"It's Important That I Fight For My Team," Inside Vanderbilt Football's CFP Argument

NASHVILLE—The usually polite and respectful Clark Lea and Candice Storey Lee didn’t quite come swinging when they took the podium in Vanderbilt football’s team room on Monday afternoon, but it was as close as they’ve been throughout their Vanderbilt careers.

Somewhere inside, the Vanderbilt head coach and athletic director likely know they’re fighting an uphill battle to be included in the College Football Playoff. As of today, the Commodores are ranked No. 14 in the CFP rankings and will be re-evaluated one final time on Tuesday night ahead of Selection Sunday. Lea’s team made a statement with a 45-24 win over Tennessee at Neyland Stadium in its final game, but now all it can do is hope to reason with the College Football Playoff committee as it hopes to jump a few spots.

Storey Lee and Lea seemingly called a press conference on Monday afternoon with the intention of lobbying to the committee in regard to the strength of its resume and its case for an inclusion in the field. Within the first minute of Lea’s press conference, he passively voiced his displeasure with the committee by promoting the idea that his team would benefit from the committee evaluating teams results blindly as well as the notion that the selection process “is not about narratives and stories, it's about the data.”

Lea has heard the idea that his program has been hampered by LSU, South Carolina and Missouri–all of which were ranked in the AP Top 15 when Vanderbilt knocked them off–dropping out of the CFP committee’s top 25 rankings, but believes there’s context missing that undermines what his team has done within it.

“What you notice is that part of the reason those teams have fallen off is because I don’t think that we were respected at the level we should have been respected, the quality of team we are,” Lea said. “I think some of those teams were discounted because they lost to Vanderbilt. Well, Vanderbilt’s got a damn good football team.”

Nov 29, 2025; Knoxville, Tennessee, USA; Vanderbilt Commodores head coach Clark Lea celebrates with his team after a game against the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-Imagn Images | Randy Sartin-Imagn Images

Vanderbilt entered the season unranked despite returning 77% of its offensive production–including star quarterback Diego Pavia and star tight end Eli Stowers–and 78% of its defensive production. Now, it believes that it’s paying the price for the perception that surrounded it in the preseason as well as the program’s past that has included perennial losing.

This Vanderbilt team is 10-2 and has won its final three games behind an explosive offense. Lea also believes that a laundry list of data works in its favor, too. The Vanderbilt coach was intentional about Vanderbilt’s strength of record being slotted in at 11th in the country by ESPN, its point differential being third in the SEC, it being ranked fifth in strength of schedule, Vanderbilt being 10-2 against the spread and the idea that its two losses came against teams that have a combined 19-5 record. Lea and Storey Lee can’t understand why a resume like that won’t result in a playoff berth. It appears as if they don’t think it’s about the resume–which Vanderbilt sent out in a six-page document on Monday night.

“We think data should beat bias every day,” Storey Lee said. “People had no expectations, clearly, based on the rankings of what that group could do at that time. Preseason it’s just about what you think of a brant or what you assume. There’s no body of work that challenges that opinion. So rather than complain about that, we said ‘let’s put together a body of work that challenges that opinion,’ and we did. We’ve had to overcome–sort of behind the eight ball anyway at the start. We don’t think we should have to overcome it anymore because there is now data that beats opinions.”

Storey Lee says that this program is talking and lobbying these days because it feels as if it has a compelling story to tell and that the facts, metrics back up the ideas that she and Lea are trying to promote these days. Perhaps it’s a long shot, but the Vanderbilt athletic director says that the idea of humans choosing the bracket introduces a level of subjectivity into the decision making process that otherwise wouldn’t be applicable.

The Vanderbilt athletic director says that it’s a “fact” that her program should be playing in the 12-team field when this is all said and done, which has propelled her to make its case publicly. Lea said the objective of his Monday press conference was also to make a statement to the committee.

“It’s important that I fight for my team,” Lea said. “This group is as committed as any group that I’ve been around and I would love to see that taken into the playoff stage because I think we could do some damage there and I hope the human element is paying attention to what I believe is a compelling argument for a really good football team.”