You see, "Vandal" isn't the vandal we think of.
Legend has it, at the turn of the 20th century the school's basketball team earned the nickname Vandals because of their "vandalizing" of opponents offenses on the court.
Interesting. I always had guessed that they were named after the East Germanic Tribe (that perhaps originated in Vendel, Sweden) that wandered about Europe in the third and fourth centuries, and ended up sacking Rome in 455.
To me, though, this was the key bit of information in that article:
Petrino went hard after JUCO players in his 2014 class, signing 16 total.