams have in common that they are both trying to figure out what happened on their golden road to the CFB Playoff. That, and their proclivity for bourbon, fighting in a Waffle House parking lot, and Type II diabetes.

HOT REELZ