NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It may be a long time before the lasting effects of “62-0” are known. On the other hand, Vanderbilt may see some residuals – good or bad – as early as 6:30 p.m. Saturday when it hosts UConn at Vanderbilt Stadium.
Either way there is no getting around a 62-point loss to No. 2 Georgia will be an important chapter in the Clark Lea Era. The first-year head coach remained honest this week about that ugly defeat.
“The theme, for me, coming out of Saturday is, ‘Hey, this is where our program is,’ ” he said Tuesday. “ ‘This is how we measured against Georgia on Saturday. Now let’s figure out how we can evolve through this, who are the guys that will allow us to evolve through it and let’s make it a galvanizing experience so we can put our best effort on display Saturday against UConn.’ ”
Vandy (1-3) had not been on the short end of a margin this wide since a 65-0 loss to Tennessee in 1994 – although it did fall 56-0 at Florida in 2019. But the Georgia loss felt symbolic in a sense of how it shined a light on the gap that exists between Lea’s young Commodores and the elite of college football.
Instead of dwelling on that, however, Lea preferred this week to find the positives. He noted how some of his younger student-athletes on the roster continued to make plays on special teams and, thus, have moved up the depth chart.
He noted how a shell-shocked defense, having given up 35 points in the first quarter to the Bulldogs, went on to make an interception as well as a fourth-down stop inside its own 5. He registered how some Commodores continued to play with spirit and fight while winning 1-on-1 battles late in the losing effort.
“The lesson there is that football is fun. Football played with energy and with your brothers is an incredible experience,” Lea said. “The scoreboard can be the scoreboard but what we do between the lines snap-in and snap-out is what defines as competitors.
“We are searching for that identity here. We are searching for that through a team which that is learning to overcome what has been a traumatized past. I am affecting that every day so that we can get past this trauma and focus on what this team is capable of. That is where a large portion of my energy is spent right now.”
Vanderbilt is now 4-21 in its last 25 games, 1-17 in its last 18 conference games and winless in its last eight home contests. Of course, Lea, his staff and a small portion of the roster had nothing to do with the losses that preceded 2021.
That history still equates to an entire program looking to break a difficult cyclone of disappointment.
“I certainly feel like there’s a psychology here that we’re battling through, particularly with players that have been embedded in our program where they haven’t experienced success yet,” Lea said. “Sometimes there’s an element of ego protection that goes up or guarded-ness that you don’t actually fully want to expose yourself totally to the competitive experience because somehow you’re holding back a little bit because it’s painful. It is painful. When you go at something really hard and you fall short it hurts.
“But yet the only way to personal greatness, the only way to team greatness, is to be willing to fully expose yourself as a competitor – not even every single Saturday, but every single day whether it’s in the weight room or the meeting room or the practice field. These are the throes of building something new, building something that’s different, building it in a place that has somehow harbored this mentality in the past where we can’t overcome things when it gets hard.”
As the pages of the calendar turn to October the road will only get tougher for what Lea refers to as Team 1. After facing winless UConn on Saturday, the Commodores stare into the face of seven straight SEC games, four of which are on the road and two of which are against teams currently ranked inside The Associated Press top 12.
But the former Vandy fullback believes his team has made incremental strides from his full-time arrival in January through winter workouts, spring practice, summer conditioning, fall camp and the month of September. Now, Lea said, the challenge is continue to battle in fight regardless of what the numbers on the scoreboard read.
Whenever the Commodores start to do that, perhaps fortunes will change.
“The best programs in the country, a coach is there to coach and teach and instruct. A coach is there to help manage the emotional state in the game. The players are just excited to be out there competing. We have to get to that point, but until we’re there we are building that spirit and energy through our discourse day-in and day-out,” Lea said. “That starts with me, that trickles down to the coaching staff, those are thing that we meet on as a staff all the time and hopefully as we go and continue to grow the spirit of this program it’s manifested in our play on the field.”
— Chad Bishop covers Vanderbilt for VUCommodores.com.
Follow him @MrChadBishop.