During the SEC spring meetings, Vanderbilt head football coach Clark Lea admitted that the Commodores have not utilized the NCAA transfer portal as much as they should have up until this offseason. After admitting his program has not utilized that tool to its maximum potential, the Commodores’ head coach explained why that is the case.
“Part of it is you come in with a blueprint of program building,” Lea said. “And this has become a game of team building, and that is what it is. So, when you look at the work we’ve done to overhaul our roster in general, we took a more traditional approach— we wanted to give guys more opportunity to change and improve, and we held on to some of the guys that were with the program that when we got there. I think that’s what college football has been.”
“Obviously, it’s been turned upside down. I don’t believe in the total, you know, roster purge. I think there’s reason to have a blended approach where you’re still trying to build a foundation. Because, for me, this has always been about how you sustain success. Now we unfortunately didn’t continue the progress we made in 2022, and so that set a course for us to make some changes in our approach, and that’s what we’ve done. But that’s the reason; it just wasn’t a part of the initial design.”
Clark may have been slow to the change, but he picked up the pace this offseason. The Commodores Added some quality playmakers through the transfer portal, such as former Ole Miss wide receiver Jeremiah Dillon and former Notre Dame cornerback Micah Bell. Both Bell and Dillon were considered four-star transfer recruits according to On3’s Industry Rating.
Lea reacts to NCAA becoming more like NFL with rule changes
The NCAA became more like the NFL in terms of football rules, and the Vanderbilt head coach recently praised the two-minute warning and helmet communication that will be implemented in 2024.
Basically, Lea is not expecting drastic changes to the games and teams should be able to adjust on the fly. Not only that, Lea and other coaches prepared during the spring.
“Obviously, our game’s evolving to look a little more like the NFL game, and there’s been a lot of football played with helmet communication and two-minute warnings that, you know, we’ll be paying attention to that,” Lea said. “And it’ll subtly change, you know, strategy into half into game situations. I think offensively as a huddle team, you know, the helmet communication will really help. I think defensively, it’s gonna give an opportunity to communicate to someone on the field that you know, we’re going to still need to rely on nonverbal because of offensive tempo and that kind of thing.
“So we’ve used it this spring, we’ll be ready for it this fall, but I don’t I don’t expect anything dramatic in terms of change.”
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