Nashville, TENN--Clark Lea had to stop himself.

The Vanderbilt coach felt that he was almost too effusive in his praise for his former boss Brian Kelly. Lea spent nearly half of Tuesday's 24-minute press conference discussing what Kelly, who was his head coach while he was Notre Dame's defensive coordinator, had done for him.

Lea wasn't opposed to that, though.

"Short of making this a BK love fest, I think I’ve made my point," Lea said in the 24th minute. "I can’t say enough about who he is as a person, what he did in support of my career, what I learned from him."

Lea learned plenty as Kelly had to reinvent himself after Notre Dame's 4-8 season in 2016 in a way similar to what Lea did before the 2024 season. Kelly wanted to sure up the offensive and defensive lines of his team at that point.

Bigger than that was Kelly's desire to focus on little things, relationships, his approach towards them and whether he had the right people surrounding him.

Kelly determined in that time that he needed new voices in his program, which opened the door for Lea to be hired as defensive coordinator. In the fallout of that 4-8 season, Lea took mental notes of Kelly's alteration within his program.

"I’ve tried to model that in my growth here," Lea said. "I think that left an incredible mark on me just in terms of this constant learning, constant growth, continuous learning, continuous growth that you have to take hold of and manifest in your career to get on top and stay on top."

Lea has taken a step towards the top, which Kelly has noticed is a result of the overhaul that he conducted.

In the reinvention, Kelly has seen Lea revert back to a role and mentality that the Vanderbilt head coach possessed while at Notre Dame.

"He did a couple of things that were outside his comfort zone," Kelly said earlier this year on the Paul Finebaum show. "“As coaches sometimes we have to do some things that reinvent us a little bit. I think bringing Jerry Kill in and Tim Beck on the offensive side of the ball really allowed him to focus on the defensive side of the ball and really allowed him to kind of be who he is."

In Lea's eyes, that's a fitting thing for Kelly to comment on.

Lea, Kelly and Notre Dame put together two College Football Playoff seasons and an 11-win year in his three seasons there. Bigger than those accolades was Lea's involvement in them.

"One of the things that coach does is he allows his coaches to coach," Lea said of Kelly. "I evolved so much from our interactions. He’s an intense competitor, too. He gets a lot of attention for that, but what you know about him in all interactions and I think a part of his evolution while I was at Notre Dame was the demonstration of how he cares about you, how he takes care of you."

Lea saw that come to fruition off the field as much as he did on it, particularly as it related to his family.

"[Lea's son, Clark III] got sick, we had to put him in the hospital for eight days, I think coach Kelly was in Italy, because he knows how to get away and I learned that from him too. Just immediately called me from overseas to check on the family, to offer any support he could."

That support was also felt as Lea went after his aspiration of becoming a head coach.

Lea interviewed for multiple head coaching jobs throughout his time at Notre Dame and felt a similar response from Kelly upon the news of all of them happening.

"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. "And he couldn't have been more supportive to that process."

Now Lea has the job he's desired and meets Kelly in Baton Rouge on Saturday.

The mentor vs the mentee will meet in Death Valley.