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Football traditions here at Vanderbilt, located right in the city of Nashville, Tennessee,
go way back to the 1890’s, but the current incarnation of Vanderbilt Stadium, home of
the Commodores, is as recent as 1981.
That is the year when most of the old stadium was razed, hydraulic jacks were used to
raise the remaining structure by 10 feet, and a new Vanderbilt Stadium was erected, a
41,448 seat horseshoe shaped facility, colored in battleship gray to replicate the
nautical theme that is the Commodores.
The location of the stadium is woven into a tight and dense urban campus, with
commercial areas, nearby hotels and residential areas just a stone’s throw away from
the venue itself. As such, tailgating is somewhat sparse and random, although
adjoining streets are all closed off before and after the game, and street vendors and
outside music make for sort of a festive scene.
The stadium lays claim to being a former NFL venue. When the Houston Oilers moved
to this region, they bounced around between Memphis and Nashville, and in 1998, the
Oilers played their home schedule at Vanderbilt Stadium while they awaited the
completion of their current stadium, LP Field on the waterfront in downtown Nashville.
A jumbotron scoreboard was added in the open end zone along with several other
facility improvements to make it NFL ready, but those amenities are sorely lacking in
today’s day and age.
With the Vanderbilt program being so woeful over the years and decades, fan support
here is somewhat muted, and on this day, the visiting LSU Tigers and their fans
absolutely took over the place, and almost the entire grandstand was colored visiting
purple and yellow, completely overwhelming the home team’s student section. On the
field it was all LSU, delivering a 27-3 drubbing to Vanderbilt.
go way back to the 1890’s, but the current incarnation of Vanderbilt Stadium, home of
the Commodores, is as recent as 1981.
That is the year when most of the old stadium was razed, hydraulic jacks were used to
raise the remaining structure by 10 feet, and a new Vanderbilt Stadium was erected, a
41,448 seat horseshoe shaped facility, colored in battleship gray to replicate the
nautical theme that is the Commodores.
The location of the stadium is woven into a tight and dense urban campus, with
commercial areas, nearby hotels and residential areas just a stone’s throw away from
the venue itself. As such, tailgating is somewhat sparse and random, although
adjoining streets are all closed off before and after the game, and street vendors and
outside music make for sort of a festive scene.
The stadium lays claim to being a former NFL venue. When the Houston Oilers moved
to this region, they bounced around between Memphis and Nashville, and in 1998, the
Oilers played their home schedule at Vanderbilt Stadium while they awaited the
completion of their current stadium, LP Field on the waterfront in downtown Nashville.
A jumbotron scoreboard was added in the open end zone along with several other
facility improvements to make it NFL ready, but those amenities are sorely lacking in
today’s day and age.
With the Vanderbilt program being so woeful over the years and decades, fan support
here is somewhat muted, and on this day, the visiting LSU Tigers and their fans
absolutely took over the place, and almost the entire grandstand was colored visiting
purple and yellow, completely overwhelming the home team’s student section. On the
field it was all LSU, delivering a 27-3 drubbing to Vanderbilt.
VANDERBILT
STADIUM
Nashville,
Tennessee
September
11,
2010
Louisiana
State Tigers
at
Vanderbilt
Commodores
STADIUM
Nashville,
Tennessee
September
11,
2010
Louisiana
State Tigers
at
Vanderbilt
Commodores
| Nashville, Tennessee |
Vanderbilt Stadium
