Tag: Clark Lea

Former Notre Dame linebacker reuniting with former Irish coach in SEC

Reunited and it feels so good?

Former Notre Dame linebacker Prince Kollie entered the transfer portal just after the conclusion of spring practice in April.

After much speculation we officially know where Kollie is headed, and it involves the coach that played a huge part in getting him to come to Notre Dame originally.

Kollie is headed to Vanderbilt where former Notre Dame defensive coordinator Clark Lea is entering his third year as head coach. Lea was the lead recruiter in getting Kollie interested in Notre Dame and obviously kept in positive contact after Lea departed for Nashville.

It’s a homecoming for Kollie, who starred at David Crockett High School in Tennessee.  

Kollie played in all 13 games for the Irish in 2022, racking up 19 tackles, 2.5 of those for loss and 1.5 sacks. He starred on special teams as he blocked a punt against Stanford, and he returned a blocked punt for a touchdown against Clemson.

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Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea gave an emotional interview after Commodores’ first SEC win since 2019

“It’s been a long, long run,” Clark Lea said fighting through tears.

Saturday was a monumental day for Vanderbilt football, and their fans everywhere have so many reasons to celebrate.

With the Commodores’ 24-21 win over No. 24 Kentucky on the road in Week 11, they snapped a 26-game SEC losing streak and claimed their first conference victory since October 19, 2019 (when they beat Missouri 21-14).

Trailing by four late in the fourth quarter, Vanderbilt took then lead with about 30 seconds left with quarterback Mike Wright connected with receiver Will Sheppard for an eight-yard touchdown. And with a good extra point, the Commodores had a field-goal lead when the Wildcats got the ball back for a failed last-chance drive.

And just like that, Vanderbilt is a winner in the SEC again. Along with snapping a three-year conference losing streak, it was also the first SEC win for Commodores coach Clark Lea, who was understandably emotional afterward.

“I’m proud of all the guys; they earned that,” Lea told the SEC Network after praising Wright’s play and perseverance. “They earned that. It’s been a long, long run — excuse my emotions — they earned it.”

Tearing up, Lea continued to shower his squad with compliments in his emotional post-game interview. He continued:

“You’ve got a bunch of guys that are fighting. And we’re building a program. Building a program’s hard. And it takes tough people that are aligned, doing the right things the right way. And that’s what these guys are doing. I’m glad they got rewarded today.”

Roll Tide Wire staff predictions for Alabama vs. Vanderbilt

The staff at Roll Tide Wire dishes out their predictions for Alabama’s Week 4 matchup with Vanderbilt.

Alabama is set to open its slate of SEC games this weekend when the Vanderbilt Commodores travel to Tuscaloosa. Nick Saban has been preaching consistency in performance all week long and the seven-time national championship-winning head coach is hoping for a complete game against the Commodores on Saturday night.

Vandy head coach Clark Lea is in his second season in Nashville and it seems like he has the program heading in the right direction. This Vandy team is off to a great start this season posting a 3-1 record entering Saturday night’s contest. But to say Alabama will be their toughest test yet is an understatement.

It will be interesting to see if the Crimson Tide can continue to show improvements this week as the schedule begins to toughen up over the next month.

Here are the staff predictions from Roll Tide Wire.

Staff predicts the game

Alabama (-40.5) Record ATS Winner Record Overall
AJ Spurr Alabama 2-1 Alabama 3-0
Stacey Blackwood Alabama 2-1 Alabama 3-0
Sam Murphy Vandy 1-2 Alabama 3-0
Brody Smoot Alabama 2-1 Alabama 3-0

AJ Spurr

This game won’t end in a shutout, as the 2017 contest did on the road at Vanderbilt. However, Alabama plays just as dominant. The Commodores’ ability to move the ball via the ground game will be a true test for the Crimson Tide. If Vanderbilt can get a few chunk plays, they have a solid shot at reaching the end zone at least once to put points on the board.

Alabama 52, Vandy 10

Stacey Blackwood

It is time for the 2022 Alabama football team to start to impose its will on the opposing team. The SEC opener against Vanderbilt seems like the perfect place to start. Although Clark Lea seems to be turning Vandy in the right direction, this Crimson Tide team is just too strong in all three phases. Alabama has its way with the Commodores in this one.

Alabama 52, Vandy 10

Sam Murphy

Vanderbilt enters the contest on a 21-game SEC losing streak, while the Tide are the reigning Champs. Vanderbilt is vastly improved from years prior, however, Nick Saban’s team is far more talented. I think Alabama’s offense will start clicking again, but it will be fun to see how the defense holds up.

Alabama 52, Vandy 17

Brody Smoot

Alabama has an opportunity to make a statement in its first conference game of the season. I think that Alabama will come out clicking on all cylinders. Vanderbilt is better than years past. However, they don’t have enough firepower on offense to remain in the game. The Commodores won’t be able to neutralize the Tide’s pass rush enough to create any type of momentum. I like Alabama big in this one.

Alabama 49, Vandy 7

All Betting Lines are courtesy of Tipico Sportsbook.

Everything Nick Saban said on Monday of Vanderbilt game week

Everything Alabama football coach Nick Saban had to say on Monday about the Crimson Tide’s SEC opener against Vanderbilt.

[autotag]Nick Saban[/autotag] and the Alabama football will begin its seven-game stretch of SEC games this Saturday night when the 3-1 Vanderbilt Commodores roll into town.

Vanderbilt has been one of the surprise teams in the early portion of the college football season showing signs of a pulse within its football program under second-year head coach Clark Lea.

On Monday, coach Saban addressed the media as the Crimson Tide begin its preparations for the Week 4 matchup with Vanderbilt. Coach Saban mentioned that he was pleased with the way the team came out and played against ULM and was also very complimentary of the Commodores and the signs of improvement they have shown this season.

Here is everything the Crimson Tide head coach had to say.

2022 SEC media days: Coaches sound off on future of college football

2022 SEC media days: Coaches sound off on future of college football

The Southeastern Conference media days returned to the College Football Hall of Fame and The Omni Atlanta Hotel at CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia July 18-21.

SEC media days were held at the College Football Hall of Fame and The Omni Atlanta Hotel at CNN Center in 2018.

Everything Josh Heupel said at 2022 SEC media days

PHOTOS: Josh Heupel at 2022 SEC media days

Paul Finebaum and Lane Kiffin discuss future of college football, possible disconnect with fans

SEC head coaches discussed the future of college football during media days.

Below are comments from SEC head coaches on the future of college football.

Clark Lea discusses Vanderbilt’s membership in SEC, competing at highest level

Clark Lea discusses Vanderbilt’s membership in the SEC and competing at the highest level.

The Southeastern Conference media days are taking place at the College Football Hall of Fame and The Omni Atlanta Hotel at CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

The 2022 media days are taking place July 18-21 and SEC Network is televising the annual event.

Second-year Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea took part in media days Tuesday.

He was asked about what it is like coaching in the SEC.

“I think as a competitor, you want to do this at the highest level,” Lea said. “The SEC is the highest level, so what that means is your systems are stressed and strained in every way imaginable. It’s, like, part of the fun and the joy in doing it. There’s not a Saturday where you can sit back and relax. You have to bring it at your highest level each time you play. No matter who it is in our conference, it’s going to be that way.

“Again, I think as a competitor your goal is always to do this at the highest level, to compete and play the best, to win at the highest level. Membership in this conference gives us a chance to do that.”

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Notre Dame staffer to coach linebackers in SEC

Reunited and it feels so good…

Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame are still in search for a defensive coordinator but now have another coaching departure to potentially replace.

Defensive analyst Nick Lezynski, a former Notre Dame player, is leaving that role to join former Fighting Irish defensive coordinator Clark Lea, who is the head coach at Vanderbilt.  Lezynski worked under Lea with the Irish and will coach the linebackers for the Commodores.

Lezynski had been on Notre Dame’s staff since 2018 and will be replacing John Egorugwu who left Vanderbilt to join the New York Giants coaching staff.

Related:

Super Bowl LVI:  FIW Staff Predictions

Notre Dame’s 2023 recruiting class commitments

Notre Dame coaching staff tracker

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Nick on Twitter: @nickshepkowski

ESPN’s SP+ is not kind to Notre Dame

The metric ESPN uses to project win totals has Notre Dame slipping down a rung this fall.

Since the disastrous 2016 season which saw Notre Dame stumble to a 4-8 record, Brian Kelly vowed to turnaround the program. That’s exactly what he has done, winning no less than 10 games in the four years following, leading the Irish to a sparkling 43-8 record. Two berths into the College Football Playoff and an odd ACC regular season title included also.

This impressive run still doesn’t give the computers at ESPN much confidence that the Irish can replicate what they’ve done over that time frame, as they expect them to take a dip this fall. Their SP+ is projecting the Irish to finish with just 8 wins, their lowest total since the 2016 season.

It’s just a project and we have all seen the Irish outperform this metric. Should you be worried? Maybe a little, with a brand new quarterback, 4 of 5 offensive line positions gone from last year, and questions surrounding the pass catchers.

Why shouldn’t you worry, well the new quarterback, Jack Coan, has experience that none of the others have in his position group. Cain Madden was added to the offensive line group via the transfer portal and Brian Kelly has recruited extremely well on the line. Same with the receivers, they’re just green.

We haven’t even touched the defense, where Marcus Freeman takes over for Clark Lea and that group shouldn’t miss a beat. It might even be better than last years group, that held the national champions, Alabama, to their lowest point total of the season.

Will there be games that are closer than expected, sure, but that doesn’t mean the Irish can’t pull out those wins. If I had to bet, Notre Dame outperforms ESPN’s SP+ and get’s to the double-digit win threshold for the fifth season in a row.

Does Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton have another gear in 2021?

What do you think Hamilton’s final stat line will be this fall?

Today, ESPN ranked their top 25 most important players (insider) for the upcoming season. No shocker here that Irish safety Kyle Hamilton was included on the list, at #24, which you might think is low, but it’s not at all. He was included in the “pure transcendence potential” group which isn’t too shabby.

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That got me thinking about if Hamilton can elevate his game in what could be his final season in South Bend. Can he be better than what we’ve seen him do over the last two years?

The simple answer is yes, but where can he get better? Last year we saw him playing in the box more and blitzing, but that was within Clark Lea’s defense. Now that Marcus Freeman has taken over, What else can Hamilton do?

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The star safety battled an ankle injury last year, but still put up an impressive 63 tackles and picked off a pass. This season, a healthy Hamilton should easily crack over 100 tackles but there’s still more he can do.

The junior’s interceptions dropped off by three from his freshman year, so that’s an area where Hamilton most likely will retrace back to his freshman form. He did break up 7 passes last year, so the chances should be there this fall. Teams won’t often test him, but Hamilton is so great at reading quarterbacks eyes, that it won’t matter.

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Another area he could improve on is sacks, he has yet to register one in his career. Expect Freeman to try and disguise what his star defender will do, and that includes blitzing from many different spots.

Hamilton has the ability and opportunities to fill the stat sheet up this fall. If I had to guess, he’ll do just that on his way to another All-American type season.

Two Notre Dame coaches named to 247Sports top 30 Under 30 rising stars

Hopefully both of them stick around for a while

College football annually has plenty of turnover on coaching staffs, we saw it this past season with Clark Lea leaving to lead Vanderbilt and subsequently Brian Kelly finding his new defensive coordinator in Marcus Freeman. Finding a replacement can be great, but what teams also have to do is not only win on the field and develop their players, but develop their own coaches.

Most major programs see other teams poach their up-and-coming coaches so finding younger assistants who are on the rise in the profession is paramount. That’s exactly what Kelly has been able to do, as today, both offensive coordinator Tommy Rees and safeties coach Chris O’Leary have been named to 247Sports 30Under30, college football’s rising star coaches.

The inclusion of Rees should not surprise anyone, he has made their list for 3 consecutive years. In his first full season calling the offensive plays, Rees led the Irish offense that “ranked 30th nationally in point per game and 34th in yards per play as it reached the College Football Playoff.” Pretty impressive if you ask me.

As for O’Leary, after starting his career as a graduate assistant at Georgia State in 2015, he’s climbed the ranks from when Kelly hired him as a defensive analyst to graduate assistant and now the defensive back/safeties coach. Chris Hummer cited last year’s Butkus Award winner, Jeremiah Owusu-Koramaoh, as a feather in O’Leary’s cap even though he “can’t claim credit for JOK’s ascendance, but those around the program have been high on O’Leary and his ability to develop.”

As stated above, coaches like these two typically get poached by other programs giving them more responsibilities and higher pay. Hopefully that won’t be the case so soon for Rees and O’Leary.