Clark Lea Foreshadowed Vanderbilt Football's Dream Season On D1's The Turf Podcast

Oct 21, 2025 / Author: D1 Training

Two months ago, Vanderbilt head football coach Clark Lea became the first guest on The Turf: Powered By D1 as his team entered the 2025 season with high expectations.

Clark Lea on The Turf: Powered By D1 - YouTube | Apple | Spotify

Now, Lea and the Commodores are the talk of the college football world with a 6-1 record and a top-10 ranking.

With a win over LSU on Saturday, Lea bested Tigers head coach Brian Kelly, who Lea named as one of his biggest coaching mentors while he was at Notre Dame.

“I learned more from BK in four years than I have at any other point in my career,” he said. “Here's a guy that we're very different in terms of personality and our motivations are different, but we align on so many of the important things.”

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That win over the Tigers propelled the Commodores to No. 10 in the AP, their first top-10 ranking since 1947.

This winning culture Lea has established ties back into his comments on The Turf.

“How do I build the soul of the program around the thing that is most important to us? And that's playing good football,” he said. “Football is really important to me and winning is really important to me.”

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That mindset's paid off as ESPN's College Gameday travels to Nashville on Saturday before Vanderbilt's matchup against No. 15 Missouri, the first College Gameday appearance for Vanderbilt since 2008.

A win could put Lea and the Commodores firmly in contention for the College Football Playoff, which sounded crazy even two years ago.

It could help the Commodores accomplish a goal that sounded crazy to most when they set it at the beginning of the season.

“We want to play 17 games.”