Clark Lea knows full well Vanderbilt football 'has not been good enough' | Estes
The Dores are still open. From meetings to practice to the head coach’s office, I’m hanging out with Vanderbilt football during a bye week. What’s startling is — it wasn’t my idea.
Clark Lea wanted to talk. He wanted you to hear it.
It's one thing for a coach to do that when all is well. Quite another when he has lost six in a row by a margin of nearly 16 points a game.
You've gotta admire that. Such accountability is rare in big-time coaching. It's an example of why plenty of football people, myself included, have long respected Lea and the difficult role he embraces at his alma mater.
But esteem doesn't guarantee success. Like anywhere in this sport, it won't matter unless validated sooner or later by results. As Year 3 of Lea’s tenure limps toward an unsatisfying conclusion, "sooner" keeps slipping further into the rearview, and there’s so much yet to be done.
“The fans should be frustrated,” he tells me, “because they want it now, and I expect them to want it now . . . I understand impatience. Because we’re impatient. We have to balance impatience with the discipline to believe in what we’re doing and to stay the course in our approach.”
For Vanderbilt football fans, ultimately, there isn’t much Lea could do to let them down.
Because they’re already standing on the ground.
It's not a peaceful, easy feeling inside the building. There’s a bitterness that comes with proving doubters right, especially when there are so many. Among the few who truly believed these Commodores would contradict their naysayers in 2023, many of them are in these hallways, full of bruised egos and players, coaches and staffers moving together toward a vision that can't be seen because it still doesn't exist.
“You’re working on something that really hasn’t ever been,” Lea says. “We’re trying to build a sustained winning program at Vanderbilt. I believe that to take a lot from the head coach.”
I'd believe that, too. Won't make it easier to accomplish, though.
There's no quick fix at Vanderbilt
With players in front of him seated at desks and taking notes, Vanderbilt defensive coordinator Nick Howell is teaching. Today’s lesson is about effort. To illustrate, he shows a clip of a hard-nosed linebacker on another team — a team the Commodores won’t even be playing — sprinting for a tackle, wrecking-ball style.
The players watch and respond audibly.
“When you show a clip and people say, ‘Damn,’ that’s how you know it’s total effort,” Howell tells them.
Moments later, speaking to a smaller group of safeties, Howell is mid-thought when he stops to find a marker. He writes “me” and “us” and “them” on a dry-erase board. The point he’s making as he circles back to each word is the difference between those players who know only their own assignments (me) versus grasping the defense as a whole (us), and how it takes the latter group to work together to stop an opponent (them).
When Lea tells me later that the Commodores, defensively, are presently “focused on teaching, learning and training,” that’s what he means.
It’s not where they want to be or where they expected to be, but it’s where they are. Vanderbilt's defense is a work in progress. It hasn’t been healthy since the start of fall practices. Injuries to key players have done no favors. Replacements have had to grow quickly.
Thus, Vanderbilt ranks No. 116 out of 130 FBS teams in total defense and scoring defense. It hasn’t been just the pass or run that's causing trouble. It has been both. And that “has not been good enough,” Lea says. “Or I should say, has not been consistent enough.”
That’s not to excuse the offense, he’s quick to add, noting turnovers and a lack of success on third downs. We’ll get back to that. But the Commodores have scored at least 20 points in three of four SEC games. They’ve allowed at least 37 points in all four.
Struggles on that side of the ball must be particularly galling for Lea, given that he’s a defensive coach. As Notre Dame's D-coordinator, he once was one of the nation’s top assistants.
But he has never assigned himself the role of chief defensive play-caller as Vanderbilt’s coach. And he won’t do that.
“I know how to do the defensive coordinator job. I’m learning how to do this job, and I’m learning how to do it effectively,” Lea says. “And I say (it) that way, because for me to spend 80 to 100 hours a week as a defensive coordinator never seemed like a winning formula for me to become a really, really good head coach. . . .
“I don’t believe in thinking somehow that I’ve got the answer in my pocket and all I need to do is just assign that title to me. I think it’s way more about being collaborative and getting a staff on the same page to see things the same way. I feel like we’re working towards that and we’re getting closer to that. But I just don’t see a quick fix.”
'The vision is still there'
Again, it’s not just Vanderbilt's defense. Outside of special teams (note that Vandy is No. 1 nationally in net punting) and the passing offense (43th nationally), not much else has been good enough through eight games. We've talked about the defensive stats, but a decline in rushing offense — from 58th last season to No. 126 — stands out, too. The Commodores can throw, but they can't run, and that hasn’t made sense with experience returning on the offensive line.
After wins in the first two weeks, this team's most tangible progress has taken the form of watered-down moral victories. As in, this past Saturday’s 37-20 defeat to top-ranked Georgia wasn’t as ugly as it could have been.
At 2-6, the Commodores can all but shelve hopes for a bowl trip. They’ll be underdogs in all four remaining games. Although it’s not inconceivable an upset could be out there against Ole Miss, Auburn, South Carolina or Tennessee, beating any of the above would be a surprise. The likelihood of 2-10 is staring them in the eyes.
That’s not a new feeling at Vanderbilt, of course. If anything, it carries a strong smell of “Same ol’ Vandy,” which is the exact stench of hopelessness that Lea has sought to expel from the program.
After a strong 5-7 finish last season, highlighted by wins over Kentucky and Florida, this year has been a disappointment.
Should injuries to key defensive players and quarterback AJ Swann factor into that midseason assessment? How about the fact that UNLV is 5-1? Or that Missouri is better than expected? Or that Florida whipped Tennessee and that Kentucky whipped Florida?
Nah, not really.
And here's why:
“What I felt heading into the season was that this is the most talented team that we’ve had,” Lea says. “I still feel that way. And that our margins are razor-thin, and I still feel that way. Right now, we’re playing at a level that’s putting us three scores behind our SEC competition.
“We can certainly eat into that and certainly put ourselves in position to win some games here late. But it all comes down to how we play.”
Report Card: We graded Vanderbilt football after 2-6 start
Looking ahead: 3 things Vanderbilt football needs to do with a week off and Ole Miss next
While Lea undoubtedly has faced challenges with a lack of talent and depth on the roster he inherited, this season has been the first time Vanderbilt has underachieved on his watch. Even worse in this case, because the Commodores have fallen short of their own expectations.
"Where we want to be and where we are, there’s just this space," he says. "There’s a gap there. . . . You have to be able to see where you are honestly and evaluate performance honestly and not get thrown off by the feelings and emotions that you have based off the fact that we’re not 6-2 right now. Which there was a world where that was our expectation — to come in and play in competitive games and win."
Vanderbilt in 2023 hasn't been close in a weaker-than-usual SEC. That's on the Commodores.
Lea doesn’t hesitate to say so, but it's a fine line between disappointment and greater discouragement. Between exuding confidence in long-term plans for the team’s future ("We believe — and I would say a maniacal belief — in what we’re doing here") without sugarcoating the present. He isn't overreacting emotionally in the moment, he says, but he's also using words like “everything on the table” in looking to evaluations after the season.
“We’re getting rocked around a little bit,” Lea says. “And it is painful. And it is frustrating. And there are emotions attached to that. But if you believe in what you’re doing, you don’t then wad it up and throw it out. . . .
"The vision is still there. We’ve just got to fight for it.”
Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vanderbilt football: Clark Lea says 'fans should be frustrated'
