Nashville, TENN – It was almost tangible.

The look on Clark Lea and Langston Patterson’s faces gave away all the emotions that they were feeling after Vanderbilt’s Saturday loss to in-state rival Tennessee.

This one was personal to them. That was clear.

“I hate to lose, especially to those guys,” Langston Patterson said. “ It’s rivalry week for a reason. Nobody on our team particularly likes those guys and I know nobody over there likes us.”

Lea grew up with that reality. He’s also lived it for his whole life.

The Vanderbilt head coach has seen the rivalry in every state. He’s seen Tennessee’s dominance as it’s won 36 of the last 42 meetings. He’s seen Vanderbilt players become heroes in its wins and has now felt the sting of its losses from the seat of head coach.

“It’s painful. I’m upset. I’m disappointed,” Lea said. “But, it’s also a part of our journey and a part of our growth and we have to stay focused on how we’re learning and evolving forward and how we improve our play in this game a year from now.”

Lea now posts an 0-4 record as Vanderbilt’s head coach against Tennessee with this installment of the rivalry having the smallest margin of defeat to this point.

The Commodores moved to 6-6 on Saturday and lost their sixth-consecutive game to their in-state rivals. That loss crushed Lea as he positioned himself towards empathy towards players like De’Rickey Wright, Gunnar Hansen and CJ Taylor, who never saw a win against Tennessee in their Vanderbilt careers.

“I wanted it less for me and more for the players that have put so much into this,” Lea said. “Some of those guys won’t get another chance to play and some of them put four efforts on the field that we’re not real proud of.”

Where Lea takes solace is knowing that those players have one final shot as Vanderbilt enters its bowl preparation. Vanderbilt hasn’t given players that opportunity since 2018. These guys are different, though.

They still have more football ahead of them.

“We’re all disappointed in the loss, but we’re ready to come back in tomorrow and work and get better,” Vanderbilt receiver Junior Sherrill said. “There’s always room for improvement, but we’ll come back in tomorrow.”

Vanderbilt will look towards getting better and finding itself ahead of its opportunity to finish with a losing record, but for now its head coach is hurting.

He wants his team to feel that hurt, too.

“It hurts and there’s nothing that can really take that sting away,” Lea said. “

We need to let this hurt. We need to learn from this.”