Alabama's Historic Loss Shows Us the 2024 Season Is Poised for Unlimited Chaos

In the wildest dreams of the wildest, most optimistic Vanderbilt football fan, never could they have imagined a universe that their team—a team that has never beaten a team ranked in the top five in the AP Poll in its history, a span stretching 60 (largely ugly) losses—would take a victory knee against mighty Alabama less than a week after mighty Alabama beat mighty Georgia in one of the greatest games in recent football memory.

One doesn't normally dream this big because dreams this big don't normally materialize. They don't envision winning this game, just like they don't envision rushing the field. They don't do these things for one very obvious reason.

Why waste the time, they say?

But on Saturday night, it all came true. Vanderbilt dreams. Alabama nightmares. The Commodores 40, the Crimson Tide 35.

It's a score that, despite seeing it happen over the course of more than four hours, still doesn't feel quite real. It's a score that will take many months for Alabama fans to process. It's a score that Vanderbilt fans will never, ever forget.

The rest of us are left processing what we just saw. Perhaps more so, we're left wondering how this kind of chaos will pave the way for, well, more.

Chaos has been a common theme of late. At a time when realignment and NIL and an expanded playoff have brought chaos away from the field, the results now in hand are a sign of one of the strangest stretches of football we have ever seen.

We'll get to that, but let's first explore how we arrived here. The upset did not emerge out of thin air; it started the moment these two teams began to play.

After falling behind 13-0, we assumed Kalen DeBoer's team was still sleepwalking after a thrilling win over the Bulldogs last Saturday. And it was.

Only it never quite woke up.

The Alabama defense was under constant pressure, thanks largely to the superb play of Vandy QB Diego Pavia. He provided the spark, and he never relented. Ultimately, the Commodores accounted for 418 yards of offense.

The Crimson Tide had their moments. Freshman wideout Ryan Williams made another acrobatic catch to keep the game close—a sentence that doesn't feel quite right to type, but it was the reality.

Vanderbilt was simply better. There's not much additional deciphering required. We could talk about whether last Saturday's thrilling win over Georgia played a significant role or how the departure of Nick Saban, the greatest coach to ever grace a sideline, played a role in this outcome.

No matter where one wishes to place the blame, the reality, as hard as it might still be to believe, does not change. The No. 1 team in college football just lost to Vanderbilt, once the doormat of the SEC and college football as a whole. It did so despite being more than a three-touchdown favorite, having perhaps the favorite to win the Heisman playing quarterback.

Find a place to put the blame. No matter where you land, the outcome won't change.

Alabama's loss changes everything. The season has already produced its fair share of upsets and close calls, as a college football season does. But this result—this unbelievable result—should flip how all teams are perceived moving forward.

Sure, an expanded College Football Playoff changes the stakes. That part is undeniable. The fact that it has bloated from four teams to 12 doesn't remove Alabama from the discussion. But it does complicate it, without a doubt.

It widens the net and allows for more teams to enter the picture. While losses might not eliminate teams the way they used to, they open the door up for further chaos and opportunities.

It's barely October. The weather is still warm. Conference play has barely even started.

In the maiden voyage of the expanded postseason, nights like this feel appropriate. These are the kind of games that matter, no matter the size of the postseason. Whether it's a blip or contagious will be determined over the next eight weeks, but nothing should be assumed after this.

Many will look ahead, trying to process the impact of such a moment. Others, specifically those wearing crimson and heartbreak, will look for the proper place to cast blame.

None of those matter. Not the quarterback in Heisman contention or the fact that a legendary coach is still gone. There will be time to remedy such a loss, but it will require the proper ingredients.

What matters for Vanderbilt fans is that it happened—that on one perfectly normal Saturday night, nothing was normal at all.

An upset of this magnitude rarely comes around. When they do, one can't help but process how it came to be.

And, because we just can't help ourselves, what's next?