Vanderbilt Football Notebook: Some Quarterback Talk, Which Freshmen Play, Clark Lea’s STAR Assessment – si.com

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The story of the offseason for Vanderbilt football is the same storyline that is the highlight of the Commodores’ season-opening game for the 2026 season: the quarterback situation.
Blaze Berlowitz was named the starting quarterback for Vanderbilt a little over a week ago, but five-star freshman Jared Curtis will also be taking snaps in the Commodores’ game against Austin Peay this weekend. In short, it is very much an ongoing quarterback competition that still needs to sort itself out.
But with the game this weekend, Lea hopes Berlowitz sets the table offensively and gets Vanderbilt in an early rhythm while also getting Curtis some meaningful snaps in the game as well.
But is Lea looking for anything specific out of each of his quarterbacks?
“No, in terms of the outcome, we want to organize the offense. We want effective operation, we want to score points. How we go about that with each guy may look a little different subtly. But the goal is to outscore the opponent. The quarterback position is important in organizing the offense to do that,” Lea said.
Berlowitz and Curtis are different style quarterbacks. Berlowitz is a quarterback who is more effective in ball control and going on long drives down the field to score and chew clock while Curtis is more of a quarterback that opens the offense more up to being a quick strike offense.
Perhaps the only specific thing Lea would look for in his quarterbacks is how each quarterback executes the plays he is given.
“There are things maybe ways that we adjust the call sheet based on who’s in the game just to elevate the strengths of the players. That’s for Tim [Beck] and his staff to organize and decide,” Lea said.
It is the beauty of the new 5-in-5 eligibility rule. There are no more redshirts. Heck, even the labels of freshman, sophomore, junior and senior are less relevant. Now, players are just marked as first, second, third, fourth or fifth years.
With the new rule, freshmen can play in however many games that the coaching staff desires without worrying about burning redshirts or thinking about limitations on how much a freshman or would-be redshirt can play in a season.
Lea’s attitude toward how many of his freshmen he will play is simple: if they can help the team, then they can have an opportunity to play.
“We will play all those that have a chance to impact winning. In the past you would’ve measured to make sure you fall in the four-game window. Some guys you played early some guys you play late depending on depth at the position. We don’t have those constraints anymore. There are guys that have moved above the line that I think we’d be here for 30 minutes if I talked about each one,” Lea said. “But those guys will see action whether it be on special teams or in the rotation, offense and defense. The ones that are out there Saturday will have earned the right to impact winning.”
On the initial depth chart that was released, Carson Lawrence was named the starter at STAR with Mason Lewis and Jailen Ruth named as the two behind him. The STAR room is a young trio of guys. Ruth is a junior and he is the oldest one in the group, while Lawrence is a sophomore and Lewis is a true freshman.
But just because the group is full of younger guys with plenty of veterans on the field around them does not make the position an easy one to play.
“We’ve done a good job of preparing those guys. There are things that you can do with that. I think the position can be very complex because you’re dealing with a big space in the field, but also there are things we can do to take pressure off, which means blitzing and that kind of thing,” Lea said
Regardless of the difficulty of what it is like to play the position, Lea is optimistic of the STAR room heading into Saturday.
“I’m excited to watch that group. And I’m not anxious about them being ready. I’ve seen enough from both of them [Lawrence and Ruth] and Mason to know they’ve prepared themselves,” Lea said. “I think we have to be smart as we go through the game. Who has the hot hand? Who’s best in certain situational parts of the game where maybe one has a better feel or better skill than the other. But I know those guys are excited to play.”
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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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