Nashville, TENN--Clark Lea and Vanderbilt are still working at it.

As the fourth-year coach focuses in on his process-over-result based build, he finds a microcosm of its state in its recruiting infrastructure.

Vanderbilt has course-corrected in order to address its NIL issues, but still has an uphill climb to get Vanderbilt to a place that it naturally isn't built to.

That uphill climb started with a limp, which has consistently hampered Lea's program.

Lea and his staff finally broke some ground after last season's 2-10 finish, though.

"We’re moving forward but we’re still behind," Lea said of the program's NIL state. "The team NIL was set to triple from a minuscule amount a year ago and that number that was gonna triple then doubled again. That was in one week."

That groundbreaking gave his program some life at the time. As evidenced by its 36-32 loss to Georgia State it needs more, though.

It doesn't just need more life. It needs more money, too.

Lea has optimism that it will get there. That optimism comes with a reality check, though.

"I don’t expect that [NIL number] to say the same or even incrementally increase," Lea said. "I expect it to probably double again that still puts us somewhere in the bottom half of our league."

It doesn't just put his program in the bottom half of the SEC, it doesn't change the way in which it is behind on allocating its resources towards the high school level.

"We still have not engaged in the paying of high school players," Lea said. "We are behind because of it. There’s not a world anymore that exists where that’s not part of the equation."

Lea feels as if there's a glimmer of hope that his program won't always be behind, though. He sees that in a day-to-day sense that he didn't previously.

"I get really excited hearing Candice talk about what the vision for what the future look like in that respect," Lea said. "That’s what success looks like anymore in college athletics so we gotta be committed to it and follow through on it."

That vision could take years to amount to consistent results. In the worst case scenario, it could never provide its return on investment.

Lea doesn't think that way, though. Rather, he looks back at where he started for optimism.

"We’re a program that year one it was like we we’re focused on how we get recovery shakes after workouts," Lea said. "We started at the lowest possible rung and if not for great support from Candice and Chancellor Diermier we would still be making excuses for how we’re not willing to pay athletes, but we’re doing that and we’re gonna keep strengthening in that respect."