The more you think about Vanderbilt football moving off campus and sharing a stadium with a Major League Soccer team at The Fairgrounds Nashville, the more it grows on you.

For example, I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit for the past few months and the idea has been upgraded in my mind from “a nuclear winter’s worth of dumb” to “terrible.” By the time they break ground in a few years, it could rise as high as “unfortunate.”

That’s about my ceiling. Not so for everyone, including some folks in Vanderbilt athletics who have become so disillusioned by the inability to create funding momentum for a Vanderbilt Stadium makeover or replacement, they view this as the last life preserver.

They don’t believe there’s any way something will get done on campus, so the opportunity for brand-new digs at a reduced cost is worth moving three miles away and sharing a space with the MLS team the city hopes to land. This line of thinking speaks to the philosophical chasm between academics and athletics at Vanderbilt and to a lack of vision.

Someone has to see how damaging this would be to Vanderbilt football. Someone has to see how good things actually are on Vanderbilt football Saturdays, other than the state of the facility. Someone has to step forward and say “no thank you” on behalf of Vandy to Metro — Mayor Megan Barry initially said she wanted the “private-public” funding proposal finalized by the end of June — and an MLS effort that is spearheaded by primary Vanderbilt benefactor John R. Ingram.

Hey, Vanderbilt signing up for this partnership would be a great deal for Ingram, who declined via text message to speak on this topic. It would strengthen Nashville’s chances of getting an MLS team, and Nashville is ready for an MLS team.

A solid plan for a stadium, estimated to cost between $175 million and $250 million, would push the city into strong contention. Two expansion franchises will be awarded next year and will begin play in 2020, and Nashville likely would get one of two later spots, to be announced and start play at times to be determined.

Vandy jumping aboard is a creative way to solve two problems. But sports in this city as a whole will be better off if the MLS pursuit goes on and succeeds without Vanderbilt. Because if this happens it will weaken Vanderbilt football.

I can’t prove that, but I can imagine the conversations that will take place when a prospective recruit tours Vanderbilt’s modest football building and then has to take a ride out to the stadium where he’s being asked to play, which has MLS signage all over it and a soccer team practicing in it. I can point to the consistent failure of off-campus stadiums in college football. I can envision the empty seats on the bus dispatched to bring Vanderbilt students from campus to football games.

And I can feel the anger from the fans. They’re being disrespected by a school that should be taking advantage of the growth of this city, of the opportunity athletics provides to sell a university but too often seems to want nothing to do with them. An Ivy League outlook on athletics is admirable, but it doesn’t quite mesh with those $40 million checks from the SEC.

I threw a tweet out to the devoted followers of Vanderbilt this week, asking for feedback on the stadium idea, and the response was emphatic — more than 100 tweets, most angrily rejecting anchoring down at the fairgrounds and five supporting the idea.

National media got into it. Vandy grad Dan Wolken of USA TODAY responded that the plan “should get them kicked out of the SEC.” Vandy grad Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated called the idea “worse than Dowhower,” a reference to all-time-bad Vandy coach Rod Dowhower.

I got 25 emails, totaling 9,136 words, and many of those words were fiery. They came from donors, alums, students, former Vanderbilt football players and lifelong fans with no educational affiliation to the school. They included threats to cease watching the team and donating if this happens.

One donor shared an email he sent to Vanderbilt athletic director David Williams, who declined comment on the stadium topic through a spokesman. I wish I could share that email and all its fury with you, and I hope Williams read it. I also hope he didn’t formulate the recent Vanderbilt survey of fans.

It was emailed to students, season-ticket holders and others, ostensibly to gauge interest in this stadium. But the questions were all about the nice amenities that would come with it. The good stuff, without direct mention of the consequences.

It’s like being asked if you would like some ice cream, saying yes and hearing back: “Congratulations! You get a free scoop of vanilla with the Super Bass-O-Matic you just purchased for 12 easy installments of $9.99!”

Vanderbilt would not share the results of the survey, by the way. No one is saying anything about this. The fans will get what they get and like it.

Some actually would like this to happen, and I appreciate their thoughtful viewpoints. I agree that Vanderbilt will never be like the other 13 SEC schools and must find creative solutions. This just isn’t the one.

The solution is to raise funds aggressively — surely the donors who hate the soccer idea will be on board — and take on some debt to at least bring the existing stadium into the 21st century. If the new place was going to take $50 million, or $100 million, get as close to that as possible for the right place. The location, the setting, the size and the tailgating scene around Vanderbilt Stadium are great.

It’s like a decked-out home theater room built around an old Zenith with rabbit ears. It’s not perfect. But it’s better than buying a brand-new TV and plugging it in three miles away where no one will watch it.

Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.