Exclusive: Inside Clinton Azubuike's Long, Challenging Road to Vanderbilt Football – Sports Illustrated

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NASHVILLE — Sitting in the stands of Wembley Stadium in London with his teammates from the United Kingdom’s NFL Academy, Clinton Azubuike watched as the Jacksonville Jaguars ran from the locker room out onto the field for an October 2023 matchup with the Atlanta Falcons.
It was a moment and a feeling Azubuike has never forgotten from the beginning stages of his football career. The adrenaline and energy he felt in the air that day was all he needed to confirm that pursuing a career in football is what he wanted to do with his life.
“We had the opportunity to go watch in person and it just felt different. When I saw the players come out of the locker room, at that moment, it was just I knew it’s what I wanted to do for sure,” Azubuike told Vandy On SI.
At the time, Azubuike — who was 20-years-old when he attended the NFL game in London — had only been playing football for a year. But despite his short playing experience, he had big aspirations of where he wanted to go.
Azubuike was born in Lagos, Nigeria in August 2003. At a young age, he moved to the United Kingdom. But when his mom moved to the United States, Azubuike moved back to Nigeria, where he started school.
While Azubuike did not grow up playing football, he did watch the NFL Draft with his dad every year. Watching the draft every year was more of a hobby than a spot he envisioned himself being in one day.
At the age of 18, Azubuike was first introduced to the idea of playing football. Growing up, he spent his time playing basketball with hopes of making a career on the basketball court. That was until his basketball coach at the time introduced him to a coach that gave him the opportunity to attend a combine tryout for NFL Africa.
The results from his combine tryout turned out well. So well that he was given the opportunity to play his first year of football at the age of 19 for the NFL Academy, a high school-like prep school that is centered around developing athletes overseas.
For a couple of years, Azubuike played for the NFL Academy in the United Kingdom, working on his craft and playing against some of the biggest high school football teams in the United States, notably IMG Academy. 
When he first stepped onto the practice field as a member of the NFL Academy, Azubuike knew he had work to do with his technique. He also knew the value of hard work. If he put in the work, the short amount of playing experience he had would not matter. 
When he first got on the team, he played defensive end. However, due to his large 6-foot-9 frame, Azubuike’s coach at NFL Academy, Steve Hagen, felt it would be better for him to move to the offensive line. Regardless of the position, Azubuike was already the biggest guy on the roster just as he has been on every team he has been a part of in his college career.
While playing in the NFL Academy, Azubuike’s film was sent over to colleges in the United States. With the mountain of a man he is, schools became quickly interested as to what he could bring to a roster.
Verbal offers started to come in and schools invited Azubuike across the pond for a visit in person. The main point of the visits were not even to see Azubuike’s skills on the field, but to see if his size was legit. 
Azubuike agreed to go, but a freakish setback occurred.
Two weeks before he was scheduled to visit schools in the United States, Azubuike had just gotten back to his room after a 2023 practice for the NFL Academy and was preparing to watch film. With food in one hand and his computer to watch film in the other, Azubuike started to sit down on his chair with wheels. For whatever reason, the chair was noticeably set lower than what he was used to. As he sat down, the chair rolled back and Azubuike’s knee twisted as he fell into the chair.
“At the time, I didn’t know what it was. I was like ‘I’m good, I’ll be straight,’” Azubuike said of his initial thoughts of the injury. “I had to get an MRI and they told me my meniscus was torn and I had to get it repaired.”
The injury ended up forcing him to stay overseas and play at the NFL Academy for one more season. On top of that, the injury was just the continuation of a list of tragedies he had experienced within a year leading up to the injury. About a year before he tore his meniscus, Azubuike’s brother passed away. Two months after he lost his brother, Azubuike’s grandmother passed away.
For Azubuike, it felt like everything came crashing down at once. Not only had he lost two loved ones in the past year, his plan to play college football was delayed a year and schools such as Hawaii, South Florida, UCF and UAB pulled their offers they gave him. Because he had to stay another year, it also meant that he would be a year older when he eventually got to the college level. Things were hard, pushing Azubuike to ask God the question of why he was going through everything that he was.
It was a difficult place to be in life, but Azubuike still had people in his circle that provided the necessary support.
“It was hard, but I had people in my corner and my coaches at the time were with me. They made sure they spoke to me every day, making sure that I was good,” Azubuike said. “I had a friend named Emmanuel, when I got injured he was making food for me. I had a girl back then, so she also was with me making sure I was good. I had some people on my side,” Azubuike said.
Azubuike’s friend is EDGE Emmanuel Okoye of the California Golden Bears, who transferred from Tennessee last offseason. The two were at the NFL Academy at the same time and did not see each other again until last year’s matchup in Knoxville, where Vanderbilt beat Tennessee 45-24.
Though he had people in his corner, Azubuike still had doubts about his future in football. He started to wonder if the sport of football was even what he was meant to do in his life. After all, he had only played football for about a year when the injury happened.
But there were a couple things Azubuike stuck to. His hard work and his faith. Azubuike grew up in a Catholic family and was raised in the faith. Azubuike’s dad served in the Catholic church and his mom always encouraged Azubuike to lean on his faith.
After he moved out of his parents house, it was hard to build a personal relationship with God. Over time, though, he did tend to that and built a connection with God. But perhaps nothing refined his faith like the recovery and rehab process of his injury.
Life was undeniably hard with everything that transpired, yet he took to heart the value of having faith in God that his parents taught him.
“Just know that everything, literally everything, happens for a reason. No matter how bad it could be or how good it could be, God has a reason for everything. I feel like that’s about my journey, that’s about my story,” Azubuike told Vandy On SI.
With his meniscus fixed and his path to college football back on track, Azubuike played his final year with the NFL Academy, working his way to becoming a three-star recruit. Before long, his dreams of playing college football came true. 
He ultimately started his collegiate career at Northern Arizona, where he played in six games during his freshman year in 2024. As a Lumberjack, Azubuike helped his team finish 8-4 during the regular season and make an appearance in the FCS playoffs, where his freshman season came to an end in the first round against Abilene Christian.
Northern Arizona was a place that meant a lot to Azubuike. Leaving a place that still believed in him after he suffered a big injury at the NFL Academy was not an easy thing to do. In fact, he did not want to leave Northern Arizona, but he felt like he needed to expand his horizons .
“It was hard leaving for sure because I have good relationships. I’m big on relationships, I’m not too business-focused. Whoever I’m with, that’s how I perform the best. It was definitely hard leaving,” Azubuike said. “I feel like I had to get out there and get to the SEC.”
Vanderbilt immediately came to mind when he thought about where to go after his first season of college football. The Commodores initially reached out to him early on before Azubuike switched to the offensive line, but things did not work out the first time around.
The second time Vanderbilt came into the picture, it was a different result. The Commodores and other schools got in contact with Azubuike’s agent and expressed interest after seeing what he did at Northern Arizona. The mutual interest was there.  Even in a worst case scenario where a career in football did not work out, he would still get an education from a prestigious university.
On top of that, Azubuike had known a coach that coached on the same staff as Vanderbilt offensive line coach Chris Klenakis at Nevada back in the early 1990s. Using that connection, Azubuike was vouched for and the process from Northern Arizona to Vanderbilt was in motion.
It was not a done deal at that point, though. When Azubuike first met Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea, it only took one conversation with Lea for him to know Vanderbilt was the place for him. Azubuike talked with Lea about everything from his process to everything that had happened with his family and moving from Nigeria to the United Kingdom to the United States.
The conversation went so well, it was emotional for Azubuike.
“I almost cried during my meal with coach Lea. We were just talking about real stuff and it was just different, man. Coach Lea is one of the best coaches in college football right now because he cares so much about the players. He just has an interest in your story,” Azubuike said about the conversation.
The conversation was one of the most important ones he had up to that point because that was the official selling point. On April 22, 2025, Azubuike announced that he was committing to Vanderbilt out of the transfer portal. He chose the Commodores over Baylor, Kansas State and Boise State. 
His first season at Vanderbilt was last year, where he appeared in two games and played 58 total snaps for the Commodores against Georgia State and Kentucky en route to a 10-3 season, the program’s first 10-win season ever.
This season, Azubuike has seen his role greatly expand. He has quickly gone from a rotational piece in the offensive line to mainstay starter up front for Vanderbilt.
It has been a whirlwind of a few years for Azubuike. Just a few years ago, he had only begun playing football. Now, he is a starter for a SEC football program. Time has flown by and it can be hard for Azubuike to find the time to process how far he has come in four years.
Azubuike is honest when he thinks about his journey. He admits he would never have expected to be in the position he is in today. During the time he does stop and take time to think about how his life has changed, he cannot help but think about how blessed he is and remember the ones who have helped him along the way.
“We move so fast, sometimes we have to slow down and see what’s happening. I mean, God has blessed me in ways I can’t even explain. Even just being here with the people that I’m with,” Azubuike said. “I have big dreams for myself, but it’s the people that I’m around every day. People that care about you. People who care about football but also care about who you are outside of football. Coach Nady, coach Lea, other people make sure you’re good. They don’t want to see you down.”
Azubuike draws from a Clark Lea saying that is fitting for what he has been through.
“The essence of life is that it’s challenging.”
It is a saying he has used to continue to navigate whatever challenges come in his life. Since his days from Nigeria to the United Kingdom, Azubuike’s faith has taught him to stay patient and grounded in life regardless of what life throws at you.
He also looks to another saying that helps him: Don’t pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to do a hard one. It is a phrase he tries to live out and a phrase that goes along with his head coach’s saying.
If playing college football did not work out, Azubuike is not sure what his life would look like right now. He guesses he would have gone to school in the United Kingdom and found a job for himself over there.
Thankfully for Azubuike, he does not have to worry about what ifs had football not worked out. He overcame the challenges life gave him and is now living out a reality he once dreamed about.
“It’s not going to be easy, but I pray I get the strength to conquer whatever challenges you can have in life,” Azubuike told Vandy On SI.
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Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.
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