Clark Lea made several changes to his staff and roster this offseason following Vanderbilt‘s 2-10 season in 2023.
Hoping to have found the answers to the Commodores’ woes, Lea explained why he’s expecting improvements in 2024 — and why his team is feeling rejuvenated after losing 10-straight games to end last season.
“I’ve got an eager team. I got a bunch of a new team members,” Lea said at the SEC spring meetings. “Again, we have over 120 players on our team right now. To put that in perspective, we had 98 on the first team I fielded at Vanderbilt. So, we’ve come a long way that way.
“You know, we’ve got a lot of new faces with respect to coaches. New strength and conditioning coordinator, a new offensive coordinator, Jerry Kill’s joined forces and he’s bringing 175 wins as a head coach. Tim Beck, the offensive coordinator, is bringing an approach that we need to reclaim the momentum we had in ’22, which was built around a rushing attack that ranked in the top 25 nationally.”
In 2023, the Vanderbilt rushing unit tallied 1,144 total yards with no backs eclipsing the 400-yard mark. On top of that, the Commodores ranked last in the SEC in total offense and 13th in scoring offense, averaging just 22.8 points per game.
It helped cap a 2-10 season for Vanderbilt, marking the second time in three years the Commodores finished with that record. In 2022, they finished 5-7 to just miss out on a bowl game.
“We went from, in time of possession, from 19th to 97th,” Lea continued. “That’s a part of our game that we have to get back. We’re still going to have the approach that we need to play good defense and win on special teams and shorten the game offensively. I’m excited about the systems that are being put in place to allow us to do that. We’ve added a lot of new roster members from the portal, we’re supplementing the team that we’ve retained, and there’s no reason not to be hopeful and excited about what’s ahead.
“Now, there’s a lot of work in front of us. And certainly we’re still trying to close the gap on the peers that we have in our league and that’s a challenge. And so, we can be excited and attack the work ahead. We understand the challenges that await us too, but we’re gonna have fun going at it.”
Vanderbilt kicks off its 2024 season against Virginia Tech at home.
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