What Auburn Head Coach Alex Golesh Said About Jared Curtis – si.com

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NASHVILLE — This week, there is no guessing as to who Vanderbilt football’s opponent will prepare for when the Commodores take the field on offense Saturday afternoon.
With Vanderbilt’s quarterback competition solved a little over week ago, Auburn football head coach Alex Golesh knows he has to prepare for Vanderbilt’s five-star freshman, Jared Curtis. In anticipation for Vanderbilt’s matchup against Auburn, Golesh has watched Curtis from afar the past couple of weeks, especially in the Commodores miracle win over NC State.
Safe to say, Golesh is impressed by what Curtis has brought to the table so far.
“I would say as advertised. He has a really, really, really big, powerful strong arm. What he does to be able to create is the biggest challenge. Everybody knew he could make every throw. I think at least out of high school you saw he has the ability to make every single throw, and it’s off-schedule,” Golesh said in his initial evaluation of Curtis.
Curtis’ arm talent is the trait to his game that he is most known for. In Vanderbilt’s game against NC State, he showed the arm talent with a throw down the field to wide receiver Tristen Brown or perfectly-placed passes to wide receiver Junior Sherrill in the end zone.
Vanderbilt feels like Curtis’ arm is the ultimate equalizer against any opponent, giving the Commodores the belief that they can compete with anybody on their schedule.
Like NC State head coach Dave Doeren noticed last week, Golesh also notices that Curtis has a burst of speed to his game that he utilizes when he feels the need to. When preparing for Curtis, coaches know that they will have to defend against his ability to scramble and take off down the field, too.
“He’s got such a quick trigger. And then you add in the fact the last couple weeks you’ve seen him be able to create with his feet. He’s really, really special,” Golesh said.
Who knows how much high school tape of Curtis that Golesh has actually watched. He has certainly watched some. Regardless of how much he has watched, it did not take long for Golesh to see that Curtis was more than deserving of the hype and Curtis’ five-star rating coming out of high school.
And there is another aspect to Curtis that Golesh knows he has to shake if he wants to hand Vanderbilt its first loss of its season. 
Based on what Golesh has seen out of Curtis, he does not see a freshman quarterback that is still learning the ropes of college football. Instead, he sees a quarterback that can not just impact a game, but do it in a way that he looks like he has played collegiately for a long time.
“He looks like — I mean obviously mature beyond his years. To be able to go operate and for them to trust him to come into this environment and be able to go do it. I think that’s really, really special,” Golesh said.
Nonetheless, both sides have to do their own jobs executing the game plan. Auburn is going to try and make Curtis look as much like a freshman as it can by baiting Curtis into bad decisions while Vanderbilt’s job with Curtis is to help put him in situations where he can find success on the road.
If Curtis is able to show growth and development from last week, he will give the Commodores a chance to win in an underdog situation.
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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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