Vanderbilt upset No. 1 Alabama, 40-35, Saturday. Predictably (or should have been), the fans at FirstBank Stadium in Nashville went wild to celebrate the Commodores’ first-ever win over a top-five team.
Not only did the crowd storm the field, but the goalposts came down.
Once they reached the bottom, the goalposts were on their way out of the stadium, carried by the cheering Commodores faithful.
Did those fans carry the goalposts all the way to Broadway in downtown Nashville, two miles away? Yes, they did. Adrenaline can do wonders for a pumped fan base after beating one of college football’s perennial powers.
Those fans may also have been fueled by a quote from former Alabama coach Nick Saban, which dismissed Vanderbilt as a tough place for SEC football teams to play.
“The only place where it’s not hard to play in the SEC is Vanderbilt,” Saban said recently on The Pat McAfee Show.
“If you play at Vanderbilt, you have more fans there than they do,” he added. ‘That’s no disrespect to them. That’s just the truth.’ Here’s the full clip from the show:
Will the goalposts make their way into the Cumberland River like the ones that went into the Tennessee River after the Volunteers upset Alabama in 2022?
Everything is possible.
Imagine being in downtown Nashville on a Saturday night and possibly seeing a crowd of football fans walking down the street with goal posts.
The bachelor parties will be so confused when the goalposts hit Broadway
— Christopher Oven (@Chris_Oven) October 6, 2024
Ultimately, the celebration was accompanied by a police escort.
And yes, those goalposts finally reached – or in – the Cumberland River. They did it, folks. What a night in Nashville. What a display to celebrate the biggest win in Vanderbilt football history.
On social media, fans wondered if Vanderbilt fans ever had a reason to tear down the goalposts in their home stadium.
Question for anyone @VandyFootball fan or anyone else in Nashville: When was the last time Vandy fans stormed the field and tore down goalposts?
— Oscar Combs (@wildcatnews) October 6, 2024
And new goalposts. They probably haven’t replaced the goal posts since 1964.
— David Petroff (@DavidPetroff) October 6, 2024
To be fair, the stadium’s security probably wasn’t ready for the fans tearing down the goalposts, as the staff had never dealt with such a scenario before.
In love with the idea of Vandy not having security around the goalposts because unlike the rest of college football, they’ve never had to consider this possibility
— Sean Johnson (@SeanIn60Seconds) October 6, 2024
All the buzz killtons telling Vandy to pretend they’ve been there… they haven’t!?!? Let them go wild and carry the goalposts into town, or do arithmetic and differential equations, or whatever for fun #Vanderbilt #Bama
— Alice (@als_131) October 6, 2024
To be honest, fans seemed hesitant at first about what to do. They didn’t immediately rush onto the field or head straight for the goalposts. But that’s okay. This is new, exciting territory for Vanderbilt and some uncertainty was understandable for fans before sheer joy and madness took hold.
