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Clark Lea changes course on opinion of Nick Saban Vanderbilt comments: 'It does piss me off'

IMG_0985by:Griffin McVeigh•10/07/24•

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© Petre Thomas

Nick Saban the media member has provided insightful analysis to the college football world but one of his comments backfired on Saturday. Saban had previously said everywhere in the SEC was tough to play, except Vanderbilt — a clip the Commodores played on their big screen after upsetting Alabama.

“The only place that’s not hard to play in the SEC is Vanderbilt.”

Earlier on Monday, Clark Lea declared he had not seen Saban’s comments leading into the game but did not have an opinion on them. His course changed later in the day with Lea saying “It does piss me off” — although, he does recognize the industry Saban is now in, working for ESPN College GameDay.

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“Certainly, I don’t appreciate that being said, and I don’t appreciate any time that our program is the butt of the joke, but it’s our job to build something that’s dangerous, and that’s what we’re doing,” Lea said. “And I think the world found that out on Saturday…

“Coach has so much wisdom, and I think in his role now, he probably is responsible for more sound bites than he would like to or that he’s comfortable with, but I got a ton of respect for him. I don’t appreciate what he said.”

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Lea admits if he knew what Saban said earlier, he would have brought it to the team’s attention before the Alabama game. But this was not the first negative comment made about the Vanderbilt program and even after Saturday’s win, will not be the last. Focusing on the outside noise is not at the top of Lea’s agenda moving forward.

“I didn’t hear about it before. I certainly would have put that in front of the team had I. I certainly would have brought that to everyone’s attention, and I’m sure they all saw it, the team did. There’s so many people out there that want to say something about Vanderbilt. We can’t sit here and try to fight everyone that has an opinion or wants to be negative towards our program. Like, we’re going to focus on what we do and how we do it, and over time, we’re going to earn the respect of the people outside.”