How Clark Lea has expanded the Vanderbilt football recruiting pipeline in Nashville

The Vanderbilt football roster Clark Lea took over in 2021 had just eight players from the Nashville area. Two years later, that number has doubled.

With Lea, a Nashville native, Vanderbilt alum and graduate of Montgomery Bell Academy, Nashville recruiting has been a priority and it's shown on the roster. The injection of local talent has been at all levels of the roster, from top players to walk-ons.

Entering the Commodores' game against Missouri on Saturday (3 p.m. CT, SEC Network), the local talent has showed. Wide receiver London Humphreys, from Christ Presbyterian Academy, is the team's third-leading receiver with 299 yards and three touchdowns. Linebacker Langston Patterson, also from CPA, is the team's third-leading tackler with 24 despite missing a game with injury, and his brother Kane is just behind him with 22 tackles. Bryan Longwell, a linebacker from Lipscomb Academy, has 12 tackles, and both Langston Patterson and Longwell have blocked punts on special teams. Though he was a Derek Mason recruit, defensive end Nate Clifton from Brentwood Academy has four tackles for loss and two sacks.

"We celebrate (local players' success)," Lea said. " ... We believed in the guys that we've recruited from this area. And we know there are more out there and I think one of our biggest challenges but also an important part of the early aspect of this build is to is to really shift the narrative that surrounds this program here locally, so people really understand what we're creating here and what we're building. And for the guys that have seen it and experienced it and chosen to be a part of it, for them to be here having success, I think paves the way for others to make the same choice."

Clark Lea's Nashville focus in Vanderbilt football recruiting

Lea's first full recruiting class in 2022 had three players from the Nashville area plus Kane Patterson, who transferred from Clemson. The 2023 class had four, including Longwell and Humphreys. The 2024 class so far has two commits from the area. Four of the eight Nashville players from Lea's first team in 2021 are still there, including Clifton and long snapper Wesley Schelling.

Ingle Martin, the coach at CPA and a former classmate of Lea's at MBA, said he doesn't think Mason ever came to his school when he was at Vanderbilt.

"I think he thought he could get better players from from California and Arizona and the places where he had been," Martin told The Tennessean.

Brian Lilly, the coach at James Lawson High School and former defensive coordinator at Brentwood Academy, said he had a good relationship with Mason, but felt that under Mason, Nashville-area players committed to Vanderbilt were more likely to flip to other schools. He sees a more focused effort from Lea's staff.

"(Offensive coordinator) Joey Lynch was at basketball games when he could, he was at the school," Lilly said. "He was there as much as he legally could be there. ... It wasn't like, Hey, let me do a fly by, it was a, Hey, he's here. And I think one because he has kids in the area too. That helped. He's here. But I think that what I've seen is the staff knows Nashville. That's the biggest thing is the staff knows Nashville. They're Nashville people. And they've made Nashville an emphasis for their recruiting efforts."

Although Vanderbilt (2-3) has struggled, Lilly believes that Lea's recruiting strategy has the program moving in the right direction and has made it more attractive for local players.

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Walk-on expansion

But where Lea's Nashville efforts have perhaps shown even more is in the expansion of the walk-on program. The 2023 team has five walk-ons from the metro area, four of which came in under Lea. While none play large roles, it's further evidence of Lea's renewed focus on Nashville players.

"I think they definitely make an emphasis on that because previously, it was hard for our guys," Lilly said. "We had talked with some people at Vandy. And at that point in time, it was hard for them to get Nashville walk-ons just because there's so much people that are in this area that were trying to come in. And so I think ... they've made an emphasis on having those players that qualified academically that maybe they don't have a scholarship for right now but they can work for it."

Most of the Nashville players Lea has recruited come from private schools, and that's true of both the scholarship players and walk-ons. Part of that may simply be that Lea has more connections in the private school world. Lilly said he doesn't believe that Lea favors private schools but rather that players from private schools are more likely to be attracted to Vanderbilt, which is itself a private school, due to the level of academics required.

Four of the 16 Nashville-area players on the roster come from public schools − Wesley Schelling from Pearl-Cohn, John Howse from Brentwood High, Ethan Crisp from Mt. Juliet and Jameson Wharton from Hendersonville.

With other programs like Tennessee, Ole Miss and Kentucky on the rise, the Commodores will still need to work hard to continue its Nashville recruiting pipeline, not to mention retain the players whose commitments they secure. But for now, Lea is off to a good start in keeping more local talent home.

Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vanderbilt football has more Nashville players under coach Clark Lea