In this story:
NASHVILLE–Within the confines of its indoor practice facility, Vanderbilt football begins spring practice on Tuesday morning. With the beginning of the practice, the Commodores usher in a new era of the program.
Diego Pavia is gone and Vanderbilt now pins its hopes on the shoulders of freshman quarterback Jared Curtis. Not so fast, though, says Clark Lea. The five-star freshman will still have to earn it like everyone else.
“It is an open competition,” Lea told Vandy on SI. “What we wanna do is select the guy that best positions our team to win. There's no reason for us to make that decision right now and yet I think as we go through spring we’ll probably hopefully have a clear picture of it and I think as you start to really kinda hone in on like the preparation for the season it's nice when you know who QB1 is, but that's a luxury. We want to give this room to sort itself out and so we'll see where we get out coming out of spring.”
That appears to be the case for a number of positions on Vanderbilt’s roster as it welcomes over 25 newcomers to the program. Here’s what numbers those newcomers will be donning this fall as well as the numbers that returning Vanderbilt players will be switiching to:
Number changes:
1-Blaze Berlowitz
2-Jared Curtis
3-Bryce Cowan
3-Jaylin Lackey
9-Brycen Coleman
10-Carson Lawrence
12-Vanzale Hinton
13-Kayleb Barnett
13-Tate Hamby
20-Jamison Curtis
24-Gabe Fields
30-Austin Howard
50-Gunnar Givens
Transfer numbers:
0-Cobey Sellers
7-Ricardo Jones
12-Walter Taylor
13-Ja’Cory Thomas
15-Mike Diatta
16-Jaylin Davies
17-Cole Adams
17-Edwin Kolenge
18-Jayvontay Conner
19-CJ Jackson
65-Micah Debose
75-Beau Johnson
91-Brian Allen
99-Talan Carter
Freshmen:
20-Izayah Lee
23-Evan Hampton
25-Mason Lewis
27-Bradley Brown
44-Daniel Vollmer
54-Tripp Skewes
55-George Williams-Haseotes
72-Mitchell Smith
73- Pulelei’ite Primus
81-Kahden Smith
82-Adam Gehm
83-Owen Cabell
86-Tilden Riley
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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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