Gators know not to sleep on Vandy

Before arriving at Florida, Mike Pouncey never thought he'd have to prepare much for Vanderbilt.

He, like the rest of the country, watched as Vandy piddled around the bottom of the SEC during the '90s and the early part of this decade.

It wasn't until the junior offensive lineman came face-to-face with the Commodores that he realized this wasn't the team he was accustomed to seeing.

"They got a lot of great players," Pouncey said. "Every year they’re putting somebody in the NFL. We struggle with them every year. I don’t know what it is. They scheme us up pretty good."

Since coach Bobby Johnson's arrival in 2002, the Commodores have defeated five ranked opponents, sported their first winning season since 1982 (7-6, 2008) and won the school's first bowl game in 53 years with a 16-14 win over No. 24 Boston College in the Music City Bowl last year.

The once bottom-feeder has turned into a team that is hardly slept on.

Johnson has compiled a 29-63 record in his eight-plus years at Vandy and had the honor of coaching the first Commodore named a unanimous SEC Offensive Player of the Year (Jay Cutler, 2005), the school's only SEC Freshman of the Year (Kwame Doster, 2002) and two All-America recipients (Earl Bennett, 2006, and D.J. Moore, 2008).

Florida coach Urban Meyer has had a few competitive games with Johnson's teams. In his first year with the Gators in 2005, Vandy took the Gators to double overtime in The Swamp before a Reggie Lewis interception gave then-No. 13 Florida a 49-42 win.

Meyer said that aside from the talent improvement, it's Johnson who has brought more respect to Vandy.

"He’s one of the best coaches in the Southeastern Conference," Meyer said. "I’m not unique in saying that. There’s a lot of coaches that feel that that’s as well coached team as there is in the SEC."

To create a more competitive program, Johnson hasn't sacrificed the academic integrity at Vanderbilt. In fact, he's used that as a recruiting pitch to prospects.

"We didn’t apologize for being an academic school," Johnson said. "We thought that was one of the selling points that was great. We also appeal to those guys that are competitors that want to play against the best."

It doesn't hurt, Johnson said, that he can offer recruits a chance to play against the "very best teams in the nation" while getting a top-notch education.

"It’s a great example this week. We’re going against the No. 1 team in the nation," he said. "Last week we played the No. 11 team (Georgia Tech). You gotta love that if you’re a competitor."

The feeling heading into the season was that the Commodores would feed off last year's bowl victory. Cornerback Myron Lewis said at SEC Media Days in July that he saw a new kind of "fire" in his teammate's eyes.

That fire faded when injuries took hold. The Commodores have had 12 starters suffer serious injuries this year, including recently losing quarterback Larry Smith (hamstring) for the season.

Those injuries have played a large role in the Commodores' 2-7 record (0-5 SEC).

Florida defensive lineman Terron Sanders doesn't care about Vandy's record. He's seen what recent Vandy teams have done when counted out, and he said Florida will be the last team to write off the Commodores.

"They’re definitely not a team we can sleep on because they have the potential to do what Mississippi did to us last year," he said. "That’s something we don’t want to happen."