Clark Lea reflects on the growth of Vanderbilt program since last year's Alabama win

The upset win for the Vanderbilt Commodores over the Alabama Crimson Tide last season was a seismic moment for that program, giving it one of its best wins ever. For head coach Clark Lea, it was proof that he had this program trending in the right direction.

A year later, Lea is set to lead Vanderbilt into Tuscaloosa to try and pull off yet another upset win. However, he knows he has a far different team now that has continued to grow since last year’s game. That’s true, whether the outside world sees it or not.

“We don’t expect anyone to see the goodness in what we’re doing, outside of the people that are in this room day-to-day,” Lea said. “And any level of success is a lag effect of investment. You guys have been around and you know where we’ve come from, and it hasn’t been overnight. I mean, God almighty, you know I can’t grow hair, but if I could, I promise you, it’d be gray at this point.”

Vanderbilt is the first head coaching job for Lea, who previously had several stops as a defensive coordinator. Still, it’s a job that mattered to him. A Nashville native who played at Vanderbilt, the program means a lot to him. That also made it a program he had a deep understanding of.

“There’s been a lot of effort put into this. A lot of learning and growth for me. As I’ve been able to learn and grow, the program has been able to learn and grow. I draw that parallel; I don’t hide from that. I think smart people figure stuff out,” Lea said. “And I don’t just the fact that we were trying to find our way early on, as we’re also trying to resuscitate a program, as we’re also trying to motivate a community, as we’re also trying to get the habits and behaviors of the team to align with some sort of result that we’re after. We had a long way to go.”

Lea inherited a program that had gone 3-18 combined in the two seasons before he got there. It would then be a slow build for him. That included going 2-10 twice in his first three seasons and not making a bowl until last season.

“There’s been a core group of people who have continuously invested who believed in this before there was external proof or proof in result,” Lea said. “And it’s that core group that has allowed for this to form through all the adversity and the challenge, while also accepting guys that have come from outside our program in the last two seasons to help expedite the process. And I think that’s what we’ve done in the last two years. We’ve sped up a little bit of that growth and so there’s transformation that’s that’s happened here and I go back and I say that transformation is a result of a group of special people that weren’t waiting for external signals or results to believe in something.”

Amid all of this, Lea needed belief in his Vanderbilt program and the vision they had for it. That’s not easy to have. At a program where success has been rare, it’s even harder to gain that confidence.

“You guys live in the world. I feel grateful because I think most people want to have a cynical view on these things. It’s just human nature to be skeptical. And there were people within our operation that were skeptical,” Lea said. “And those people needed to move on and we sped up growth as we allowed those people to move on and we accepted in people that saw the goodness in what we were doing and the belief in what we could be. That’s actually what I’m proud of and and that’s that’s why I have such a deep respect for what we have created here because it’s been misunderstood outside but it’s been kind of methodically and consistently built from within.”

Vanderbilt upset Alabama on October 5th of 2024. That actually snapped a two-game losing streak at the time. It vaulted Vanderbilt into a three-game winning streak on its way to a bowl game. Now, as the Commodores come into this game 5-0, nobody is overlooking Lea’s team.

“That’s also why I feel like it has a chance to sustain. This isn’t overnight. This has been a long process with a sound foundation, the right people doing the right things the right way,” Lea said. “And I’m grateful to have had the chance and the time to grow through the experience, but also to see it through.”