Here are three things we've learned, two questions and a prediction surrounding Vanderbilt football with fall camp on pause.

1. Vanderbilt has paused fall camp.

Last Friday, Vanderbilt announced that it has suspended its fall football camp due to positive COVID-19 tests on the team. That same day, a source placed the number of positive tests at seven players and one coach.

Several other players who were thought to have exposure--one sourced estimated the number at 20--have begun a 14-day quarantine.

One complication in all this is that all positive tests may not be accurate, as the NFL recently learned. However, a separate source confirmed that at least one player had shown symptoms.

Vanderbilt has continued to test players since Friday. A source said the school is awaiting more test results and hopes to resume practice this week, perhaps as soon as Wednesday.

In the meantime, optional workouts have continued with some players not participating.

2. Multiple sources have said new chancellor Daniel Diermeier has no plans to leave the Southeastern Conference.

The past two years have been tumultuous ones for Vanderbilt athletics. The Commodores have had three athletic directors in the last 17 months and little has been done to advance VU athletics within that time.

As the facilities and competitive gap continues to widen between VU and other major programs, it's led to speculation that the school could drop out of the SEC and into a less-competitive conference rather than spend the money to compete. That speculation increased with the appointment of Diermeier, who last worked at the University of Chicago, a school with Division III sports.

Diermaier's public statements about athletics have indicated that he wants the school to be competitive in athletics. (Scroll about three-fourths of the way down here.)

Privately, others have pressed Diermeier about what that means for SEC membership. Multiple sources say that Diermeier consistently communicates that he values SEC membership and has no plans to leave the league.

3. There's been a large exodus of scholarship players with remaining eligibility since last season.

Between sit-outs for COVID-19, transfers, early graduations, run-offs or undisclosed reasons, a lot of players who had eligibility to return this season aren't back The list, with reasons for departure/current circumstances added where they're known:

Bryce Bailey (offensive line): opted out for 2020

C.J. Bolar (wide receiver): transferred to Alcorn State

Cole Clemens (offensive line): opted out for 2020

Devin Cochran (offensive line): transferred to Georgia Tech and then didn't enroll

Stone Edwards (defensive line)

Braden Kopp (offensive line)

Carlton Lorenz (offensive line)

Salua Masina (linebacker)

Sean McMoore (offensive line)

Dimitri Moore (linebacker): opted out for 2020

Lashawn Paulino-Bell (linebacker)

Austin Quillen (safety)

Josiah Sa'o (defensive line)

Jonathan Stewart (offensive line): opted out for 2020

Deuce Wallace (quarterback)

Allan Walters (quarterback): transferred to Mississippi State

Eddie Zinn-Turner (defensive line)

Additionally, walk-on quarterback Mo Hasan, who started and won the Missouri game last year, transferred to Southern Cal, and kicker Oren Milstein, a grad transfer who'd just arrived from Columbia, also opted out for 2020.

1. Will Vanderbilt play football this fall?

That's a question I can't answer.

There's been an undercurrent circulating for weeks--and it's come from within and also outside the school--that the administration doesn't want to play this fall.

There's also been talk that the school would pull out of football this fall even if the league didn't. I've found nothing to substantiate that claim, and though the pausing of fall camp this early isn't particularly encouraging, Vanderbilt isn't alone in that regard.

The bigger question is, "Will Vanderbilt, or anyone, play anything this year?"

Football and the TV money from it fund so many other sports. For that reason, talk around the league all summer has been that if the SEC can't play football, it won't play anything this calendar year.

On the other hand, optimists point out that it's hard to imagine the NCAA going two straight years without a basketball tournament.

2. Is there going to be a facilities plan and how will it look?

When Vanderbilt hired ex-AD Malcolm Turner, it gave him charge to change the culture around VU athletics. Turner instead saw his tenure as AD end almost exactly a year after it started as he found himself increasingly at odds over investment with regards to sports.

Turner's plan called for around $800 million--and maybe more--of athletics investment. That included all sports, but football was to be the main piece.

That was to include a football-only building in the closed end zone, some kind of refurbishment to the stadium and "a sports science building" that planned to address nutrition and performance issues. (A decision hadn't been made on where the sports science facility would be housed.)

Sources with knowledge of the process said the school planned to reveal those plans in February 2020. By January, it became clear to Turner that the marriage with the school wasn't going to work because the school didn't want to spend or raise the required money. As Turner's right-hand man Tommy Smith put it in several recent VandySports podcasts, "somewhere, investment became 'spending,'" and everything ground to a halt, with Turner departing a couple weeks before the project was to be proposed to the VU Board of Trust.

So now what?

Turner's successor Candice Lee has continually said she'll roll something out at "the appropriate time," without giving hints as to when or what.

Is Lee willing to set the bar as high as Turner?

In coach Derek Mason's recent "Coffee with Coach" podcast, Mason hosted Lee on an episode. The two hit Lee's usual talking points about how great and supportive the VU administration has been, how COVID-19 brought progress to a halt and how VU's last decades of a lack of commitment have created "some gaps" between where the school is and where it needs to be, even though both Lee and provost Susan Wente, (whom Mason termed "a rock star") have held positions of influence much of that time. Lee has also been the AD's football supervisor for years.

During that podcast, Mason asked Lee what VU athletics looked like in 2030.

Lee's answer included "celebrating championships" and a statement that "by then, we'll see the fruits of our labor" and added, "we'll still be in the best conference in the country." She recited the oft-heard "the city, the degree, the SEC" mantra that VU has thrown out there for years as a reason it could succeed. But there were no specifics as to how it would get there or what's on the drawing board.

The component of a "2030" timeline was also interesting.

Given that it was Mason's question and Lee is Mason's boss, it's hard to know if that question (and the timeline expressed) was corroborated ahead of time, or just haphazardly thrown out there. But at a minimum, Lee missed a chance to reframe the expectations to something that would appeal to prospective student-athletes who are past the second grade.

Lee's critics have said from the beginning that she's been hand-picked by Vanderbilt's administration because she won't push the school in the way that Turner did. Everything from her has been verbal so far. Time will tell, but as one source says in regards to whatever Lee has planned, "She'll do just enough to calm the waters, and nothing more." And while it's fair to mention any employee has to keep superiors happy, "There's a significant difference between trying to please your bosses and being hired so that they can tell you what to do," that source says.

Sources have said that VU's facilities are 25 years behind the times. Other schools have not stopped construction because of COVID-19; here's a look at that VU's SEC competitors have, or have recently done:

Alabama: Alabama announces $600 million plan to upgrade athletics facilities

Arkansas: New renovations for baseball, track & field coming soon

Auburn: Auburn athletics takes next step on Fearless and True campaign projects

Florida: Scott Stricklin's approach to prioritizing athletics facilities projects at Florida

Georgia: Current athletics facilities projects

Kentucky: K Fund Capital Projects

LSU: Athletics releases strategic plan

Mississippi State: MSU athletics looks to build on success through facilities renovations

Missouri: Missouri's football stadium renovation

Ole Miss: Ole Miss focused on updating athletics facilities under Keith Carter

South Carolina: Williams-Brice Stadium project to fund future fan enhancements

Tennessee: Neyland Stadium renovation plans

Texas A&M: Athletics master plan

Vanderbilt is going to be at least a 13-point underdog in every game this fall.

Actually, this is Bill Connolly's prediction and I"ll adopt it here; here's how his SP+ rankings handicap the schedule ahead, with three points given for home-field advantage either way (assuming still a thing during COVID-19):

Texas A&M by 32

LSU by 29

South Carolina by 15

Missouri by 15

Ole Miss by 14

Mississippi State by 17

Kentucky by 23

Florida by 28

Tennessee by 20

Georgia by 37

On average, the Commodores are a 23-point underdog each week, according to the SP+ model.