‘It sure ain’t babysitting’: An inside look at Nick Saban’s youth camp
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Chris Low, ESPN Senior Writer
TUSCALOOSA, ALA. — THE stifling heat is just beginning to show its teeth on a sun-splashed June morning when Nick Saban sees something he doesn’t like on the Alabama practice fields.
“Outside foot, outside foot. Pivot and scoot!” Saban yells as he bursts into the middle of a drill to passionately show how he wants it done.
A few seconds later, he grimaces and turns his ire on one of the assistant coaches.
“Hold it, hold it. We’re all messed up. We’re in nickel now,” he says, stepping forward with his arms restlessly crossed.
Saban is not coaching Dallas Turner, Kool-Aid McKinstry or anybody else on the Crimson Tide football team. But he might as well be.
A voice over the loudspeaker, however, makes clear this is a different type of workout.
“Brent Lewis, report to the 50-yard line. We have your helmet.”
Lewis is one of the more than 1,100 kids, ages 8 to 13, who have signed up for the legendary coach’s youth football camp. Many are under 5 feet tall, and the vast majority won’t play Division I ball. But on this day, they all are getting the full Nick Saban experience — minus some colorful words, perhaps, and with a sprinkling of the innocence and chaos that comes with a group of kids of those ages.
“If these parents are going to pay the money for their kids to come to camp, then we owe it to them to give them the full Alabama experience, to teach them and coach them the right way,” Saban says during his only break of the day, a 10-minute respite during a marathon photo shoot that involved shaking hands and taking pictures with every camper.
The campers come from as far away as Germany. They came from Canada and all over the United States, from California to Massachusetts. The youngest son of movie star Matthew McConaughey, 10-year-old Livingston, is on hand to learn from the coach who has won seven national championships and produced 49 NFL first-round draft picks. McConaughey, a huge Texas fan, has been in Birmingham filming a movie, “The Rivals of Amziah King.”
The one-day, noncontact camp is intense, fast-paced and filled with meticulous instruction, as one might expect from a camp with Saban’s name attached to it.
And Saban is anything but a spectator or a figurehead who makes a 10-minute appearance and lets others do the dirty work. During the early portion of the camp, he hits the ground and does the stretching exercises with the kids, the same regimen Crimson Tide players do before practice. After having hip replacement surgery in 2019, Saban started doing the exercises with his own players to open practice.
Nick Saban is hardly just a figurehead at his annual youth football camp. The standard remains the same as it does for his @AlabamaFTBL players. pic.twitter.com/OcaNzN2Lmj
— Chris Low (@ClowESPN) June 14, 2023
Straight leg rise series. Cut the grass series. Rocker series.
“He does them better than most of our players,” Alabama head athletic trainer Jeff Allen says.
And all the while, as Saban lies on his back and whips through the stretches like he’s still playing college football, he’s peering out into the mass of kids to make sure they’re not taking any shortcuts.
“It sure ain’t babysitting,” quips Ellis Ponder, Alabama’s chief operating officer for football and executive director of the camp.
THE DAY STARTS with a 7:30 a.m. staff meeting, some 30 people strong, including Ponder’s chief assistants: JT Summerford, Brandy Lyerly and Ashleigh Kimble. Every coach on the staff — even the coordinators making nearly $2 million per year — participates, working with their own individual groups. Saban passes out an 11-page packet and spells out why they are there in the first place.
“We’re here to promote the game, to promote team, which you don’t get a lot of in this day and age unless you play sports,” Saban says as he rocks back and forth in his chair. “We’re going to have to have patience. But above everything else, they need to walk out of here thinking, ‘I like football.’ Part of the reason kids don’t play is that they have a bad experience with a coach when they’re young and never play again.”
The camp is hardly a revenue producer; it costs just $50 per kid. The only uniform requirement is a helmet. Registration starts months in advance and no walk-ups are accepted.
“It’s important to me that every kid has a chance to come regardless of what their financial situation might be,” Saban says. “We’re not doing this to make money, and it’s not a recruiting tool. We have a responsibility to grow the game.”
Of course, in the realm of recruiting, you never know what might lead to landing an elite player.
Saban started his youth camp when he was at Michigan State, carried it over to LSU and then Alabama. When he visited highly recruited safety Landon Collins back in 2012 in Collins’ home in Geismar, Louisiana, he saw a picture on a mantel of himself and Collins together at LSU’s camp when Collins was just 9.
“He grew up right outside Baton Rouge, but told me, ‘Coach, it was always a dream to come play for you,'” Saban recounted to his staff.
Collins, ESPN’s No. 7 overall prospect in that 2012 signing class, went on to become an All-American at Alabama and a three-time Pro Bowl selection in the NFL.
The first time Saban addresses the campers, he does so in Alabama’s indoor practice facility and before they are split into two groups according to age. The kids ages 8-10 stay inside (where it’s air-conditioned), and ages 11-13 go outside.
“I’ll ask you guys the same thing I first ask our players: ‘Why did you come to Alabama, and what do you want to accomplish? What do you want to do?'” says Saban, his voice echoing throughout the indoor facility, with parents standing shoulder-to-shoulder around the artificial turf field.
“Your goals aren’t any different. It’s important to have goals and aspirations because that’s what gives you a sense of purpose.”
Saban isn’t much into reflection, but he says his thoughts typically drift back to his late father every year when it’s time for the kids’ camp. Nick Saban Sr. was heavily involved in Pop Warner football in their hometown of Monongah, West Virginia. He drove kids to and from practice in an old school bus, coached the team and did a little bit of everything to help the league.
“My dad loved me, but when I was 9 years old, he was hard as hell on me, and I’m glad he was,” Saban says, smiling and surveying the practice fields as the campers scatter to their different stations. “I’m going to be hard as hell on these kids too.”
AS THE MORNING session winds down, Saban calls several of the older campers together to take a knee. He places his customary Alabama straw hat on the head of one of the kids right in front of him and doesn’t mince words. They are dripping in sweat, and he notices many of them bending over and grabbing their knees during the middle of drills.
“Listen, about 90 percent of you are doing it the right way,” Saban says, his voice rising. “But what are you telling your opponent, the guy you’re competing against, when you’re bending over like that and grabbing your knees? You know what you’re telling him? You’re telling him, ‘You just kicked my ass.’
“Stand tall, always, no matter how tired you are.”
Several parents sit in lawn chairs and lean in to hear every word. Others stand eight to 10 rows deep on the sideline to get a glimpse of Saban coaching their kids. Most are gathered under the shadow of Bear Bryant’s old coaching tower.
Allen, the head trainer, is the last football staff member remaining who Saban hired in 2007 when he took over the program. After all these years, he knows to brace for the onslaught of campers, as the 50 athletics trainers on site will go through 2,000 pounds of ice, 1,400 gallons of Gatorade and 3,600 bottles of water. And it didn’t take Allen long to figure out what the camp meant to his boss. Allen accepted the job on a Friday and asked if he could wait until the following Tuesday to report. He needed to get some things settled.
Saban’s response told Allen everything he needed to know: “No, we need you here Sunday. We’ve got kiddie camp starting.”
Saban spends most of his time with the older kids, but he ducks in to check on the younger kids. Right after Saban speaks to the whole camp, a kid wearing a No. 17 Jaylen Waddle jersey plows through the crowd, runs right up to Saban and boldly asks for his autograph.
“Not right now. It’s time to get to our stations and focus on why you came here — to get better,” Saban says, patting the kid on his head.
Some of the youngest kids don helmets that seem to weigh more than they do. Dustin Owens watches his 8-year-old son, Hayden, from the sideline in the indoor facility. They drove from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and even though Hayden is dwarfed by the other kids in his league, he plays with a ferocity that makes his dad proud.
“I know I would probably get killed for saying this around here, but I don’t really give a s— about Alabama football,” Dustin says. “I’m more a process, energy and military-style guy and love how [Saban] coaches, demands excellence and makes them men. That’s why we’re here.”
For the record, little Hayden plays nose guard on his youth team.
It’s a stressful job for the coaches trying to keep up with the 8- and 9-year-olds. Former LSU quarterback Zach Mettenberger, an offensive analyst for the Tide, sees a tiny kid wandering around and looking lost. Mettenberger leans over, and the kid tells him, “I play running back.” Mettenberger saves the day by getting him back to his position group.
Coaches are constantly counting as they move their kids from station to station.
“I’m missing four,” one coach says frantically.
One Alabama staffer looks over at Saban as he walks out of the indoor facility where the focus, not surprisingly, is starting to wane with the younger kids.
“I’m glad Coach isn’t in there right now,” the staffer says in a hushed voice. “He might have an aneurysm.”
AFTER HAVING A box lunch, the campers go by bus to Bryant-Denny Stadium. They line up around the ramps leading to the upper decks and eventually make their way down through the stands to the field. They’re naturally excited, the younger kids a bit rowdy, and all of them waiting for their chance to meet football royalty.
Jeff Allen and Bob Welton, Alabama’s director of player personnel, have perhaps the hardest jobs. They usher the kids through in rapid-fire fashion, keeping a nearly two-hour photo shoot from becoming even longer.
“Tuck your shirts in. Firm handshakes,” tight ends coach Joe Cox bellows.
Before the photo shoot, Saban asked the kids to tell him their names and where they’re from when it was their turn, but many are so starstruck they can’t spit out anything.
One camper looks up at Saban and says, “Coach, can you get me an NIL deal?”
Saban, who has been outspoken about how name, image and likeness deals are being used as a guise for pay-for-play in college sports, tells the kid to come back and see him in a few years.
“I mean, the kid’s only 9 years old, and he’s already hitting me up about NIL,” Saban says with a wry smile, shaking his head.
Another 9-year-old, Sam Phillips, from Hoover, Alabama, walks away from his picture with Saban shaking his right hand in amazement.
“I’m never washing this hand again,” Phillips beams as he glances over at his position coach, new Tide offensive coordinator Tommy Rees.
Rees playfully asks Phillips what he would do with his hand when he showers if he’s never going to wash it again.
“I’ll put a garbage bag around it and tie it up,” he says without missing a beat.
FORMER ALABAMA WALK-ON offensive lineman Jackson Roby, who is from Huntsville, Alabama, wouldn’t miss working the camp for the world after attending multiple times as a kid.
“I’ve seen this camp from every perspective,” he says. “It never gets old.”
Running backs coach Robert Gillespie’s daughters, Nola and Sadie, are right there front and center among the boys. Nola, 12, plays tackle football in one of the boys’ leagues in Tuscaloosa. Her team, the Stampede, won the state championship last season. She plays running back just like her dad did.
One camper who stood out physically was 11-year-old Alex Randolph, who has deep Alabama ties. His older brother Kendall was a senior offensive lineman on last season’s team. Another brother, Levi, played basketball at Alabama and is now playing professionally overseas.
Saban watches Alex spin a tight spiral during one-on-one drills, nods approvingly and says, “Nice throw.”
Saban had joked with his staff earlier in the morning that 600 of the 1,200 kids think they’re quarterbacks and “so do their parents.”
Alabama safety Malachi Moore makes a brief appearance, points to Alex and his size, and jokes with his coach that he had all the talent on his end of the field.
Saban shoots back, “It’s called recruiting. That’s part of the game too.”
Saban’s camp duties end right around 5 p.m. He takes one final look at the defensive backs — he never strays too far from the defensive backs during Alabama practices — before briskly walking off the field. Defensive coordinator Kevin Steele fills in for Saban to address the campers one final time before they depart.
The last meeting of the camp ends with a raucous “Roll Tide!”
But Saban’s day isn’t over. He hurries to his house to spend the evening with a group of his senior leaders. They are hitting the lake on boats, floats, jet skis, a little bit of everything. It’s an annual outing for Saban, who loves boating and loves to see who he can shake off the float when he’s driving.
For someone who will turn 72 in October, Saban’s energy is boundless. He’s going 100 mph (almost literally) on the water as 11- and 12-year-old kids drag themselves off the practice fields to find their parents.
“I’m not sure he’s ever yawned,” Ponder says. “If he has, we’ve never seen it.”
For Jody Wade, whose 9-year-old son, Dax, attended the camp for the first time, the whole day was a reminder of why Saban has won more national championships than anybody to ever coach the game.
“I guess I shouldn’t be amazed at how well it’s run. Anything Coach Saban touches, it’s going to be that way,” says Wade, who is from Mobile, Alabama, and was a Crimson Tide cheerleader but graduated right before Saban arrived in 2007.
“My favorite part, as I told one of my friends who’s with me, is that they don’t let up. The standard is the same, the same standard they have here with the Alabama players.”
In Saban’s world, it’s the only standard.
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Dave Wilson
DAVE LeBLANC REMEMBERS when he saw Jack Bech practice for the first time at a middle school football camp. A strength and offensive line coach at St. Thomas More in Lafayette, Louisiana, since 1995, he has seen his share of talented players come through south Louisiana. But Bech stood out.
“I have witnesses,” LeBlanc said. “When he was running, doing some agility blocks and I was watching him perform, I said, ‘This is going to be the next kid that plays on Sundays.’ I made that call in seventh grade before he had hair under his arms.”
The coaches already had a frame of reference, albeit a smaller one. They had coached Tiger Bech, Jack’s older brother, an aggressive, fiery, but diminutive all-purpose talent who went on to star at Princeton.
“Before Jack, Tiger was the best receiver we’ve ever had,” said Lance Strother, STM’s wide receivers coach. “Then Jack came along with the same skill set, but he also brought the metrics with him, the size and the strength.”
Both fearless. Neither lacked a drop of confidence. They were just five years apart in age and completely different in build.
“Tiger was 5-9 on a tall day,” their dad Martin said, “while Jack was always a man amongst boys. He always was huge.”
All these years later, Jack Bech is standing taller than ever. Now 6-foot-2, 215 pounds, he’s considered a solid Day 2 pick in next week’s NFL draft, all while carrying the hopes of his brother and his family after Tiger, his best friend, was killed on Jan. 1 in the terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
“Whatever team gets me, it’s going to be a two-for-one special. Not only do you get Jack Bech, you get Tiger Bech too,” Jack said. “I have a superpower now. I have another presence about me that just can’t lose.”
JACK IDOLIZED TIGER, following him everywhere from the time he could walk. He watched his brother become a football star, and wanted to be just like him. But Tiger would always tell Jack he got the genetic gifts that he was lacking, calling his little brother “the prototype.”
Two of their uncles, Brett and Blain Bech, played football at LSU, and their aunt, Brenna Bech, was on the Tigers’ first soccer team. Naturally, they were competitive, but Tiger, who became an All-Ivy League return specialist in college, saw bigger things for Jack.
Baton Rouge was just 45 minutes away, and they grew up going to LSU games at Death Valley, watching Tyrann Mathieu, Odell Beckham, Jarvis Landry and Leonard Fournette.
And Jack would be next.
“I had two dreams: One was to play in Tiger Stadium, and one was to play in the NFL,” Jack said.
In late October 2020, shortly before signing day, Jack, who had committed to Vanderbilt, finally got an offer from LSU. The family was ecstatic. One of his dreams was coming true.
And he was a star out of the gate. Jack Bech started seven games as a freshman, catching 43 passes for 489 yards and three touchdowns, and becoming a fan favorite. Playing as a hybrid tight end/slot receiver, he was named to two different freshman All-America teams in 2021 alongside players such as Xavier Worthy and Brock Bowers. But once Ed Orgeron was fired and Brian Kelly arrived with a new coaching staff, he had to start over.
He struggled with some nagging injuries but was cleared to play, although he ultimately got stuck in a logjam in a loaded receivers room with Malik Nabers, Kayshon Boutte, Kyren Lacy and Brian Thomas Jr. He played in 12 games, and caught just 16 passes for 200 yards and a touchdown.
“When the coaching change happened at LSU, those weren’t the guys that recruited him and everybody around him didn’t think he was getting a fair shake,” LeBlanc said. “He went from being a freshman All-American, then getting on the field maybe 25% of the snaps. I think the transfer portal is bad for football in the long run. But if anybody should have transferred, it was Jack.”
He picked TCU as his destination, but Sonny Dykes, who had coached at Louisiana Tech and knows the psychic power LSU has over the state’s residents, knew it was a gut-wrenching decision.
“There’s nobody that loves the state of Louisiana more than his family,” Dykes said. “There was a lineage and I’m sure it was very difficult for him to leave. But there’s a quiet confidence about that whole family and it took a lot of confidence to bet on yourself. That’s what makes him different and unique.”
In Fort Worth, Jack suffered a high ankle sprain and had surgery as the Horned Frogs, coming off a 13-2 season in 2022, slipped to 5-7. But amid the struggles, Dykes sold him on a long-range plan, telling him they wanted him to get him fully healthy and back to who he was as a freshman, even if it was frustrating for Jack.
“Well, let’s give a lot of credit to Sonny Dykes for that,” Strother said. “Imagine having a world-class race car tuned up and ready to go and you’re pretty sure there’s not another car that can beat it anywhere, but you keep it in the garage. It was a matter of Jack getting healthy and then being unleashed with opportunity.”
Dykes said by midway through his junior year, Jack had so many small little bumps and bruises that he “had one of everything.” He could see how badly Jack wanted to play, which he said might have been part of the problem. He couldn’t ease off the gas.
“He’s a guy that’s trained his body really, really hard, has never taken a break and tried to squeeze every single ounce of ability out of his body,” Dykes said. “And it was pretty banged up because of it.”
He caught just five passes from October on, as they kept him on a tight leash. He finished his junior year in 2023 with appearances in eight games, catching 12 passes for 146 yards. But Dykes would tell anyone who would listen that he was going to be a star the next season. And by the spring, it was evident.
“We were going to play him inside, but we had a logjam of players inside, and he just kept performing at such a high level that we wanted to play him every down. So we moved him outside, and the thing about him is he knew all the positions. It’s easier to move from outside to inside because you’ve got to deal with press corners and releases. There’s usually a transition. With Jack, there was no transition.”
He responded with one of the greatest seasons by a Horned Frogs receiver, catching 62 passes for 1,034 yards and nine touchdowns in 2024, the fourth-highest single-season total in TCU history, trailing only Josh Doctson, Quentin Johnston and Jalen Reagor, who were all first-round picks.
And best of all, Tiger was there to watch every game, flying down from New York, where he had begun a career as a stockbroker.
“One of the greatest things about this season was it gave us, our whole family a focus,” Martin Bech said. “My daughter lives in Philadelphia, another one lives in Nashville. It gave us all a gathering point. Tiger just loved being there, being in Fort Worth and being with Jack. There’s a famous text in the family now about how Tiger was just so enamored by Jack’s success.”
“It’s happening,” Tiger wrote.
AT 3:15 A.M. on Jan. 1, Tiger and his roommate Ryan Quigley, whom he worked with in New York, were on Bourbon Street when Shamsud-Din Jabbar of Houston accelerated his pickup truck into the crowd, then got into a shootout with police before he was fatally wounded. He killed 14 people, including Tiger, and injured at least 57 others, including Quigley.
Tiger was taken to the hospital and kept on life support until his family could arrive. A TCU booster flew Jack to New Orleans on his plane immediately, but he didn’t make it in time. The moment he got the news Tiger was gone, he told himself he was going to get Tiger a Hall of Fame jacket.
Jack was out front immediately, doing television interviews and hoping to talk about his brother whenever he was needed. He and the family were unimaginably unshakeable.
“Our pain and our suffering is no different from the 13 other families that lost their loved ones in that horror,” Martin said. “All these kids that were in the ICU for weeks on end and Tiger’s roommate who had his leg shattered and his face gashed for six inches, everyone is struggling the same. We’re just blessed that we are given the platform to share Tiger’s story.”
Jack said his foundation is his faith, that he believes there was a reason this year played out the way it did. Tiger and the family were gathered for every game. He had the best season of his life. They were all together in New Orleans for Christmas.
Martin said he started hearing stories after Tiger had died about all the people he had visited back home in Louisiana over the holidays who he hadn’t seen in years. He thinks that was all by design too. He said Tiger knew Jack was going to be near Fort Worth rigorously training for the draft, so he wanted to maximize their time together.
“When we’re home together, we’re going to spend every minute together,” Tiger told Jack. “If we have to go Christmas shopping, we’re going to go together. If we have to go meet a friend, we’re going to meet the friend together. If we’re going to go to our aunt’s house for dinner, we’re going together.”
They were inseparable the entire holiday season, even down to the pets, Martin said.
“We have pictures of him sleeping on the sofa with Jack’s dog,” he said of Tiger. “Is it any more special than a lot of brothers’ relationships? Maybe not, but it was pretty damn special.”
Jack says this is all destiny. And it has allowed him to find a new gear.
Every coach who knows Jack has seen a different Jack since that day. And they all have a similar vantage point on what they see.
“He was already on a great trajectory,” Dykes said. “This was kind of the rocket fuel.”
“Some people could have spun off the rails after you lose your best friend, but it did the total opposite with Jack,” LeBlanc said. “Jack was going to be in the league with or without Tiger’s passing, but Tiger’s passing kind of propelled him.”
“Tiger, who was an absolutely phenomenal football player himself, knew and understood long before the rest of the football world understood and believed Jack was bound for greatness at the highest level,” Strother said. “Now he’s bound, determined and on fire to bring to the fullest potential his talent and ability in honor of Tiger and in honor of his faith.”
Everything culminated in a magical Senior Bowl performance.
Jim Nagy, the game’s executive director, got Jack the No. 7 jersey, Tiger’s number. Every player on the field wore a tiger-striped decal with 7 on it. Jack had an impressive performance, earning MVP honors with six catches for 68 yards.
Dykes said he was watching with his 8-year-old son Daniel, who said, “Dad, Jack’s going to score a touchdown on the last play of the game.”
With 7 seconds left, Memphis QB Seth Henigan rolled right, and found Jack for the game-winner. Jack calls these moments “Tiger Winks.”
“I knew I was about to catch that ball and score that touchdown,” he said. “My brother’s name was written in the clouds above us. Just so many signs. I mean, if you don’t believe God is real, I don’t know how much more you need.”
He has lived a lifetime this offseason. Now he waits to see where he goes. But wherever it is, Tiger will be with him. He’s got “7 to Heaven” tattooed on his chest, along with a set of Roman numerals representing Tiger’s birth and death dates.
“They’re only on the left side of my body, because he was my other half,” Jack said.
Strother said it will be tough knowing Tiger won’t be there for Jack’s draft party.
“There will be a profound Tiger spirit all throughout that draft party room because it was a day and a moment that Jack and Tiger together really looked forward to,” he said.
And whoever turns that card in with Jack’s number on it will get both of them.
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Chris Low
NASHVILLE — It’s a memory that flashed through Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea’s mind more than once when the program was in the throes of a 26-game SEC losing streak in 2022, his second season as coach.
The memory presented itself again a year ago as Lea guided Vanderbilt to its first winning season since 2013, its first-ever win over a No. 1 team and a bowl victory over Georgia Tech, all culminating with Lea being named SEC Coach of the Year by his peers.
“I remember watching [assistant coach] Robbie Caldwell and my other coaches line the practice field and mow the grass when I played here,” said Lea, a fullback on head coach Bobby Johnson’s first teams at Vanderbilt from 2002-04. “They did everything.”
Contrast that to the scene last October after the Commodores’ signature win of the season, a 40-35 victory over top-ranked Alabama. Following Vanderbilt’s first win over the Crimson Tide in 40 years, fans ripped down the goalposts, paraded them through Nashville and dumped them into the Cumberland River.
The surreality of it all was matched by the resolve of Lea and his players, and their insistence that, in the words of quarterback Diego Pavia, “the rest of the world might have been shocked, but we weren’t.”
“We’re in a business of messaging, and a lot of what I remember as a player is the disconnect from the university and the athletic department and the team, and especially the lack of resources,” Lea said.
It’s a situation Lea inherited when he returned to his alma mater as coach in December 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, as did his boss, Candice Storey Lee, when she was hired a year earlier as the SEC’s first Black female athletic director.
Together, they’re trying to change the narrative and not operate, as Lee jokes, like the little engine that could.
“It was the idea that we were going to unhook from the past and take steps that build toward the future that we all believe we’re capable of here,” said Lee, who has three degrees from Vanderbilt and was on campus the same time as Lea as a captain on the 2002 women’s basketball team that won the SEC tournament.
“Sometimes perception does not match reality, but the reality is that there was a narrative that Vanderbilt was not going to do the things that were necessary to experience consistent success. So from the very beginning, we had to set out to show that we were serious about wanting to compete and compete at the highest level, and we are still doing that. That process isn’t complete.”
Lea’s breakthrough 2024 season in his fourth year back on West End sent perhaps the clearest signal yet that the process is yielding results — and not just in football.
For the first time, Vanderbilt’s football team, men’s and women’s basketball teams and baseball team have all been nationally ranked during the same academic year.
But no climb has been steeper than the one faced by the football program, which was plummeting toward rock bottom when Lea arrived and only got worse during his second season, when the Commodores’ SEC losing streak reached 26 games. Lea wasn’t around for all those losses, but the walls were nonetheless closing in even when the Commodores salvaged a 5-7 record.
Then came 2023, when Vanderbilt dipped to 2-10 (0-8 in the SEC), and the heat ratcheted up on Lea. The Commodores lost all eight of their SEC games by two touchdowns or more.
“Hey, there were days where I was face down on the floor here, and it’s just, ‘Get yourself up, dust yourself off and trust in your resilience to do the next right thing the right way,'” Lea said. “For me, once I kind of realized that I may get my ass kicked a few times, nothing was going to knock me off from leading this program day in, day out, and making the changes that unlock the potential for success.”
Lea wasn’t the only one catching heat from the fans, media and some boosters. So was his former classmate Lee, who hired him. Making matters worse for Lee was that the men’s basketball team was struggling under Jerry Stackhouse and went 4-14 in SEC play during the 2023-24 season. Lee fired Stackhouse after the season and replaced him with Mark Byington, who took a team picked to finish last in the SEC to the NCAA tournament.
“One of the things that I know from going through knee replacement surgery recently is that healing and building is not a linear process,” Lee said. “Some days, it’s really good, and then something happens and I wake up and my knee is swollen. I don’t really understand what happened, but you still have to push forward and know there is something beautiful on the other side.
“You just wish it was easy, but it’s not.”
VANDERBILT’S CAMPUS, A short walk to the heart of downtown Nashville, one of America’s fastest growing cities, is dotted with signs that read “Dare to Grow.” Construction sites, cranes and hard hats are everywhere. Right outside Lea’s office window in the McGugin Center, the transformation of FirstBank Stadium continues with the South End Zone project, featuring premium seating and other amenities. It’s part of the Vandy United $300 million campaign, announced in 2021, to rebuild the school’s athletics facilities.
“We reached that $300 million goal pretty quickly, and we didn’t stop,” Lee said. “We have aspirations beyond that number, so we’re going to keep dreaming. We’re going to keep raising the money, we’re going to keep investing.”
The reality is that Vanderbilt can’t stop if it’s going to have any chance to compete with the football juggernauts in the SEC, especially in the current NIL world. But Lee is insistent that Vanderbilt is “beautifully positioned to maximize whatever model is in front of us” when the House settlement is approved and revenue sharing is in place. The current proposal allows for athletic departments to directly pay athletes with a pool up to $20.5 million in Year 1.
On the facilities front, even with the long overdue facelift to the stadium, the McGugin Center is noticeably outdated with a weight room, team meeting room and offices that pale in comparison to those at other SEC schools. Lea is hopeful a new football operations building comes sooner rather than later but said he doesn’t need a complex loaded with bells and whistles.
Lea looks at the new Huber Center, Vanderbilt’s four-story, state-of-the-art basketball practice facility, and sees what’s possible.
“It’s less important to me and for this program to have things like DJ booths and whatever else,” Lea said. “But I want people to walk into our building and recognize that football is really important here.
“What we’ve done really well here is that our people are the best, and if we can combine that with competitive spaces that also optimize our efficiency, we’re on our way to being where we need to be.”
Some of the people Lea, 43, is talking about are hires that were made primarily during last offseason, when he overhauled just about everything that touched his program. In the last year-plus, he has brought in veteran football people such as senior offensive adviser Jerry Kill, senior defensive analyst Bob Shoop, offensive coordinator Tim Beck and head strength coach Robert Stiner, among others. Kill and Beck are both former head coaches. Stiner and Lea worked together for three seasons at Notre Dame, and Shoop is a former Broyles Award finalist with more than 35 years of coaching experience. He was defensive coordinator under James Franklin for Vanderbilt teams that won nine games in 2012 and 2013.
Offensive line coach Chris Klenakis, entering his second season at Vanderbilt, has seen 24 of his former linemen reach the NFL over a 30-plus year career. He’s also been an offensive coordinator and worked with Colin Kaepernick at Nevada and Lamar Jackson at Louisville.
Lea hasn’t been hesitant to evolve, either. He took over the duties as defensive playcaller last season after the Commodores finished 129th nationally in scoring defense (36.2 points per game) and 131st in total defense (454.9 yards per game) in 2023. Lea said former NFL safety and assistant coach Steve Gregory, in his second season at Vanderbilt, will call defensive plays in 2025.
“I think it’s the best coaching staff in the country,” Pavia said. “Guys are going to want to come here because they see what these coaches get out of players. They see how they develop you. I know what Coach Kill did for me in bringing me here and what that opened up for me.”
PAVIA, WHO EMERGED as one of the most electric players in the country last season after transferring from New Mexico State, played as big a role as anyone in Vanderbilt’s revival. He was the only quarterback in the SEC to pass for more than 2,200 yards and rush for more than 800, accounting for 28 touchdowns, and inside the locker room, he was the heartbeat of a team that reveled in doing what people said couldn’t be done at “little old Vandy.”
Last year’s 7-6 season easily could have been a nine-win campaign. Four of the Commodores’ six losses were by a touchdown or less, including a 30-27 double overtime defeat at Missouri and a 27-24 home loss to Texas in which the Longhorns had to recover an onside kick to seal the game.
And the best part for the Commodores? They return many of the key players from last season, which saw Vanderbilt reach five wins before the end of October, only to lose three of its last four games in the regular season when Pavia wasn’t completely healthy.
“We had one guy transfer out that played for us last year,” said senior linebacker Langston Patterson, who was Lea’s first verbal commitment and went to high school in Nashville at Christ Christian Academy. “It’s about culture. The reason some of those past Vandy teams didn’t sustain success is because they had some great players, but no culture. We have great players on top of great culture, and that creates a great team. But you still have to go do it. Coach Lea touches on it all the time. We’re as close to 2-10 as we are 10-2. We’ve got to keep pushing forward.
“Really, to us, last year was mediocre. We fell apart the last three games. Everyone else thinks we had a great year, but to us, we could have been so much better.”
Lea’s idea of culture transcends the football field. He said the program has had six straight semesters with a collective 3.0 GPA or better in the classroom.
“That’s not because we’re recruiting valedictorians,” Lea said. “It’s because we’re recruiting guys that care about how they’re developing as people too, and they allow us to put boundaries in place for them to reach their highest level.”
As Vanderbilt tries to build on its momentum from a year ago, one thing is certain. The Commodores won’t sneak up on anybody, not after wins over Alabama and Auburn and narrow misses against LSU, Missouri and Texas.
“Nothing changes with us,” Pavia said. “We came here to win games. Coach Lea said it, that we want to have the best program in the SEC. For a lot of guys on this team, it’s our last chance, sort of our last dance, to really flip this program.”
Vanderbilt’s success a year ago came largely thanks to a ball-control offense, shortening the game, winning the turnover battle, stopping the run (especially on early downs) and playing lights-out on special teams.
Even with the recent upgrade in player personnel, it’s always going to be difficult for Vanderbilt to “out-Alabama” Alabama and “out-Georgia” Georgia in terms of sheer talent and depth.
“I know Coach Lea doesn’t believe that we can be like every other SEC team philosophically and find ways to break through to the top,” said offensive coordinator Beck, who also has been a defensive coordinator and spent the first 32 years of his coaching career at Division II powerhouse Pittsburg State. “You have to be a little bit different, and we were a little bit unique. I’m not one of these young offensive coordinators that’s just trying to score as many points as we can every game.
“You try to find ways to reduce the margins a little bit, so you’ve got to play complementary football. We still want to be fun and exciting, which I feel like we are, but we’re not going to be in a huge hurry. We led the nation in forced turnovers last year, which was huge for us because the matchups that we had player to player are still not there yet. We’ve got to be smart about what we do on both sides of the ball.”
Vanderbilt beat Auburn 17-7 last season despite finishing with just 227 total yards. But the Commodores pinned the Tigers inside their own 5-yard line twice, started two of their drives in Auburn territory, committed just three penalties and didn’t turn the ball over once.
“They manage the game as well as anybody,” Auburn coach Hugh Freeze said. “They’re smart. They play to their strengths, and they don’t give you anything.”
As stunning as Vanderbilt’s win over Alabama was to the college football world, Tide coach Kalen DeBoer wasn’t surprised by what he saw this season from Lea and the way he reinvigorated the program.
“I’ve known Clark going back to when he was at South Dakota State, and it wasn’t like we were close friends or anything, but I followed the success he’s had as a coordinator and knew that he was really good,” said DeBoer, who started his coaching career at Sioux Falls. “I felt like watching the film before our game that you could see the defense and the team philosophy revolving around making the game as short as possible, and he did a good job in the critical moments of making some calls.
“I knew going in that they were a different team than what they had been in the past. There was no doubt, and I think everyone who played them would tell you the same thing.”
Now comes the hard part for Lea and Vanderbilt: Doing it all over again.
The only time in the past 50 years that Vanderbilt has put together back-to-back winning seasons was in 2012 and 2013 under Franklin.
Lea, who grew up in Nashville, knows the doubters persist and that history suggests sustaining football success at Vanderbilt is more fantasy than reality. Down deep, he’s energized by that doubt.
“I think we as a program, me in particular, can’t help but operate with a chip on your shoulder, and you can’t help but bathe in the doubt that surrounds you,” Lea said. “We love that, and we don’t recruit beyond that, meaning I don’t want people here that are entitled. I don’t want people here that don’t see the work that has to be done.”
Pavia’s take is a bit more on the coarse side, in typical Pavia fashion.
“I mean, [Lea] comes from ground zero,” Pavia said. “A lot of people weren’t believing in him, people wanting him fired a year ago, and now all of a sudden, he’s the biggest star in Nashville. I think that still fuels him, that people gave up on him, didn’t believe in him on his journey or believe in us.
“So it’s like, ‘F— you. Watch us do it.'”
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