CLARK LEA

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick says he won’t be rushed into finding a replacement for football coach Brian Kelly no matter where the team is going in the postseason.

It's rivalry week across the Southeastern Conference, with plenty of stakes beyond bragging rights.

Greg Seitz has been at Jacksonville State for nearly three decades, through a Division II national championship, conference titles and FCS playoff runs.

Nebraska’s search for an identity in a changing college football landscape. On the latest AP Top 25 College Football Podcast, Steven Godfrey of Banner Society joins the AP’s Ralph Russo to take on the task of finding each conference’s most egregious underachiever. And how USC being unable to maximize its potential hurts all of college football. Plus, new Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea joins the show and shares his vision for transforming the Commodores. ___Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP and listen at https://westwoodonepodcasts.com/pods/ap-top-25-college-football-podcast/Ad___More AP college football: https://apnews.com/Collegefootball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Vanderbilt is negotiating a deal with Notre Dame defensive coordinator Clark Lea to make the former Commodores player its new head coach. The 38-year-old Lea is a Nashville native who played baseball at Birmingham-Southern and Belmont before walking on as a fullback at Vanderbilt, where he played from 2002-04. He started coaching at UCLA and also has coached at South Dakota State, Bowling Green, Syracuse and Wake Forest. The Fighting Irish made the College Football Playoff in 2018 behind a defense that ranked eighth in the nation in yards allowed per play (4.53). ___More AP college football: https://apnews.com/Collegefootball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25