The SEC is one of the nation's most alluring conferences, and has been for quite some time. It's supposed to bring an electrifying atmosphere to each stadium that heavily impacts the opposing team. That said, legendary SEC coach Nick Saban believes Vanderbilt football is not in that category, via the Pat McAfee show.
“The only place you play in the SEC that’s not hard to play in is Vanderbilt,” Saban said . When you play at Vanderbilt, you have more fans there than they have.”
Nick Saban isn't lying. Vanderbilt's First Bank Stadium has the 76th-highest attendance (21,641) in the country from 2018-2022. To put that into better perspective, they are in the same company as UAB (Conference USA) and Appalachian State (Sun Belt). Both great teams in great conferences. But neither with the same prestige as the SEC.
Vanderbilt's home opener against Virginia Tech had 28,934 fans, while their Week 2 game against Alcorn State dropped to 24,080. Given that these weren't SEC opponents, we can give them the benefit of the doubt. That said, the Commodores fell in their previous road game to Georgia St., and now have No. 7 Missouri awaiting them on Saturday.
It'll be interesting to see if their attendance plummets once again if they head back to Nashville with a 2-2 record.
When is Vanderbilt football's next home game?
Coincidentally, Vanderbilt will host Alabama football for their first home conference matchup of the 2024-25 season. Saban's reflection of their past visits to First Bank Stadium includes more Crimson Tide fans in the audience than the home crowd, so we'll see if he is right about this on October 8. Perhaps a future College GameDay will be hosted at Vanderbilt because of Saban's recent comments.
Vanderbilt is on the road for their first SEC matchup of the season against undefeated Missouri on September 21. Kickoff is set for 4:15 PM ET at Memorial Stadium in Columbia.
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