Clark Lea says key to team building in NIL, transfer portal era is to be 'heart forward with our guards down'

Vanderbilt football has never had many built-in advantage to assemble a football roster. Be it academic restrictions, a generally lackluster history of success or trying to overtake SEC leviathans, head coach Clark Lea has plenty of challenges to over come.

NIL and the transfer portal are just another two of them. Vanderbilt was notably not very active in the transfer portal this cycle — purposefully so — and is by no means an NIL powerhouse, despite dabbling like any Division I program.

But Lea’s antidote to all this is what it would’ve been anyways: Be vulnerable as a person and coach and get to know the players and coaches he’s working with.

“I just don’t believe the team is that much different and if you want to build a good team, there’s still certain fundamentals that you need to be executing on. And that starts with authentic relationships and being heart forward and coaching from a place of vulnerability where these guys get to know you,” Lea said during an extended interview in the Vanderbilt spring game broadcast. “And then demanding that, too, of our staff and our team. We want to be the most connected team in the country. We want to really carry with us, the brotherhood, to the field. And you have to be very intentional. I mean, everyone is going to talk about it, but that shows up in the way you interact day in and day out.”

The person Lea is holding most accountable to this standard is himself. He discussed what he’s learned about himself in the two-plus seasons he’s been the Vanderbilt head coach.

Lea had confidence in his ability to scheme Xs and Os, to build a roster to his liking, to instill some competitive fire in his roster. These were things he learned over the years as an assistant coach and eventually as the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame.

“But, I excelled in that role,” Lea said of being a coordinator. “This is a totally different world that I’m in. And I can’t deviate from the things that got me to this point, meaning I need to make sure this team knows who I am as a competitor and knows who I am as a teacher. And yet, I also have to be a great manager. And as I evolve and get better in my role, this team and this program’s going to evolve and get better, too.”

And for Lea, it’s all tied together. He’s confident in his football knowledge and that of his staff, which will surely keep getting honed and built on. But pairing that with a more seasoned hand at leading, cajoling and building trust can be the foundation of some long-term success that Vanderbilt has rarely had. And NIL and the transfer portal won’t have a whole lot to do with it.

“This goes back to how do we team build in an era of NIL and transfer portal,” Lea said. “I think we’ve gotta have our guards down. And we’ve gotta really let people in.”

It goes beyond football for Lea, too.

“You know, this week, we spent a lot of time on community. Obviously our Nashville community has been reeling after the Covenant School shooting last week. And then we had nine soldiers, part of the 101st Airborne, die in a training exercise, tragically. And it’s given us an opportunity to stand strong for our community and to dedicate ourselves to a purpose higher than just being a football team. And I think we’ve got to continue to search that way,” Lea said.

He continued: “But I think if we’re, again, heart forward with our guards down and really letting each other in, we’re going to build something special here. And that starts with me. My growth is the program’s growth. I think I’ve built a lot of trust here with this team and I’m excited to see where we can take it moving forward.”