NASHVILLE—For a second, Clark Lea has an extra punch in his voice and does something that he rarely does. But, Lea appears to have had it with his offensive line and is no longer afraid to sugarcoat things.
He’s ready to tell the truth. The truth hurts, but he’s ready nonetheless.
“We have to play better on the offensive line,” Lea said. “Honestly.”
Lea believes it’s misleading to declare that Vanderbilt has a number of returners on the line without context considering veteran guard Cade McConnell is the only returning starter from a year ago, but he’s not resigned to the idea that this group should know and be better. Orion Irving, Clinton Azubuike and CJ Williams all started for Vanderbilt on Saturday and were on its roster in 2025. Beau Johnson is a highly-compensated transfer addition. So is Pitt transfer Lyndon Cooper.
None of those guys are freshmen and Williams is the only truly inexperienced one, but this group has the appearance of one that’s younger than it actually is. Vanderbilt offensive line coach Chris Klenakis declared early on that this group was further along than Vanderbilt’s line a year ago, yet it appears he was seeing a different side of his group than he is now.
Presnap operational penalties have set Vanderbilt’s offense back in every game it’s played. So have the ones that have happened after the snap. Lea feels that every time Vanderbilt escapes the pocket, there’s a holding call. He acknowledges that it leads the country in false starts. Entering Saturday, Vanderbilt was No. 6 in the country in penalties. It only had five for 35 yards Saturday, but it still set itself back with two false starts–one of which came on 1st and 10 and the other on 3rd and 12–a holding penalty and an illegal snap penalty.
Lea has worked to drill the importance of the margins into his offensive line, but he’s still spent every press conference in 2026 harping on the importance of shutting down this group’s penalty issues and trying to rationalize how it got to this point. Lea didn’t appear to take his group of McConnell, Jordan White, Chase Mitchell, Isaia Glass and Bryce Henderson for granted a year ago and now he has a new appreciation for them. That group was steady, but this one still isn’t.
That, Lea believes, is emblematic of the idea that Vanderbilt has to do more to support freshman quarterback Jared Curtis. Curtis made a few freshman mistakes, but Lea was clear that he’s not passing all the blame to Curtis. Vanderbilt needs a better run game, he appears to believe. He appears to think that it can’t put him in obvious throwing downs as much as it has this season. He certainly appears to believe that he needs more time to operate and go through his progressions.
“There were times where we had free runners at the quarterback, we’ve got to watch the film and figure out what the issue is there,” Lea said. “The last [interception], Jared is fighting for his life and he was trying to do the best he could to get the ball thrown away.”
But, Lea is clear that Curtis can only do so much and that only so much can be expected from him at this stage. He can’t say the same about Vanderbilt’s offensive line–which isn’t exactly its youngest position group on the roster. He’s been a staunch advocate of Klenakis in the past, but he needs him to generate more positive results.
He has a declaration in regard to how he believes this will all work out, but he’s vague about what that will look like. In actuality, Lea would likely argue that he’s not seen anywhere near enough to feel confident that his call to action for Klenakis’ group will actualize in results.
“We’ll be better,” Lea said as he wrapped his thought. “We’re actively in pursuit of better performance.”
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