It was a dream come true for Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea to take down then-No. 1 Alabama in Nashville on Oct. 5. Lea is now in his fourth season as the head coach of the Commodores and has brought this program back from the dead.
“That is the dream. That’s why I came here. That’s what I came here to do,” Lea said after the win. “That was special and something I’ll never forget.”
And the win seemed to mean a little more to Lea than others.
Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, Lea always seemed to have an emotional investment in the Music City, the place he called home. Playing baseball for Birmingham-Southern and Belmont and eventually football for Vanderbilt, Lea always seemed to be coming back home. So in 2021, when the Commodore football job opened up, he clutched it.
But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows on the coaching path for the now 42-year-old.
After college, Lea bounced around. He started as a graduate assistant for UCLA in 2006, then was a linebackers coach for South Dakota State, then went back to UCLA as a graduate assistant before being elevated to the linebacker coach for the Bruins in 2010. He would keep the title, but moved to Bowling Green, then Syracuse, then Wake Forest before he finally found somewhat of a home in South Bend, starting off as the linebacker coach for Notre Dame before being elevated to defensive coordinator in 2018. Then, a head coaching job three years later opened up in his hometown, so Lea ran for office and was elected as the 23rd head coach for Vanderbilt football.
Lea found little success in Nashville in his first three seasons trying to rebuild the program. Going 9–27 as a head coach and finishing last in the SEC every year, Lea needed to make a serious turnaround to keep his job for year four. He turned to then-New Mexico State’s offensive coordinator Tim Beck in the offseason where Beck would be hired in the same job for the Commodores. Beck brought over three coaches on the offense from Las Cruces, and the reigning Conference USA Offensive Player of the Year in quarterback Diego Pavia.
The offseason changes might have not only saved Lea’s job, but it also put the Commodores on the map. In a stunning week six upset, 2–2 Vanderbilt hosted No. 1 Alabama and stunned the Crimson Tide, winning 40-35.
“I love our university, I love our city, I love our program,” Lea said in the post-game press conference of the win against Alabama. “This is why I came back, it’s meant to be emotional because, again, I’ve bled a lot into this and it just feels great to be able to celebrate with the team that I love and care about, and I look forward to doing that more in the future.”
Now 5–2 and ranked for the first time since the James Franklin era, No. 25 Vanderbilt will meet No. 5 Texas for the first time in 96 years. Even though this will be the first time these two coaches meet as leaders of their respective programs, Lea isn’t a stranger to Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, and vice versa. In 2021, Sarkisian was the offensive coordinator at Alabama and Lea was the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame when the squads met on New Year’s Day in the Rose Bowl. Alabama won 31-14.
