Jared Curtis is the highest-rated recruit Vanderbilt football has ever signed, but he has big shoes to fill after the departure of Diego Pavia, one of the best players in program history.
Pavia was unique in his skillset. He had surgical accuracy throwing the ball, could break out of almost any tackle and brought a bulldog mentality to the field.
Curtis certainly has Pavia beat in measurables. He’s much bigger at 6-foot-3, 230 pounds. He has NFL-level arm strength. And he’s a physical runner, too. But he’ll inevitably be a different player than Pavia.
“No matter what we do, it’ll be probably be different than what Diego did,” offensive coordinator Tim Beck said after practice on April 2. “Just because Diego was such a skilled runner with the ball. Obviously his accuracy throwing the ball was off the charts. But we’ll be different than we were, just because we’ll have a different quarterback.”
Curtis’ arm talent has been apparent during spring practices, but it’s much more difficult to evaluate him as a runner with quarterbacks taking limited contact during spring ball. He’s still learning the system.
Vanderbilt has not committed to naming Curtis, the a 5-star and the No. 1 recruit in the 2026 class, the starter yet, or even giving him heavier reps than others.
“He’s doing good,” Beck said. “Right now, all four quarterbacks are getting equal reps. He and the rest of the quarterbacks are learning. … It’s just learning everything, learning the offense, continuing to grow. It’s always new.
“There’s always a huge learning curve for any new quarterback that comes into the program. And so it’s just a matter of him learning what we’re doing, all the verbiage, all the formations, all the motions. Motions are easy to learn, but as far as where the snap point is, when you put somebody in motion, or if you’re resetting them, or if you’re letting them go in motion and snapping the ball on the move, all those kinds of things are stuff that he’s learning and getting.”
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X @aria_gerson.
