Clark Lea believes House settlement is a first step in rosters not being poached

The recent House settlement is going to have a big impact on college football as a whole. For Vanderbilt Commodores head coach Clark Lea, the hope is that this is a step forward in keeping rosters from being poached.

Lea explained at SEC spring meetings that the House settlement is something that should give college sports a foundation to build on. Within that, he hopes that college sports have a chance to find more stability moving forward.

“The settlement is a first step,” Clark Lea said. “I think it’s a big rock, right, a big rock that then gives room for smaller rocks and that’s going to become where the details establish our course forward. So, employment isn’t a part of this settlement. That hasn’t been addressed in it, and I know the commissioner [Greg Sankey] spoke on this yesterday. That’s not a place that I’ll go because that’s something that’s being handled at leadership levels.”

The House settlement came from an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA over NIL rules that didn’t allow athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness prior to 2021. Along with back pay, it opened up a revenue-sharing model that will have schools share money with athletes.

Player movement has been made much easier by the new transfer rules. That, alongside changes like NIL being allowed, has made for plenty of players going from one school to another for a multitude of reasons. It’s a change that has become a major challenge for coaches to deal with when it comes to building rosters. However, the House settlement could again change how things work in that regard.

“I think, ultimately, we all want something that gives us an ability to service the players and the teams that we have. This is not about convenience for me or convenience for coaches. It’s about an ability to deliver an experience that, over time, can be life-changing and transformative. And we don’t know the long-term ripple effects of the changes that have already taken place. We’ll find those out in the next five to 10 years as we see the ripple of some guys that have gone to four different schools. There will be success stories that come of that and there will also be stories of people that didn’t develop because they were hopping from lily pad to lily pad on the top of the pond and never dove in and actually took the plunge and developed,” Lea said.

“So, to answer your question, I think the first step is this settlement. I think everything that comes after is what’s going to give us the guardrails to do the things we need to do in service of the student-athlete.”

For Clark Lea, the hope is that the House settlement offers more stability and from there the ability to better retain athletes within the Vanderbilt football program. At the same time, in the wake of the House settlement, there are still plenty of questions that need answers in the coming years.