Nick Saban sees change at Vanderbilt under Clark Lea

Clark Lea is bringing his much improved Vanderbilt team on the road to Tuscaloosa this weekend. In years past, this would be viewed as the most lopsided matchup the SEC could offer. While that still rings true across the board, Nick Saban knows this isn’t a usual Commodore team.

Saban spoke highly of the job Lea has done in Nashville during his press conference on Monday. He says Lea’s culture has been the biggest shift. It has led to a new level of buy-in that has helped the team establish itself early this season.

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“I think they’ve changed the whole culture of the program,” said Sabam. “Their players play really hard. They play with confidence. I think they believe in what they’re doing offensively, defensively, and on special teams. I think culture is the biggest thing you try to establish in a program.”

With a 3-1 start to the year, the Commodores are off to their best start since 2017. They handled business against Hawaii and Elon and earned a comeback win over the weekend against Northern Illinois. Besides some turnovers and some problems due to the weather, they competed well in their loss to Wake Forest as well. They’re still towards the back of the SEC pack, but improving on last year’s win total already through four games says a lot about the progress Lea has made with his program in year two.

Overall, Saban sees a more experienced team that has some newfound confidence. While Alabama will be heavily favored against them this weekend, he recognizes they present a challenge just like every team the Tide will face in conference play.

“(Vanderbilt’s) got some pretty good players. They’ve got some experienced players that are back from a year ago. They’ve got better skill guys than they normally have, better quarterbacks,” Saban said. “(Lea and his staff) are doing a really, really good job of coaching them and they’ve got really challenging systems to defend against.”

Vanderbilt still has yet to win an SEC game since 2019. Getting it this weekend would mean they won the shocker of the 2022 season. While they may not get it, though, they can at least try and compete better than they have against the conference in years past. Doing so in the SEC’s ‘Title Town’ would speak volumes about where Lea has Vandy and what they can do moving forward.