Jared Curtis Talks Whether There is Pressure Being a Hometown Player at Vanderbilt – Sports Illustrated

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Since the day that now-Vanderbilt quarterback Jared Curtis attended the Commodores football game against Missouri in October last season, all the eyes of Nashville sports fans have been on him.
At the time, Curtis was in his final year of high school and committed to play quarterback at Georgia. But there were murmurs that he could flip from Georgia to Vanderbilt. Eventually those murmurs became rumors and those rumors turned into reality in December 2025 as Curtis officially flipped from Georgia to play at Vanderbilt next season.
With the former Nashville Christian Academy quarterback staying home to play for head coach Clark Lea and the Commodores, the attention on Curtis has only increased over time.
Logically, it may make sense for a highly-touted hometown recruit to feel the pressure of the city going into his freshman year. But Curtis does not see it that way at all. In Friday’s episode of the "Pat McAfee Show," Curtis joined McAfee and the show’s crew for an interview. One of the things he talked about was whether he feels pressure playing collegiate in his home town.
“I think it’s just mostly excitement. I don’t think there’s any pressure to it,” Curtis told the Pat McAfee Show.
Since he arrived on Vanderbilt’s campus in January, Curtis seems to have embraced the position he is in as he looks to win the quarterback battle ahead of the 2026 season. Part of the reason, though, that Curtis does not feel the pressure is how the Vanderbilt coaching staff talked to him during the recruitment process.
Curtis mentioned that conversations with Lea and others helped him take away any feelings of pressure.
“When it came to making the decision, obviously it was hard. But it was good, though. Just talking to Coach Lea helped a lot. Coach Brothers [Curtis' high school head coach Jeff Brothers], he played at Vandy. He had no say in it, he was just there for me whenever he was. They helped me out the most,” Curtis said.
Going back to his days where he worked on a horse farm, Curtis has always had a strong work ethic and has been in a leadership role throughout his football career thus far. That is something he is not a stranger to and becoming a leader on Vanderbilt’s roster is something that will be critical to his success as a Commodore.
Curtis knows building relationships, especially as a quarterback, will be of the utmost importance. So far, he feels like the relationships he has developed with his teammates and coaches have been going well.
“I think it’s great. Building relationships is probably the biggest thing regardless of who you are. You just got to build a relationship with everybody. I feel like that’s the biggest thing to build a brotherhood,” Curtis said. “Coach Lea gives a lot of lectures on that. Relatedness is our edge is what we say.”
Though there has not been a starting quarterback named for Vanderbilt for next season, the eyes of Vanderbilt fans will continue to be on Curtis as the summer offseason period rolls on before fall camp in August. From the sound of it, Curtis is handling that well.
Curtis was brought onto McAfee’s show Friday along with lifelong Vanderbilt fan and celebrity comedian Nate Bargatze. Curtis is going to be featured in Bargatze’s new movie, “The Breadwinner,” in the opening scene. Curtis will wear a Vanderbilt baseball hat in the film when it premiers May 29.
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Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.
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