Did you know? Ever since the Vanderbilt Commodores faced off against the Alabama Crimson Tide in 2022, 85 meetings between them have passed. And finally, FINALLY, on their 86th meeting, Clark Lea could gift their fans a wide smile. That makes it a historic win in itself. Being a hardcore college fan, it’s definitely had to be a huge thing to crush Kalen DeBoer’s program to mere specks of dust.

That’s exactly how the Commodores fans reacted when they went off the rails with their celebration. Meanwhile, before the face-off, DeBoer revealed how he and the Tide like to keep the celebrations lowkey. Poor DeBoer! Now he has no other option.

Vanderbilt fans’ celebration in true Nashville style crushing Kalen DeBoer and Co. 

40-35! That was too against the program that has been coached for so long by the GOAT Nick Saban and now Kalen DeBoer. Isn’t this enough reason to boast? Well, the Commodores fans took the assignment too seriously. They went to seize the moment coming off their neck-to-neck yet exhilarating win over Alabama in Nashville at FirstBank Stadium. 

This has been Lea’s program’s first-ever win over a top-five team. And guess what they did? It had been an absolute ‘on cloud nine’ moment for the fans who just didn’t storm the field and had taken home memorabilia back home. But at last goal posts?! Well, yes. The fans couldn’t walk their way back home hoisting the championship trophy. So what do they do? Instead of carrying trophies, they joined the ‘we did it’ bash carrying off the goalposts. 

Don’t just think that this was limited to their celebration at the field. They even carried the bars to Broadway in downtown Nashville, located two miles away. After all, the adrenaline can do wonders. It just got more intense now that the Commodores fan base is all pumped up after crushing DeBoer’s Alabama, which counts as one of college football’s perennial powers. If things would have turned the other way, would the Tide do the same? 

Kalen DeBoer’s strategy to maintain momentum

Definitely not. DeBoer already has too many things on his plate. Plus, he had some big shoes to fill. So, already being under a lot of stress, he never wants to deal with the extra pressure that comes with post-game celebrations going awry. Since extreme emotions are often considered to be the worst triggers, DeBoer has schooled his players accordingly.

Just as Vanderbilt had a massive win against Alabama on October 5, Saturday, the Tide too had crushed Georgia Bulldogs very badly on September 28. Still not over the big night, the fans got gifted with, one of them dropped a question for the Alabama HC right before the Vandy game. “Hey Coach- Coming off the big emotional win on Saturday night vs. Georgia, how do you keep the team motivated this week for the upcoming game at Vanderbilt? Thank you Roll Tide!” asked the fan.  

To which Kalen DeBoer dropped a calm and composed reply,  “It’s only four games into the season..you win this one, you gonna drop another one….Not have too much of a hype, over-celebration to where you know your energy and your emotion doesn’t carry over to the next week.” So you can now guess how Tide would have celebrated in private had their luck not taken an ugly turn!