When Clark Lea’s oldest son got sick about five years ago and was in the hospital for eight days, Brian Kelly — at the time vacationing overseas — called to check in on Lea’s family.
Today, Lea remembers that gesture when he thinks back on the mentorship Kelly, now the head coach at LSU, gave him.
In 2017, Kelly — at the time Notre Dame’s head coach — hired Lea to be the linebackers coach. Lea became the defensive coordinator a year later. When he left to become Vanderbilt football’s head coach in December 2020, Kelly backed him.
“When I went through the process of interviewing for head coaching jobs, I mean, there’s so many coaches that get protective, that get defensive, that want to tell you why you shouldn’t do it,” Lea said Tuesday. “And he couldn’t have been more supportive to that process.”
Kelly left the Fighting Irish for the bayou in 2021, and he’s now in his third season with the Tigers ahead of the matchup between the two teams Saturday (6:45 p.m. CT, SEC Network). The two bring their teams to Baton Rouge with identical records: 6-4 overall, 3-3 SEC. They’ve come about it in different ways: Kelly led LSU to 10 wins in each of his first two seasons, while Lea won nine games total in his first three.
But Kelly’s experience at Notre Dame helped provide guidance to Lea when his own program was struggling last offseason. After a 2-10 season, Lea took over calling the defense, brought in new offensive coordinator Tim Beck, and saw large-scale roster turnover.
“I got to Notre Dame in 2017,” Lea said. “They had just come off a 4-8 season, where he really had to step back and adjust course. So I wasn’t a part of that process. I was maybe there because of that process, but I saw someone who was learning and growing even as he had been a successful coach for a long time. That left an incredible mark on me.”
This will be the first time Lea and Kelly have faced off as head coaches. LSU was not a frequent opponent for the Commodores before the expansion of the SEC, and the last time the two teams played was in 2020, when both coaches were still at Notre Dame. Along with Kelly, Vanderbilt will see quarterback AJ Swann, who transferred to LSU after two years of being the Commodores’ sometimes-starting quarterback. Swann, however, is redshirting this season and has appeared in just one game, completing his only pass attempt.
“I haven’t really spoken to AJ, but that’ll probably come into play,” wide receiver Junior Sherrill said.
Regardless of how Saturday’s game goes, Lea can point to his experiences with Kelly for getting him in the position he is today, and for planting the seeds that led to Vanderbilt’s turnaround.
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Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter, @aria_gerson.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vanderbilt vs LSU will reunite Clark Lea and Brian Kelly
