Why Clark Lea Is Not Naming a Starting Quarterback Yet for Vanderbilt Football – Sports Illustrated

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NASHVILLE – The most obvious storyline surrounding the Vanderbilt football program is the competition going on at the quarterback position.
When the quarterback battle first began, Vanderbilt football head coach Clark Lea did say that it was a four-way competition between Jared Curtis, Blaze Berlowitz, Jack Elliot and Whit Muschamp. However, after Vanderbilt’s first scrimmage Saturday in fall camp, Lea did officially narrow down the quarterback battle to the two that everyone had assumed all along: Curtis and Berlowitz.
“It’s going to be those two guys competing. That’s what it is,” Lea said after Saturday’s scrimmage.
In his pre-fall camp press conference, Lea said that he ideally would have wanted to have an official starting quarterback named by the end of the first scrimmage. Perhaps that was wishful thinking on Lea’s part.
After the scrimmage Saturday, Lea said that he is not prepared to name a starting quarterback quite yet with two weeks left of fall camp remaining.
“I know I sat up here a week-and-a-half ago, I talked about trying to identify the quarterback after the first scrimmage. I’m not ready to do that yet. And I want to explain a little bit of the process here,” Lea said.
Vanderbilt has been all systems go since camp first began Aug. 5 and is nine practices through including Saturday’s scrimmage. There have been days where Curtis has looked like the better quarterback, such as Saturday. However, there have also been days where Berlowitz has outperformed Curtis in practice.
In general, there has not yet been enough of a separation for Lea and his coaching staff to name a starter going forward. What Lea seems to be looking for is a separation between Curtis and Berlowitz through the lens of consistency. Whichever quarterback creates a separation with consistency over time would seemingly have the edge in the competition. But Lea does not believe that has happened yet.
Lea thought that overall both Curtis and Berlowitz had their good moments in the scrimmage in terms of execution of the offense and in decision-making. However, he did feel Curtis had his most impressive day since camp started.
“I thought today, in particular, was Jared’s best day. I think from a consistency standpoint, I thought he operated well. I thought you saw some of his play creativity come out today, too. And sometimes that’s hard to script,” Lea said.
With two weeks remaining in fall camp, Vanderbilt is eventually going to name a starting quarterback, it is just a matter of time. There is no question the upcoming week will be the most important week of camp for the quarterbacks thus far.
The Commodores’ second scrimmage will be Aug. 22. Only time will tell how much of a separation there will be between Curtis and Berlowitz. Vanderbilt does not seem to be in a rush to name a starter. If it feels like it has found its starter, the decision will come. For now, the Lea and offensive coordinator Tim Beck will continue to evaluate the two.
“I’ll sit with Tim [Beck] and plot a course for the decision. We have this week, week three, week four heading into bench control scrimmage. And then obviously we’ll start Austin Peay prep. So we have a little time here and we’ll use all the time we need,” Lea said.
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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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