The man walked into the sports bar Sunday afternoon in a black cut-off Harley Davidson t-shirt, clenching his motorcycle helmet in his left hand.

He plopped down at the bar and ordered a drink. The man, with a skull cap on his head and tattoos of barbed-wire and demons sprinkling his arms, began talking to the patron next to him.

“How about that Vanderbilt,” he asked.

Not to stereotype anyone, but this isn’t the kind of guy you’d imagine to be talking about a private university 600 miles away with an undergraduate enrollment of less than 12,000 students.

But things are different this year. The Vanderbilt football team is 5-0 for the first time since World War II.

The Commodores, ranked 13th in the country, are the talk of the nation. College Gameday, a weekly pre-game football show that descends on the site of the best game of the day, was even in Nashville Saturday for Vanderbilt’s game against Auburn.

Vanderbilt pieced together a come-from-behind 14-13 victory in the game behind another steady defensive effort. If the Commodores can win in Starkville, Miss. this weekend against the Mississippi State Bulldogs, they will become bowl eligible for the first time since 1982.

They played Air Force in the Hall of Fame Bowl that day and lost 36-28. They have only won one bowl game in school history – a 25-13 triumph against Auburn in the 1955 Gator Bowl.

But anything is possible right now for Vanderbilt and it’s hard not to root for it. The Commodores are in the year in-year out best conference in college football – the Southeastern Conference.

Every year, they dwell at the bottom of the standings because they don’t have the massive athletic department budgets the other juggernauts have. They have the highest admissions standards in the SEC, which cuts down on which players they can recruit.

At least for one more week in 2008, however, they control their own destiny in the conference. If Vanderbilt beats Mississippi State, it will be 6-0 for the first time since 1928.

Sound familiar? The Commodores’ historic run is similar to Kansas’ last season. But this one just seems more incredible.

The Commodores have been so bad for so long that all hope seemed to be lost. ESPN even gave them honorable mention a few years back as being the worst college football team ever.

Not anymore. Congratulations, Commodores – stories like yours are what make college football so special.