Anonymous coach says Vanderbilt is 'getting better'

For a long time now, Vanderbilt has struggled to consistently field a good football team. There are numerous factors that have gone into this struggle, which have made the rebuilding job done by head coach Clark Lea that much harder and more impressive.

In 2021, Lea’s Vanderbilt team was just 2-10 with a loss to FCS East Tennessee State. In 2022, the Commodores improved to 5-7, barely missing a bowl game with two SEC East wins. Clearly, Vanderbilt is improving under Clark Lea. However, as one anonymous coach explained to Athlon, it’s important to be realistic.

“They’re getting better, but you have to be realistic,” the coach said. “Are they as good a team as a roster that beats Florida and Kentucky? No, but they hung in long enough to win those games, and they’re so much better than that first season team. They took such a huge jump from Year 1 to Year 2 [under Clark Lea], but they’re going to taper off because of the league.”

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“They want to fight you. That’s the sign of a good culture, when you come in to play a two- or three-win team, and they scrap for four quarters and play hard.”

Vanderbilt opens up its 2023 season with winnable games against Hawaii and Alabama A&M at home. Then, the Commodores will hit the road for games at Wake Forest and UNLV. After that, Vanderbilt will play its SEC schedule, hoping to make a bowl game for the first time since 2018.

Clark Lea on why Vanderbilt is okay being different

While sitting down with On3, Clark Lea explained why he’s okay with being different and is confident in how Vanderbilt is approaching its rebuild in the SEC.

“Very few people understand what we’re doing. Honestly, I think very few people care to look at what we’re doing,” Lea said. “People that pay attention understand what I meant when I said that. They understand we’re taking actions every day to produce that. … This is about a program design. It’s about a vision of success for Vanderbilt. It’s about a holistic experience that I feel very passionately about, very strongly about.” 

Lea added that Vanderbilt is a developmental program and that the team needs to stay the course do what’s right for the program.

“We won’t compromise what we want long-term in what we want right now in our program. I think that’s important because part of our design is about compounding results,” Lea said. 

“Compounding decisions, actions and behaviors. I wasn’t surprised by the backlash, but it’s important for me as the leader of our program to carry that message every single day. I’m not going to back down from that based on what other people feel about it because I owe it to the people in our building to stay true to that vision because that’s the position I’m in.”