Clark Lea Doesn't Have To Convince Anyone He Has Something in 2025, But He's Got To Prove It All Over Again

Atlanta–Clark Lea is as articulate and deliberate of a speaker as any SEC football coach, but him walking into SEC Media Days as more than just a messenger for his program’s vision would mean that something’s gone terribly wrong.

The Vanderbilt head coach may get up on the podium in front of a conference room of reporters with a scripted out opening statement to begin his press conference, but if he’s not focused first and foremost on football then he believes his priorities aren’t in the right place.

“I don’t see myself as a salesman,” Lea said to a group of local media members prior to his turn on the podium at Media Days. “Obviously when you win, the program markets itself.”

Lea is interested in the public perception surrounding his program and what the finances surrounding it look like, but if he’s not winning then he knows those things are futile. He knows that winning a press conference in August–or November–isn’t going to be the difference in his perception if his program isn’t getting the job done.

If Vanderbilt had backed up its 2-10 2024 season with another one in 2025, Lea’s every word likely would’ve been taken and ran with as he took the podium on Monday like it was that season as his “gives us the best chance to punt” remark towards Ken Seals made its rounds. Instead, everyone who tuned in viewed Lea at face value.

That’s the luxury you get when you do what Lea’s program did in 2025. It’s not only that the audience pays your program mind, it’s that they give it the benefit of the doubt when things are up for interpretation.

It appears as if Lea’s got that at this point and has seen a shift within his fanbase. There’s no longer the level of apathy there was within it. Whether Vanderbilt wins or loses, its fans will care. That’s a barometer of progress for Lea and his program. What he’s wanted since he initially took the Vanderbilt job has finally come to fruition. His blueprint for how he’s upgraded his fanbase’s investment isn’t any different than how he believed it had to be accomplished.

“When we have success, inevitably more attention is being paid,” Lea said. “People care about Vanderbilt football right now and the number of fans I see day-to-day that are grateful for the fact that it’s fun again–and I mean part of the fun is having something at stake and feeling like there are chips on the table and we have something to fight for.”

In some ways, it lines up as well as it ever has in recent memory for Lea’s program. It returns 78% of its offensive production–including starting quarterback Diego Pavia and preseason first-team All-American Eli Stowers–as well as 77% of its defensive production.

Pavia, Stowers and a number of Vanderbilt starters will inevitably depart from the program after the 2025 season, which makes what happens on the field that much more important. It’s a do or die year with expectations as high as any in recent memory surrounding this program. But, that’s not everything.

“That doesn’t guarantee us anything,” Lea said. “It’s going to be hard this year like it’s hard every year. But, we believe in what we’ve built and I want to sustain this energy that surrounds our program. I want to elevate it because this is the course to sustain success and this is the course to find out what’s possible.”

Perhaps Lea doesn’t have to put on his marketing hat nowadays to persuade his fanbase that he’s got something going for his program, but he knows that it’s futile. For now people care about Vanderbilt football, though.

That matters. Time to embrace that, because it may not always be this way.