Alabama bears the headlines after stunning upset, but Saturday was about Vanderbilt and coach Clark Lea
The most stunning upset in recent SEC memory was years in the making at the hands of Lea, the eternal optimist
by John Talty · CBS SportsThe students rushed the field, the goalposts came down and later made their way down Broadway and the star of the day, quarterback Diego Pavia, couldn't contain an excitable expletive from escaping his mouth about what was unfolding all around him.
Vanderbilt over Alabama?! Vanderbilt over Alabama!
In the most stunning Southeastern Conference upset in decades, a two-loss Vanderbilt team outplayed and defeated No. 1 Alabama 40-35 in front of a construction-impacted Firstbank Stadium that seemed to have more Alabama fans than Vanderbilt of the 28,934 in attendance.
"Anything can happen in college football," as SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told CBS Sports' Brandon Marcello Saturday evening in the press box of another tight SEC game, Tennessee vs. Arkansas in Fayetteville.
A lot will be made about what this means for first-year head coach Kalen DeBoer and Alabama. You can argue it's a worse loss than Nick Saban's infamous 2007 loss to Louisiana Monroe in his first-year in Tuscaloosa, especially considering all the talent DeBoer inherited from his predecessor. At minimum, DeBoer probably should avoid tuning into the Paul Finebaum Show on Monday or risk getting his first real taste of how "it just means more" is as much a warning as the SEC's slogan.
But ignore the ramifications in Tuscaloosa for a second to appreciate what this means for Clark Lea and Vanderbilt.
If Vanderbilt isn't the hardest job in college football, it's certainly up there. As the only private school in the football-obsessed SEC, Vanderbilt has always stood out as an outlier. The school's investment in football paled in comparison to its SEC peers for decades and fan support mirrored it. Newly minted television analyst Nick Saban even fired a recent shot saying everywhere in the SEC was difficult to play at except Vanderbilt, a clip some brilliant marketing person immediately played on the video board following the greatest win in Commodores history.
Vanderbilt has been trying to compete in a boxing ring with an arm tied behind its back against the biggest heavyweights of the sport. Its facilities were terrible. It had brief periods of success, notably under the James Franklin regime, but couldn't maintain them. Even trying to get to bowl eligibility felt like a Sisyphean task. It felt borderline irresponsible to have any hope about Vanderbilt football knowing what was in store every Saturday.
And yet moments like Saturday make it all worth it. Finally seeing Vanderbilt knock off its first top-five opponent in program history, snapping the longest streak (60) of consecutive losses against them in college football, rewarded all those years of patience and hope for Vanderbilt supporters.
"This is the dream right here," an emotional Lea said postgame. "For the next 12 hours, I'm going to enjoy the dream."
Lea believed in a dream the rest of college football seemed to roll its eyes at. The Vanderbilt graduate returned to his alma mater and believed in its capabilities in a way only someone who truly loved a place could. At SEC media days, he has talked about Vanderbilt becoming the standard in college football, a sneered-at idea that felt impossible even if we lived in a world with thousands of alternate universes. Trying to get Vanderbilt to level up in the SEC has been like trying to summit Everest for Lea, who had a 9-27 record headed into this season.
But Lea saw the school he loved finally starting to invest in the football program and better facilities. A $300 million Vandy United initiative to finally upgrade the school's outdated facilities and improve the athlete experience -- $100 million of which came directly from the school -- represented a watershed moment for the school. One FBS athletic director recently raved to CBS Sports about what the facilities upgrades plus the allure of Nashville could mean for Vanderbilt football long-term. Describing Vanderbilt's facilities and stadium as something you'd see at a mid-sized high school, the AD believed Vanderbilt could truly level up once recruits saw the substantial change happening on campus.
After working at a place like Notre Dame, Lea knew what it could mean, too.
"It gives us the landscape to paint the picture of what the future will be, and in short order, we'll be talking about Vanderbilt football with cutting-edge facilities and best-in-class resources," Lea told 247Sports in 2023. "When has that ever been said?"
When evaluating his first three years, he recognized he had moved away from his strengths as one of the nation's top defensive coordinators while at Notre Dame. He realized he needed to make wholesale offseason changes if Vanderbilt was ever going to find a way out of the SEC cellar, settling on taking on a bigger role with the defense and bringing in the right people to help the offense evolve. It was a hard but necessary step for Lea who had to make difficult staff and roster decisions to give Vanderbilt a real shot moving forward after a 2-10 2023 season.
That meant practically acquiring the New Mexico State program, hiring away head coach Jerry Kill and offensive coordinator Tim Beck. Perhaps most importantly, at least for this season, Pavia followed his former coaches to Nashville. Pavia might be the one man who can bring Alabama and Auburn fans together in their shared pain over what he did to their favorite teams on the field.
Alabama had no answer for Pavia and Vanderbilt's offense Saturday as the transfer quarterback totaled 252 passing yards, two touchdowns and 56 rushing yards to cement his status as a Commodore hero. It was clear that Vanderbilt was starting to turn the corner this season with a win over Virginia Tech an and overtime loss to Missouri, but still entered the game as a 23.5-point underdog against a Crimson Tide team riding high off a thrilling win over Georgia. It was going to take a high-level plan and execution to have a real shot to pull off the upset which Vanderbilt more than delivered on Saturday.
Vanderbilt was brilliant on third down -- 12 of 18 -- and smartly chewed up as much of the game clock as it could. Alabama's defense couldn't get off the field when it mattered most and when it was clear the Tide's comeback efforts were dead, Malachi Moore, Alabama's senior defensive leader, couldn't hide his frustration and threw his mouthguard in anger.
Lea and the rest of his Vanderbilt staff know all about that kind of frustration. They've been beating their heads against what felt like a brick wall for more than three years, stubbornly believing that one day they'd break through.
On Saturday, it finally happened.
"There are days where you feel like you're really close, there are days you feel like you're miles away," a choked-up Lea said. "To have that actualized for the moment, that was special. Something I'll never forget."