Irish Lose Defensive Coordinator; Clark Lea to become the Next Head Coach at Vanderbilt
As reported by Pete Sampson, Notre Dame defensive coordinator Clark Lea will be the next head coach at Vanderbilt. It’s a great hire for Vanderbilt, but a big loss for Notre Dame. This really doesn’t come as a surprise though, as Clark is a native of Nashville and played for Vanderbilt as a fullback from 2002 to 2004. During his time as defensive coordinator for the Irish, Clark has turned out some outstanding defenses. This year has been no exception – Clark’s defense is holding, on average, opposing offenses to less than 100 yards rushing per game. A positive note from all this is that Clark will remain with the Irish for the ACC Championship game and hopefully a playoff berth.
We all love the fact that the Irish have been awesome the last few years, but this is the name of the game when you have continued success. Other schools will come looking to pick someone off the coaching staff to help turn their program around. That is exactly what has happened at Notre Dame this year. It will be very interesting to see what Brian Kelly does with the opening. The last two times his offensive and defensive coordinator positions where open, he promoted from within. Clark was one of those promotions, and Tommy Rees was promoted last year to offensive coordinator. I thought Clark could be the heir apparent to Brian Kelly but Kelly’s tenure at Notre Dame is long from over.
In my opinion, this is the biggest opening in college football outside of a head coaching position that is available. With this being a high-profile job, it will be interesting to see what names are on the list. The Irish will look a lot different next year on the defensive side of the ball with a lot of guys graduating. The next defensive coordinator will have his work cut out for him. With that said, I have trust in Brian Kelly that whoever he picks to replace Clark Lea will be the right guy to make sure the Irish defense keeps rolling next season.