Tennessean: Clark Lea gets strong endorsement from Candice Lee

[BrentVU]

"He's coaching culture right now," Lee said. "That's the foundation right now for us to have sustainable success and I would rate him very high on coaching culture. Don't misinterpret that ... and say that I don't care about wins, because I do. Part of why we're in this business is to compete and to win and to represent this institution and everybody, all of our stakeholders in the best way possible, but we have to have a foundation in order to have the success that we will all soon enjoy. We're not gonna take shortcuts, it will take some time, I have to remind myself that because we're all competitors. These kids are working hard, so I was looking for two things. That's effort and that's culture, so I would evaluate him very high on that."

Lee declined to comment on her specific evaluation of the assistant coaches but said that while she provides Lea with feedback, she ultimately prefers to leave staffing decisions to the head coach. Original offensive coordinator David Raih was demoted from his playcalling duties in the preseason.

Lea himself was asked if he believed there was still buy-in from the team amid a losing slog and he answered in the affirmative, believing that last week's loss to Kentucky showed signs that the Commodores were still connected.

"We're a work in progress, this is still year one in a rebuild, but I don't know what evidence that we need more than the fact that we came out in the second half of a game that was 31-3 at halftime and we scored 14 points and they scored three," Lea said.

More...
Tennessean: Candice Lee on Vanderbilt football performance: 'It will take some time' (by Aria Gerson)
https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports ... 404483001/

[Johnmn555]

Blah, blah, blah. There are only two kinds of statements from an athletic director about a football coach: he's wonderful and he's fired.

[vandy05]

I appreciated those comments from our AD. She clearly stated what her evaluation criteria are. Culture, student-athlete effort and wins, and probably in order of importance for her this year.

Of course I agree with the assertion that we are a work in progress. Eventually that requires said progress.