Vanderbilt removes jersey numbers from updated football roster

Clark Lea is the new head coach of the Vanderbilt Commodores, and it sounds like he has some interesting ideas on how to get his team motivated.

Vanderbilt officially updated the roster for this year’s team during the week and there was an interesting omission. SB Nation’s Anchor of Gold noticed that jersey numbers have been removed from the roster ahead of fall camp. The Commodores also went through spring practices, including the spring game, without numbers.

Lea previously explained this spring his reasoning behind the decision:

“We are going to earn everything in this program,” Lea shared when asked why his players didn’t have numbers on their jerseys. “Until we understand that we rent those numbers, we don’t own them, until we are ready to work within them, leave them better for the next person to wear them, that will come. I don’t want to put a timeline on it.

“We are monitoring just the manner in which our players occupy the spaces in this football program and this campus. And that will also not all come at once, right? This will be according to each individual and their commitment level to moving this program forward. The biggest thing for me, we want to strip down all the extraneous right now and just focus on how we are building this team together. The rest of it will come in time.”

Lea is taking over a Vanderbilt team that went 3-18 over the last two seasons. We will see if he is able to turn things around moving forward.