How Clark Lea Believes Vanderbilt Football Can Get Its Swagger Back – Sports Illustrated

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NASHVILLE — Watching from the Vanderbilt football sideline Saturday night with his team playing Arkansas, Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea saw visions of the team playing to its potential he has always believed existed.
The Commodores started the game off well, especially on the defensive end of the ball. Vanderbilt forced a three-and-out for Arkansas’ offense on the first possession and came up with a clutch defensive stop on the next drive. Vanderbilt then got out to an early 7-0 before making yet another defensive stop. It was much more like the team Lea thought he has always had.
But then, things started to unravel. Arkansas got a pick six before scoring on its only offensive drive of the second quarter. In the second half, the Razorbacks found ways to pull away by taking advantage of the holes Vanderbilt’s defense was showing. By the end of the night, the Commodores had to go back into the locker room with their fourth straight loss.
The confidence and swagger of Vanderbilt is not the same as it had been in 2024 and 2025, but that does not mean the Commodores still cannot generate a similar type of swagger in these final five games. At this point, generating confidence is among the most important tasks of this team.
“Certainly that is an important issue,” Lea said. “Confidence comes from identity and it comes from preparation. So, do we say clarity, intent and alignment? Do we know who we are? Do we act with a purpose? Do we move as one? This is totally my responsibility. I mean these are the things — the identity of the program, the clarity, intent and alignment — that keep me up at night.”
In order to have confidence, a team must have identity. Generating confidence and finding its normal swagger is something that needs to happen, the root of the issue is playing with an identity. If Vanderbilt plays with a consistent identity, the confidence and swagger will naturally flow out from that.
Lea has built his teams the past couple of years off a game control offense and point limitation defense. It is a winning formula that Lea believes in regardless of the level of players he has on the field.
That type of identity or any consistent type of identity has not shown up this season. The Commodores have been exposed defensively the past few weeks and their offense has not generated much of a run game nor consistent scoring to make up for it. Even special teams have proved costly at times this season.
But Lea letting all of those struggles ruin his belief in his team is not going to happen. Despite how things have gone lately, Lea remains steadfast in believing his team will find an identity and play complete games that will create confidence going forward. After all, Lea started to see a little bit of that confidence show up early Saturday evening.
“What I’m calling on this team to do is step into the work, stay connected and bring unconditional belief, spirit and energy toward the mission,” Lea said. “That is abnormal when you’re experiencing a lack of results. Human nature is to make excuses. Human nature is to victimize. And I’m calling these guys to more. I’ve got to be an example.”
Confidence is not going to create itself. It has to come from the little steps that lead to big results. Understandably so, Lea does not want his team to get confident based on what the scoreboard says. He wants his team to get its confidence back by being process-oriented. Maybe that could lead to big results this week against No. 12 Kentucky.
“It’s [confidence] going to be from a commitment to process and a doubling down on that and feeling like we’re the best prepared team in the country and that’s what we’re working to do,” Lea said.
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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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