“I think it’s important to celebrate.' How Clark Lea, Vanderbilt Football Increased Returning Production in 2025

The first few weeks of Vanderbilt’s 2025 offseason were strangely quiet. 

In the weeks that Vanderbilt fans generally had to say goodbye to a few starters, players cleaned out their lockers and the discussion of Vanderbilt becoming a pseudo minor-league affiliate for other schools in its conference ramped up, the tune was different. 

Just one Vanderbilt starter entered the transfer portal in the winter window while only one additional one did in the spring window. Everyone else who didn’t graduate was back. 

“That’s really important,” Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea told Vandy on SI. “I think it’s important to celebrate the fact that even a year ago we were not retaining the team the same way we were able to retain this one.” 

After Vanderbilt’s 2-10 season in 2023, it lost seven opening-day starters to the portal as well as standout receiver London Humphreys and standout safety Savion Riley. It had players creating controversy on their way out of town. It was a mess. 

Contrast that with its 2024 offseason–in which it had multiple depth pieces that entered the transfer portal in pursuit of new opportunities stay with the program through the bowl game and play meaningful snaps in it–and it feels like tangible evidence of the strides that the program had made since the previous portal cycle. 

Perhaps a better example of its progress is its 14 returning starters. Vanderbilt returns 78% of its returning offensive production and 77% of its returning defensive production from last season’s 7-6 team. That’s among the highest level of returning production in the country. 

A season ago, Vanderbilt’s culture and financial resources weren’t ample enough to convince many of its mainstays that staying was a worthwhile opportunity. Both appeared to be improved this past winter. 

“It’s a combination of both,” Lea said. “We have had people step up and step up and obviously that starts with our chancellor and athletic director, their vision becomes our ability to reach and we’re fortunate to have their support. The other part of this is that we’ve curated an environment here where players enjoy being a part of it and there’s a sense of belonging and connection.” 

Vanderbilt has stepped its resources up significantly since a winter ago–when it likely couldn’t have matched many NIL deals for standout players–but it likely would’ve been outbid for a few of the players that it returned had they gone on the open market. 

Lea notes the connection his group of returners has with each other and his coaching staff, but you’ve gotta have more than that. It appears Vanderbilt does at this point. Their guys saw the jump they made in 2024 and have internalized what it could mean.

“The most exciting part to me is the amount of guys we were able to get back because they believe we can take this further,” Lea said. “They saw the last year as a starting point, not a finish point and that way there’s an alignment in mentality as we look to attack this fall.”