Georgia wanted Jared Curtis. Vanderbilt got him. Now he faces the Bulldogs
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On Saturday afternoon, Vanderbilt quarterback Jared Curtis will take the field at Sanford Stadium to see unbeaten Georgia. This won’t be his first visit to Athens.
For more than a year, Curtis was verbally committed to Georgia and coach Kirby Smart as a five-star prospect and one of the top overall players in the 2026 recruiting class. The Nashville, Tennessee native had chosen the Bulldogs from roughly 40 scholarship offers, including from virtually every program in the SEC and many of the best programs in the Big Ten.
But Curtis didn't end up at Georgia. Days before signing day this past December, he flipped his verbal commitment to Vanderbilt and signed as the highest-rated recruit in program history, giving the Commodores a rare win in what has long been a Georgia-dominated series.
“The more we got to spend time around each other, I think he felt a connection to kind of the environment here and the spirit of our program,” said Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea.
Winners of four in a row by at least 28 points to open the year, Georgia remains a formidable juggernaut in an era of increased unpredictability — and the most prime example of this randomness of this time period might be Vanderbilt posting 17 wins over the past two seasons, including double-digit wins last year for the first time in program history.
Curtis playing for his hometown team has the potential to shape Vanderbilt’s future and the immediate future of the SEC, or at least the dynamic between the Commodores and Bulldogs. The early signs have been very positive: He’s already started to look the part of a cornerstone quarterback after taking over as the starter last month.
“He's strong, he's quick, powerful,” Smart said. “He's got great arm talent. Everything that everybody thought has been true."
How Vanderbilt landed Jared Curtis over Georgia
Vanderbilt’s starting quarterback is on campus because of Vanderbilt’s former starting quarterback.
On a Friday night last October, then-Heisman Trophy contender Diego Pavia attended a game at Nashville Christian School and saw Curtis lead his team to a 49-42 win against Tyner Academy.
Afterwards, Pavia asked offensive coordinator Tim Beck if they were recruiting Curtis; he replied that they were and had been for a couple of years, but that he was committed to Georgia.
He’d had a roller coaster recruitment with the Bulldogs. Curtis first verbally committed on March 23, 2024, but then decommitted on Oct. 17. He took an unofficial visit to Athens last March and committed again in early May, taking his official visit in June.
Beck called Curtis the following morning after hearing from Pavia, and during the conversation asked what teams he’d been watching during the season. I’ll be honest with you, Beck recalled Curtis saying, the only team I’ve watched this year has been Vanderbilt.
“After that, it was just a matter of him basically feeling more comfortable to stay home,” Beck said. “He really appreciated how coach Lea structures the program and how he takes care of kids, and just really everything that we do and how we do it.”
Beginning with that conversation, the Vanderbilt coaching staff started to push harder and harder for Curtis, selling proximity to home, a highly productive and quarterback-centered offensive scheme and, maybe most of all, the opportunity to compete for the starting job as a freshman.
That simply wasn’t on the table with the Bulldogs, who were set to return an established and potential all-conference starter in Gunner Stockton.
After an in-home visit from Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo on Oct. 24, Curtis visited Vanderbilt for a home game against Missouri, giving Lea reason to believe they could flip his commitment. The Curtis-to-Vanderbilt conversation began to heat up in November and came to a head on the eve of national signing day in early December.
“We felt pretty good at the time that we had a good relationship that was built,” quarterbacks coach Trenton Kirklin said, “and then from there it was more of, OK, he’s got that decision to make and whatever’s supposed to happen is going to happen. But there’s definitely a position of confidence that we had.”
To close the deal, Vanderbilt agreed to pay Curtis between $1.75 and $2 million for the 2026 season and secured him a car, according to an agent familiar with Curtis' recruitment.
When Lea was completing a contract extension last fall amid interest from other Power Four programs, he reached out to Curtis before the news broke and told him that he wasn’t going anywhere and that Curtis was his quarterback, a separate familiar with the recruitment told USA TODAY Sports.
Both people requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
Development the key for Jared Curtis and Vanderbilt
Curtis spent his first months on campus swimming through a detailed playbook and adjusting to his new routine as former backup Blaze Berlowitz gained the inside track for the starting job.
Berlowitz extended his lead through the spring game, when Curtis, one of four Vanderbilt quarterbacks to earn snaps and playing mostly with backups, threw for 87 yards without a turnover.
“We’re not trying to speed this thing up,” Kirklin said. “And I think the worst thing you can do is try and speed it up and now it’s a façade, and it looks like it’s great but it’s really not. And then eventually that will be exposed.”
But something began to click for the freshman when the Commodores returned to practice in August. Over the last few weeks of preseason camp, Curtis narrowed the gap between himself and Berlowitz, moving himself into the primary backup role and then completing seven of nine attempts in the season-opening win against Austin Peay.
A week later, he played most of the second half against Delaware and went 14 of 22 for 210 yards with three touchdowns, two on the ground.
His growth over the roughly eight months since arriving on campus simplified Lea’s decision: Curtis was not just the biggest piece of the Commodores’ future but the best option for the present.
“He’s made tremendous progress,” said Beck. “The one thing I would say is, you know, I think he has a really high ceiling because of all the stuff he’s learning as he goes. He’s just going to get better, better, better.”
Making his starting debut against North Carolina State, Curtis completed 20 of 34 attempts for 277 yards and three touchdowns with another 64 rushing yards, though he did toss two interceptions. The Commodores won 35-31 after recovering a fumble in the end zone as time expired.
Last week, Curtis made his road and SEC debut against Auburn, hitting on 22 of 33 throws for 199 yards and an interception while running for 46 yards on 18 carries, counting sacks.
“Tremendous talent," Smart said of Curtis. “Way better athletically than people give him credit for. I don't know if anybody's tackled him, one person tackling him yet.”
Georgia will be a different test. The Bulldogs have given up seven touchdowns through four games and lead the Bowl Subdivision in allowing 1.6 yards per carry and 3.5 yards per play. Georgia is holding quarterbacks to only 5.2 yards per pass attempt with four touchdowns and three interceptions.
Based on the first month of the season, the expectation for Saturday is a Georgia win that illustrates the clear gap between the two programs. But with Curtis under center and not watching as a backup on the Bulldogs’ sideline, the Commodores are looking to build a future where they meet or even surpass the best programs in the SEC.
“We’re trying to create in my opinion right now a really firm foundation,” said Kirklin. “We’ve done that to where now we can start building upon that in the years to come. You know, now if he’s out there, he’s playing chess, everybody else is playing checkers. That’s what I would like to see.”
Contributing: John Brice, USA TODAY Sports
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Georgia wanted Jared Curtis. Vanderbilt got him. Now he faces the Bulldogs
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