Clark Lea opens up on Vanderbilt's growth in NIL space, rise to CFP contender

The Vanderbilt defense came up tall on the final Hail Mary against Missouri, holding back the Tigers as they had all day. That made for a Commodores win, their second in a row at home against a ranked opponent. Seemingly, head coach Clark Lea had done the impossible at the program, but nobody charged the field. After all, the fans expected to win.

The success that Vanderbilt has had in the past two seasons is nothing short of remarkable. It now has them on the edge of the College Football Playoff. It also goes back to a major change within the program and how Lea approaches NIL and the transfer portal.

SUBSCRIBE to the On3 NIL and Sports Business Newsletter

Lea addressed this on the weekly SEC teleconference. There, he was very honest, admitting that Vanderbilt got caught flat-footed by those changes in college sports. However, since embracing them, it’s the foundation he had previously built there that’s made the program a contender.

“We did not really have a plan to participate in the transfer portal or in NIL,” Clark Lea said. “In really what amounted to the first three seasons I was here. In ’21, it was all new. We lost our best o-lineman in ’21, we lost our best player in ’22 in Ray Davis, both to league opponents. So, we kind of had a reckoning there in the Winter of ’23 to say, ‘Hey, we have to get busy raising some money and build some level of NIL support for this program or else were weren’t going to have a program.'”

Clark Lea and Vanderbilt are hardly alone in this regard. Many expected NIL to just be sponsorships with third parties, not expecting the reality that it became with collectives. Add in the challenges that come with adding transfers to Vanderbilt as an institution, and it took a proverbial come-to-Jesus moment for the staff after finishing the 2023 season at 2-10.

“So, all the while we had started building some systems to support transfers, both grad transfers and undergrad transfers, with partnership of our university. That takes time. So, right around the winter of December ’23 to January ’24, all those things kind of clicked into place. That’s what allowed us to swap out some of our roster. Some of the players we had retained, some of the ones that we had recruited into the program that really weren’t meant for the mission,” Lea said. “And we did that and were able to go out and find guys that were able to build the top end of our depth chart and help with the competitive nature of our team because we had NIL resources in addition to the ability to actually bring transfers in and get them enrolled.”

In that time, one transfer player had an outsized impact on Vanderbilt. That’s quarterback Diego Pavia. In his two seasons with the program, he’s become a legend, upsetting Alabama in 2024 and now becoming a bona fide Heisman contender.

A native of Nashville who played for Vanderbilt, there are very few coaches in the sport as passionate about the Commodores as Lea. He went there with a plan to completely rebuild the program. That was going to be about developing players and building strong, foundational relationships. In other words, he wanted to stamp the program with his culture. That’s something he feels he succeeded in, even if the roster construction wasn’t there.

“So, the timing of that had to do with the initial blueprint for what the program was going to be, the need for us to pivot. Then to find resources because that engine wasn’t inevitable here. It was something that we had to work to do, as well as build the partnerships on campus,” Lea said.

“What we did in foundation when you ask about the culture, it’s a belief of mine that with all the suffering and sacrifice that is involved in building a football program, this is kind of in its foundation a human endeavor. So, human connection is so important. This has been true for me as a coach for my entire career, and while we weren’t participating in portal or NIL our first few years here, our transaction was human connection. We spent time on the relationship and calling guys into a level of sacrifice for one another.”

None of this was necessarily easy for Lea to do. It was a learning process for him too as a first time head coach. He learned, made mistakes, and is now better off for it in how he’s built the program.

“I think I’ve become important in that for the willingness to reveal myself and who I am,” Lea said. “To not have my guard up, be accessible to the people in this program, both staff members and players. But then that has to ripple throughout. So, we all make the choices to be seen and to belong, and to care for one another. We were so founded in that. I think once we started to participate in the transfer process, we never lost our soul.”

Clark Lea arrived at Vanderbilt in 2021. At that point, the program hadn’t made a bowl since 2018. Their last time finishing ranked in the AP Top 25 was 2013. That’s before considering that they haven’t had a conference championship since 1923, and have never won a New Year’s Six bowl. Now, the Commodores sit at 7-1 and are ranked ninth in the country. They’re just as real a threat to win the SEC and make a postseason run as anyone.

“That’s remained the focal point of our program,” Lea said. “It’s not the money, it’s not the wins. It’s actually the care for one another. We say relatedness is our edge. That’s something you can’t just put on your wall. That has to be a practice. So, I believe that to be the combination of things that have allowed us to find these breakthroughs. So much of it kind of surfaced in ’24 but so much of it was kind of our beginning and part of our foundation.”

This week, Clark Lea, Diego Pavia, and the rest of the Commodores are going to look to keep the good times going. They’ll head to Austin on November 1st to take on the Texas Longhorns. Once again, it’s a chance to add a marquee win in 2025.