At Vanderbilt, Clark Lea has done what couldn't be done | Estes

KNOXVILLE – For months, this has all been so different, yet never more than in this cramped hallway in the bowels of Neyland Stadium on Nov. 29.

That’s where the first 10-win team in Vanderbilt football history celebrated and smoked cigars in the same locker room where, four years earlier, players in those uniforms silently looked to their first-year coach with sad eyes, seeking perspective on a blowout loss to Tennessee in 2021.

Clark Lea looked back, and he talked about “rage.”

Rage at losing. Rage at being disrespected. Rage about being discounted and dismissed like Vanderbilt football had been for a very long time.

The prerequisite for change, Lea told that first Vandy team, was rage.

“And I'm not talking about being competitive,” Lea told them, “because the men in this room are competitive. That's not what we're here for. We're here to (expletive) win.”

Lea challenged his players. He described the road ahead. While difficult, it would not be for all of them, he said. “I know one thing,” Lea added in closing, “This is the last (expletive) time I feel like this, certainly, in this stadium.”

In the aftermath of Vanderbilt 45, Tennessee 24, it’s striking to think back and note how prophetic Lea’s words would become. The last part was all he got wrong. Vanderbilt did lose big at Tennessee, too, in 2023.

Not in 2025, though.

One day after the announcement of Lea’s contract extension to remain at Vanderbilt, the still-perfect coach for this school went out and beat Josh Heupel’s Tennessee for the first time, dominating the second half in a victory that chased orange-clad fans into parking lots long before the final whistle.

Vanderbilt’s players and fans and staff members celebrated exactly how Vanderbilt should celebrate a long-awaited moment of this magnitude. It has a 10-win season for the first time in its history. It’s under strong consideration for the College Football Playoff and the Heisman Trophy, with quarterback Diego Pavia likely to be a finalist in New York.

“Yes, I take moments to recognize how far we have come,” Lea said after beating the Vols. “For sure, in the next thought, it’s about where do we go next. But this is worth soaking in, because this will be the only time. This is the breakthrough moment, and it happens once. Everything after this becomes, ‘We hope to do it again or replicate it or move it a little bit further forward.’

“But this group of players and this coaching staff has now something that’s never been done in our program, and that’s really special.”

While most people in college football were breathlessly eyeing Mississippi to find out which school Lane Kiffin was going to choose to bless with his presence, you look at Lea.

You look at the wonderful job he has done in transforming the perception of Vanderbilt, and you can't help but appreciate the scene in Knoxville for him. Because you understand how much it meant to him.

There have been a lot of steps and NIL support and milestones, but what Lea has accomplished at his alma mater (with Pavia and offensive coaches Jerry Kill and Tim Beck on the staff) these past two seasons has been so staggering that it’s easy to forget how bleak things looked after the first three seasons.

Then, same as now, Lea opted to stay. Vanderbilt is where he wants to coach. Anyone who’d doubt that about Lea, they wouldn’t if they’d been in that locker room in Tennessee’s stadium in 2021.

Take Vanderbilt athletics director Candice Lee, for instance. She was there.

“I remember being in there,” she said, “and I remember looking at Team 1. And Clark's words were sincere.”

Lee continued …

“It's so important for people to know that this is what we set out to do,” she said. “It hasn't been easy. People have made fun of us. People have had all kinds of things to say, and we've stayed the course and been resilient in the face of some big ol' challenges. This year is about showing it was worth it.”

Lea is polished publicly. He comes across mild-mannered, and he is a nice guy. That rage he described, though, was real, and it has earned Vanderbilt moments like this special day in Knoxville.

Maybe the CFP awaits. Maybe not. If not, that’d be a shame, but it wouldn’t take away from how special this progression has been for anyone in Vanderbilt’s fan base. Anyone who’s ever been mocked or ashamed or just plain angry at how this program was instinctively treated as the weakling of the SEC.

FROM 2021: 36 hours with Vanderbilt football: Clark Lea, Tennessee and the search for one program's rage

To those people, your football coach was always one of you.

Clark Lea still is, too.

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at [email protected] and hang out with him on Bluesky @gentryestes.bsky.social

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Clark Lea has done what couldn't be done with Vanderbilt football