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NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt quarterback Jared Curtis practiced Tuesday with very few limitations, but is still day-to-day ahead of Vanderbilt's matchup against Ole Miss, Clark Lea said from the podium Tuesday. Lea does appear to be more encouraged with Curtis' status than he was a week ago, though.
Curtis missed Vanderbilt's Saturday matchup with Georgia with a knee bruise after popping up on the injury report last Wednesday due to what Lea called a "challenging" injury at the time. Curtis suffered the injury against Auburn in Vanderbilt's week four loss.
He went through a number of individual tests in which he stretched, tested his start-stop ability and his straight-line running ability prior to Vanderbilt's matchup against Georgia. When Curtis finished, he stood at the 20-yard line talking with a trainer for a few minutes. Curtis also threw passes to Vanderbilt receivers at midfield pregame. But, Vanderbilt determined that he wasn't healthy enough to see the field.
“He tried really hard to be ready to play,” Lea said. “I hurt for Jared. Obviously, he wanted to be out there with his teammates. He wanted to help his teammates win a game on the road.”
Lea said postgame that Curtis didn’t have an injury setback heading into Saturday’s game and believes Vanderbilt was forthcoming in regard to the way it labeled Curtis’ status. He was listed as a game-time decision on the final availability report of the week, 90 minutes prior to gametime.
Curtis is Vanderbilt first five-star recruit in program history and flipped his commitment from Georgia to Vanderbilt on signing day, indicating that Vanderbilt had a chance to win big following the Diego Pavia era. Vanderbilt veteran Blaze Berlowitz and Curtis were entrenched in a quarterback battle all offseason and through the first two weeks of the season before Curtis won the battle with a strong second half performance in Vanderbilt's week two matchup against Delaware.
Vanderbilt is 3-1 in games that Curtis has started this season, but has yet to play its most difficult games. As it enters one of them, it looks to get Curtis back in the lineup.
“I feel safe to say that he's gonna get us out of some tough spots this year,” Lea said. “I think this shows you that we have the ability to cover deficits, and so I think we can call back to this game as we move forward and say’hey, when it's not going the way we planned, we're never out of it.’ Certainly he's a big part of that.”
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Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
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