Vanderbilt Football, Clark Lea Has a Breaking Point at Quarterback. Just Not Now – Sports Illustrated

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NASHVILLE – Vanderbilt football head coach Clark Lea chucked while keeping track of the amount of the questions about his quarterbacks in his Tuesday press conference.
The high volume of quarterback questions is an indication of where the program is at right now. The season after Diego Pavia moved on from his collegiate career, the Commodores are left to be in a quarterback competition. While it may not be the ideal situation, there is no denying the reality of the situation: the quarterback competition is continuing to roll on.
Going into the second weekend of the regular season, Lea and his coaching staff would have loved to have found a separation great enough between Blaze Berlowitz and Jared Curtis to name one the starter of the season, but they have not found that to be the case. Lea told the media Tuesday that both Berlowitz and Curtis will play against Delaware this weekend.
However, Lea is not oblivious to what this two-quarterback trend can lead to. He knows he has to come to a point where he has to stick to one quarterback for the rest of the season.
“Obviously, there’s going to come a point in time where it’s kind of anti-strategic to play two,” Lea said after Vanderbilt’s 28-9 win over Austin Peay as he acknowledged the reality of the quarterback situation.
That does beg an important question, though. What is the breaking point that leads Lea to stick to one quarterback? And how does he get there?
It is something Lea has seemingly thought about, evidenced by his postgame comment Saturday. Lea seems to know what the breaking point is, but he does not seem entirely sure when he and the coaching staff will get to the decision to stick with one quarterback.
As of now, Lea wants to continue to see how his quarterbacks perform.
“I think I’m working towards some clarity in my own mind. I think I want to see it clearly. And I want both guys to have opportunities to show what they can do,” Lea said.
The strategy Lea and Vanderbilt are maintaining is what decision puts the team in the best position possible to win games, whether that means playing two quarterbacks or just one. Lea felt that the decision to play both Berlowitz and Curtis was the right choice in terms of giving his team the best chance to beat Austin Peay. He did not seem to have regrets about that.
This week, it seems that the same thought process is being played out.
But again, Lea is aware that a big decision looms down the road, perhaps by the end of the month when SEC play begins. Trotting two quarterbacks out still by the time conference play starts to get rolling will be problematic.
The biggest thing for Lea and the coaches is getting both Berlowitz and Curtis as much of a workload that he can. The more reps he sees each quarterback get, the more snaps he has to evaluate his decision.
“This is still about finding the best formula for us to win Saturday, but also to become the best team that we can become. I’m just trying to get enough sample size to have some clarity as to what each guy brings to the table,” Lea said.
As to what the future holds for the decision, it is tough to forecast. A lot of when the breaking point will occur depends on how each quarterback does with the opportunities he is given. As Lea said, there are no step-by-step directions on how to handle his dilemma. It is dependent on how each one plays.
However Lea evaluates his quarterbacks and whenever he makes a decision to stick to one quarterback, he does emphasize that he is not taking his focus away from the team’s mission for the season.
“We’re going to take the opportunity to see them both on Saturday. And that’s not at the expense of the mission. The mission’s winning and so it’s about putting our best foot forward against Delaware,” Lea said. “But I’m still unsettled, so I want to create a little larger sample size.”
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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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