Exclusive: Clark Lea outlines Vanderbilt football's path to sustainable success

A year ago, most Alabama players likely didn’t know who Vanderbilt’s quarterback was or when the two teams would match up. A year later, its star receiver sat on a podcast and explained that the Crimson Tide are going to “kill an ant with a sledgehammer” when they play Vanderbilt. 

If Clark Lea’s team couldn’t tell before then, they can tell now that whenever they walk on to the turf at FirstBank Stadium on Saturdays they won’t be overlooked anymore. This group isn’t catching anyone off guard anymore, but that’s okay by its head coach. 

“The goal for a coach is that every year you make the job a little harder,” Lea told Vandy on SI, “You elevate expectations and you also understand that people are gonna know more about you and about what makes you tough and I see that as progress.”

What Vanderbilt did a year ago in its 7-6 season–which ended with a Birmingham Bowl win over Georgia Tech and followed a 2-10 season the year before–marked one of college football’s most drastic turnarounds. Now it’s time for Lea to sustain what he’s built in the first place. 

The fifth-year Vanderbilt head coach looks back on Vanderbilt’s eight one-score games last season–in which his team went 4-4–as an indicator that it was “as close to 2-10 as we are 10-2 and that we have to make the things happen that we want to happen.” 

A few more interceptions here or there and a few less breaks, and Lea’s program has a different tune surrounding it heading into 2025. In that case, Diego Pavia likely isn’t doing national podcast hits. Perhaps if that had happened, Vanderbilt doesn’t pick up some of the transfers that it did. The story went right for Vanderbilt in 2024, but Lea believes it has to move forward knowing that it can all be stripped away with a smidge of complacency. 

“I think the awareness of it all is so important as we set our course in preparation,” Lea said. “There’s less margin for error, there’s a need for our strength to be at its strength for every game this fall and if we can do that then we feel like we can win every game we play and if we can’t, we leave it to chance.” 

Vanderbilt got a taste of what things could be like if it does leave things to chance in its 36-32 loss to Georgia State last season. That game wasn’t lost due to a lack of ability, it was more directly attributable to a lack of focus and preparation. 

The 2024 iteration of Lea’s team was capable of beating anyone on its best day and losing to just about anyone on its worst day as a result of its ball-control scheme that focuses on eating the clock and working to control the game. Vanderbilt led the country with just seven total turnovers throughout the course of the season and threw just four interceptions. 

Those numbers propelled Vanderbilt to the season it had, but Lea wants to insulate his team of the risks that come along with a number like that and the rarity of it. 

“The levels we protected the ball last year, I don’t know that they are realistic,” Lea said. “Obviously the quarterback made good decisions and ball security is something we preach, but our lack of giveaways, I don’t know that you can rely on that every year. We have to win the turnover margin, we have to do a better job defensively of attacking the ball and creating more turnovers and giving the offense a little more room for error.” 

Despite being first in its amount of giveaways, Vanderbilt was tied for the 18th-best turnover margin in the country and was 77th in the total number of turnovers that it forced. Perhaps a more sustainable route to wins and losses sees the number of turnovers forced go up while the number of turnovers the Vanderbilt offense gives away regresses to the mean. 

The path also involves a different offensive look in some ways. Lea often praised Vanderbilt’s ability to convert in third-down situations and in pressure situations as well as its ability to string together long, game-changing drives. A season that requires less of each of those would go a long way for Lea’s program’s ability to build this thing long term. 

“We were so methodical on our drives, which we want to be, but we have to find plays to connect on our shot plays and to get yards and chunks and score touchdowns. That includes the run game. We were consistent, but we played in a lot of high-pressure downs. We were in the conversion downs a bunch offensively.” 

For as good as Vanderbilt was on third down offensively, it was bad in that category defensively. Lea’s defense was 131st out of 134 teams in third down conversion rate. Lea believes that if that number was “cut in half,” his team would “find a couple more wins.”

Vanderbilt was excellent in the margins in 2024, but perhaps 2025 can provide bigger ones that allow it to turn it over a time or two while still having a chance to win. Perhaps that could be its path to succeeding when its stars depart, as well. 

“The balance for winning and losing last year was so small,” Lea said. “Us hitting those numbers, the turnovers in particular, we can’t rely on that year in, year out and think that’s gonna be a formula of success. Strengthening performance in those areas where we’re more explosive offensively and where we’re generating stops at a higher rate defensively, those things will help strengthen our overall team performance.”