Vanderbilt Football Opens as Huge Favorites Week 1

We are under two weeks away from the first full week of the 2025-2026 college football season and the oddsmakers are starting to release the betting lines for the first week of the season.

According to The Dore Report, Vanderbilt opens as 36.5-point favorites in its opening game against the Charleston Southern Buccaneers.

The two teams have only played just once all-time when Vanderbilt escaped Charleston Southern 21-20 in a tight game in 2014. 

Coming off a 7-6 season and its first bowl game appearance since 2013, Vanderbilt is hoping to have a much easier time against its FCS opponent this time around. The Commodores have high hopes to not only get back to bowl eligibility, but to take the next step in the SEC and elevate the program as a whole and starting the season off on the right foot is just the first step on that journey.

Vanderbilt is in the middle of its fall camp where it just finished up its second scrimmage. After the scrimmage, Commodores’ head coach Clark Lea spoke to the media about how he is approaching the team’s preparation for Charleston Southern.

“The emphasis has been on us. There’s four things you compete against and the first thing is yourself. You got to win that battle before you win any of the other ones.,” Lea said. “You can’t be overly focused on them because it’s got to be about your performance, but we’ll start to look at their tactics and their personnel this week.”

So far, Vanderbilt has been focused on itself as a team and seeing what its depth is like as well as making sure it is in the right place mentally before thinking about anything to do with the upcoming season. 

With one week of fall camp to go, the Commodores will spend the week between the end of camp and their game against Charleston Southern practicing for the first game of the year and making sure they are prepared properly.

As for the betting line, 36.5 points is a sizable line. In Vanderbilt’s 13 games a year ago, it covered in nine of the 13, including covering its largest line of the season as 33.5-point favorites over Alcorn State with a 55-0 victory.

Charleston Southern is coming off a 1-11 season where the Buccaneers ranked 118th in the FCS in total offense and 54th in total defense. The poor offensive numbers led the team to hiring Seth Strickland as the new offensive coordinator.

Vanderbilt and Charleston Southern are set to kick off on Aug. 30 at 6 p.m. CT.

: