We can start with a disclaimer, it sucks to be a Vanderbilt football fan. The other sports provide competitive teams, despite disappointing endings most of the time (looking at you men's basketball). The baseball team even ranks number 1 in the country at the moment, a spot Vanderbilt isn't exactly accustomed to in any sport.
In addition, new coach James Franklin seems to have sparked the fan base and brought hope to the traditionally puny football team. Appearing a few times on Nashville sports radio and other speaking engagements has shown that Franklin is one heck of a salesman, and the way he closed out the 2011 recruiting class was something to behold. For the first time since Jay Cutler was in the program, there is truly hope that Vanderbilt football will get better. How much better remains to be seen.
The goal at Vanderbilt should be appearing in bowl games at a fairly consistent rate. That needs to be accomplished first before thinking about any conference titles and BCS bowl games. One way to help facilitate that is proper scheduling. Vanderbilt in the past has continually scheduled games against major conference schools like themselves, against the likes of Northwestern and Wake Forest to name a couple. Both of those schools are consistently better than Vanderbilt, thus adding losses to the schedule. Combining those with the rough and tumble SEC schedule meant that Vanderbilt's chances for qualifying for bowl eligibility were miniscule.
Which leads to the main question, as in why is Vanderbilt playing at Ohio State to open the 2013 season? Why would you willingly schedule a road game against a top 5 team with no return game? It's an almost guaranteed loss, which is only going to set back their chances of qualifying for a bowl game.
If you need proof of why this is a bad idea, look no further than Vanderbilt's SEC neighbors to the north, the Kentucky Wildcats. UK has had a traditionally poor football program, yet have qualified for bowls in each of the last 5 seasons, all while never finishing above .500 in the SEC in any of those 5 years. They were 4-4 in 2006, and have been under .500 in conference play in the other 4 seasons. Yet they have been to a bowl game every single year in that time span. How? Check out the non conference schedule. They have a rivalry game every year against Louisville, which is a hit or miss game for them as Louisville was good a few years ago but stinks now. Then, they schedule a team from the MAC generally and one from the Sun Belt (or equivalent lower level D1 conference). In addition, they generally start the season with a D 1-AA school. That's pretty much 3 guaranteed wins in the non conference, and a great shot at a 4th. When you only need 6 wins to get to a bowl, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out UK has made their chances a whole lot easier by scheduling well.
When you have made it to 1 bowl game in 25+ years, I think it goes without saying you need to establish some consistency in your program by getting yourself in the easiest position possible to qualify for bowl games. This would qualify as significant progress, and could serve to excite the fan base more, entice recruits of a little bit higher caliber to come to the program, and could give your team an extra 3 weeks to a month of practice time to improve and get better. However, scheduling the Ohio States of the world is not going to get this done for Vanderbilt football. There is a new coach in town, and I'm truly excited about him. However, scheduling this game is a step in the wrong direction as far as I'm concerned. Wait to see some progress first, then try to take the next step from there. Skipping a step is more likely to send you back to square one.
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