Column: Time For the Mentee to Take Down the Mentor?

NASHVILLE—-Brian Kelly knew that if he let this happen one more time, that he’d likely be out of a job. There was no world in which he could let Notre Dame go 4-8 again. He had to make significant changes.

Kelly’s first item on his to-do list was to make sure his program emphasized building from the inside out. He had a talented quarterback in DeShone Kizer, but his offensive line left plenty to be desired in 2016. It was a similar story for Notre Dame’s defense before Kelly opted to part ways with defensive coordinator Brian Van Gorder.

The then Notre Dame head coach hired Mike Elko to replace Van Gorder. Elko was on board with Kelly’s efforts to hone in on building a more physical football team. As a result, the pair agreed on plucking Wake Forest linebackers coach Clark Lea to work in the same role.

Lea was a representation of the type of coach Kelly wanted to be like at that point. The Notre Dame head coach’s offseason reflection led him to believe he was too harsh at times and needed to find more times to embrace a mellower posture like the one Lea had.

At season’s end, Elko bolted for the defensive coordinator job at Texas A&M under then head coach Jimbo Fisher and subsequently opened the door for Lea to take over his role in South Bend.

In the three seasons that Kelly and Lea partnered to revitalize Notre Dame’s defense, they went to two College Football Playoffs. It was Lea’s biggest coaching break to that point and set him up to be the favorite once the Vanderbilt head coaching job opened up after the Commodores’ 0-9 season in 2020.

Five years and a world of change later, Lea has a chance to bolster his rèsumè again as Kelly’s LSU team rolls in to Nashville. A Lea win would mean a top 10 victory for Vanderbilt, a statement and a mentee over mentor win.

“He knows a lot about my quirks and probably a lot more about my limitations than I may even know,” Lea said. “He gave me the opportunity and helped me grow. All these relationships are meaningful. Obviously I wouldn’t be here without Coach Kelly.”

The storyline writes itself in regard to Lea and Kelly, but the Vanderbilt coach would be the first to say that this isn’t about him or proving he can knock off his mentor. This is about two teams with national title aspirations looking to find a way to fulfill them.

Kelly and Lea’s teams are each 5-1 with an opportunity to keep themselves in the College Football Playoff race with wins. It’d be a statement for whichever teams finds a way.

If LSU is the one to do it, it will have an impressive road win on the rèsumè and can prove that its offense is capable of taking it where it needs to go. If it’s Vanderbilt, it means a rare top 10 win that reinforces the validity of Lea’s build and gives the Commodores their first win against the Tigers since 1990.

Lose and your back is against the wall, but a win. That would put it in position to do some things.

“It’d mean a lot for this program, a lot for this team,” Vanderbilt running back Sedrick Alexander said. “I mean, we try to take it week by week. We want to go 1-0 each and every week. So for us to come out here and beat LSU would be great for our team and our university.”

Alexander says this Vanderbilt teams is “hungrier” as a result of coming off of a loss at Alabama in which it turned it over twice in the red zone. It will have to be sharper than that as it looks to knock off Kelly’s team.

It has to control the ball offensively, it’s got to put pressure on standout LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmier—as Lea says—and it’s got to do the things that cause defensive lineman Zaylin Wood to believe it can “shut out” LSU.

Here’s Vanderbilt’s chance to prove that it’s capable of doing the things that it’s said it’s capable of doing. It doesn’t need to shut anyone out, but if it wants to become a legitimate contender then it has to find a way to win against teams of this caliber. This is the standard that it’s set for itself, time for it to achieve its goals.

“It would mean the world to us,” Wood said of a potential win. “We've been working so hard ever since fall camp, since the spring. We’ve just been grinding, really just worried about it one game at a time. Beating LSU, obviously, would mean the world to us. You know, we just got to continue to continue to prep for this week and continue to get after it.”