Time to play up

• By SCOTT HOTARD
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Sep 11, 2009 - Page: 1C

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Unveiling its new no-huddle offense, Vanderbilt racked up enough superlatives last week to cover five paragraphs of game notes.

A truer barometer awaits Saturday night, Act 2 for the up-tempo attack.

Looking to score its first victory in Tiger Stadium since 1951, Vandy makes a fastbreak transition from Western Carolina, a Football Championship Subdivision school that went 3-9 last year, to Southeastern Conference action.

Tigers replace Catamounts.

And, as significant, a crowd of 36,350 at Vandy that hardly made a peep before the Commodores snapped the ball gives way to an LSU-heavy contingent of 90,000-plus that surely will.

“It will be a little more difficult,” Vandy center Bradley Vierling said. “Just making sure we’re on the right page and communicating well up front is going to be important.”

In most offenses, plays are called in a huddle, where bodies shield the noise. Vandy has no huddle, no shield.

Quarterback Larry Smith and the other skill-position players receive signals from the sideline. Smith then relays the play to his linemen.

Such will be the scene Saturday in Death Valley, with LSU fans looking to create a dead zone of communication for the Vandy offense.

“Going by history, it’s a tough place to play,” Commodores coach Bobby Johnson said. “We’re not taking it lightly. It certainly has the capability of causing problems, but I hope it doesn’t. We’ll see if we can be as efficient in this game as we were in the last one.”

Smith, in his first game as the full-time starter, directed a 45-0 assault of Western Carolina that kept statisticians busy flipping pages in the media guide.

n The 45 points equaled the third-best scoring output since Johnson became the Vandy coach eight seasons ago.

n The Commodores rolled up 620 yards, the most since 2006.