Look: we’ve always operated on the assumption that Clark Lea was going to get plenty of time to rebuild things at Vanderbilt before the university really started judging him on his record, and a 5-7 record in his second season — including two SEC wins toward the end of the season — seemed like it would get him even more of a leash.
But things tend to happen when you embark on a nine-game losing streak that will likely reach 10 after a trip to Knoxville next Saturday. Seats tend to get much hotter when a losing streak that starts with a 16-point loss to Wake Forest and continues through a 47-6 debacle at a three-win South Carolina, with an 0-7 SEC record decided by an average of 22 points per game, when your offense has scored three touchdowns in the last three weeks while your best quarterback on the team stands on the sidelines for no apparent reason, or at least not any reason that you feel like explaining — well, that tends to shorten your leash.