Vanderbilt Football Gets the Jared Curtis Experience in His First Drive – si.com

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NASHVILLE – Has the future of Vanderbilt football officially arrived?
Vanderbilt football five-star freshman quarterback Jared Curtis made his college football debut Saturday night in Vanderbilt’s season-opening game against Austin Peay.
Curtis stepped onto the field for the first time in his college career with just under two minutes remaining in the second quarter. When he entered the game, Vanderbilt led Austin Peay 15-9.
Curtis famously flipped his commitment from Georgia to Vanderbilt in early December 2025. Curtis is a hometown kid from Nashville as he spent his high school career playing football at Nashville Christian Academy.
Curtis' first play of his college career was a completed pass to Vanderbilt wide receiver Ja'Cory Thomas for 17 yards. Then, Curtis completed a five-yard pass to tight end Jayvontay Conner and a four-yard pass to running back Sedrick Alexander.
Ultimately, though, Vanderbilt's drive stalled out after Curtis threw an incomplete pass to Alexander on third down, forcing the Commodores to punt.
Curtis is in the middle of a quarterback battle with Balze Berlowitz. The two battled all throughout the month of August in fall camp, but in the end there was no definitive winner of the competition after the Commodores closed their camp with a second scrimmage.
Now, Vanderbilt's quarterback battle has bled into the first week of the regular season. Vanderbilt football head coach Clark Lea held a press conference two days after he named Berlowitz as the starting quarterback for the season opener. In it, Lea declared that the news of Berlowitz was not a longterm decision, but one just meant for the first game of the season.
“This is just about the Austin Peay game,” Lea emphasized to the media. “I think that’s really important because I think the actual competition’s been close and I think we’ve seen moments of really strong play from both players.”
Going into fall camp, Lea expressed that he ideally would have wanted his starting quarterback for the season figured out by the end of either of the fall camp scrimmages. Evidently, that did not happen.
However, Lea believes the decision he made to start Berlowitz while also giving Curtis his first college reps was the right choice to make.
“It’s not always ideal. I think we have a unique situation here where we have a young player who has earned the right. I don’t hold it against Jared that there’s still parts of this he’s learning and growing into. You go back and say ‘Hey, we’re really excited about this guy. He’s been a great program member for us. He’s shown flashes of brilliant play,” Lea said. “We have the luxury right now to give him runway because we have a guy who’s earned the right to be out there and be the starter.”
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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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