How Clark Lea Will Remember the 2025 Vanderbilt Football Team

TAMPA—It only took around two minutes for Clark Lea to have to fight back tears while standing at the podium in the tunnel of Raymond James Stadium. The Vanderbilt head coach wasn’t discouraged or angry, but he was sad.

Lea used the final moments of his press conference to express confidence in the idea that his program has a positive trajectory, but he had to let some emotions out before returning to a place where he could market his program. That’s who Lea is and that’s what this situation warranted.

“It’s the end,” Lea said as he described the reason for his emotions. “The first 10-win season in program history. I mean, that’s the best team in Vanderbilt football history. I want to make sure that these guys are proud of that, despite how we feel. It will resolve, we will get past it and when we’re past it we’ll be left with something we can be really proud of.”

The way this thing ended could tint the perception of the body of work that Lea’s team has put together throughout the fifth year of his tenure, but he doesn’t want that to be the case. Lea would rather those within his program recognize their win over No. 1 Alabama, 10-win season and historic turnaround rather than what may stick in their minds after Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday wasn’t about history, or destiny or fate. It was more about hurt, poor execution down the stretch and a daze that came with the idea that the best season in program history didn’t end in a College Football Playoff or a Heisman Trophy.

When it had all ended, Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia put his hands up to acknowledge the crowd, ran over to give away a piece of equipment and faded into the tunnel. That was the last sight of the star quarterback in a Vanderbilt uniform.

The last sight of Vanderbilt tight end Eli Stowers was fitting for the understated tight end. Stowers was in sweats and eerily walked off the field for the final time in his jersey. Vanderbilt receiver Richie Hoskins, Vanderbilt safety Dontae Carter and defensive lineman Josh Singh were more outwardly emotional. Lea isn’t discouraging that emotion, but wants his players to consider the bigger picture of things once this wears off.

“That doesn't take anything away from that group of players and that coaching staff and that support staff. What they poured into this, were disappointed, but my emotion right now has nothing to do with that,” Lea said. “This team has set a new bar for the program, and I'm gonna miss those guys. And luckily, we we'll bring enough of them back to keep building, and we'll find others to pull in and aim for more. And this group has such a high bar for us.”

Vanderbilt receiver Junior Sherrill told Vandy on SI that Vanderbilt fell short of “some things” that it had initially set out to do, but.

“The standard is very high in this program,” Sherrill said, “So we have no choice but to match it. So I feel like all the production that we did, we can’t do nothing but keep this train rolling, maybe even more.”

Lea indicated in the aftermath of Wednesday’s game that he plans to be at Vanderbilt “long term” and that he’s “excited” for its build to continue.

As Lea boarded the passengers’ seat of a golf cart driven by a ReliaQuest Bowl official, allowed his youngest son to plop down in his lap and kept his composure as the driver stopped momentarily after initially speeding up, he was likely thinking all about what had just happened.

But, when time heals the pain that his group felt on Wednesday and he rids himself of the hard goodbyes that await him, he’ll get back to work on making this program a consistent winner. As he does so, he won’t forget the core that got his program to this point it’s at.

“We'll have some big shoes to fill, but that's part of the excitement of this,” Lea said. “We're gonna figure it out as we go. We'll have to change identity in some ways. We'll have to tweak some systems, but and we'll have to win games differently next year than we did this year, but again, that's the fun of it.”