The biggest fallacy surrounding Jared Curtis’ first season as Vanderbilt football’s great quarterback hope were expectations of his being the next Diego Pavia.
Or being anything like Pavia, really.
These two are very different quarterbacks with very different personalities and backgrounds, resulting in very different circumstances for two players who've held the same role with the same SEC program.
Pavia, who’d been famously doubted and discounted as a player, perfectly meshed with Clark Lea’s Commodores. For two years, Pavia was Vanderbilt’s smirking revenge for decades of scorn from SEC brethren, scrambling and strutting all the way to the Heisman Trophy ceremony, a place neither he nor his football team would’ve ever been expected.
With Curtis
at Vanderbilt, it’s a very different trope. It's the one of a proverbial Homecoming Queen dating a bookworm. The jocks in the hallway, believing she’s out of the nerd’s league, aren’t going to stop asking her out.
You’d better believe that Curtis will have his pick of transfer options and NIL cash after this season.
Given that, the first question I asked Curtis when able to finally ask him one – Vanderbilt hadn’t made its QB available to local media for roughly six months – was a simple one that I believe to be the most pertinent:
Has he enjoyed playing for Vanderbilt?
“Yeah, I have,” Curtis replied. “Obviously, we haven’t had the season we wanted.”
Then he attached a line he didn’t have to say. The fact he did, I found especially enlightening and encouraging for Vanderbilt's future.
“But I still believe in Coach Lea’s plan,” Curtis added.
Curtis is a quarterback of few words, publicly. Has been since I first interviewed him at Nashville Christian. So what he said in this latest press conference wasn’t going to be as significant as the fact that Lea, abruptly, allowed him to be there to field questions in the first place.
Given how reluctant Vanderbilt has been to put media responsibilities on its prized quarterback, along with all his other freshman burdens, this didn’t seem an ideal time with the Commodores mired in a four-game losing streak.
But this week, Lea said, did make the most sense. The coach explained the delay as his wanting to let Curtis “kind of settle into the season” without adding more to his plate. Plus, Curtis also dealt with an injury that sidelined him against Georgia.
“Here's a young person that's learning about himself, learning about college,” Lea said. “We need to give him the space to do that. All that to say, I also am very proud to have him represent us. I not only trust him, but I want him to speak on behalf of this program. I think that's a really good thing.”
Keeping with that theme, Vanderbilt has been careful about putting too much, too soon on Curtis. The Commodores didn’t start him right away, for instance, easing him into things.
Only now does it feel as if the light is turning green for Curtis as a freshman. Five weeks to go. This latest defeat, at home to Arkansas, cast doubt on whether Vanderbilt (3-4) can muster any wins out of a finishing stretch of Kentucky, Mississippi State, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee.
If there’s a plausible reason to believe the Commodores have a chance in each of these games, it’ll be that five-star quarterback standing at the podium.
His presence carries weight. A five-star quarterback isn’t something any program is able to just go and easily replace. For Vanderbilt, having so much to lose with one player is an unsettling, unfamiliar feeling. But that’s life in the big city, at an ascending program that wants to be a first-world college football contender must be able to recruit – and retain – the kind of players that make that possible.
Curtis, while one of those players, is not a finished product. He has thrown seven interceptions and six touchdowns through six games, and anyone who has watched him out there has noticed mistakes.
Yet they’ve been able to verify the talent, too, seeing throws that only select quarterbacks can effortlessly make. Can't teach that. If Curtis keeps progressing the next couple of years, he has all the tools to be a first-round NFL talent and perhaps one of the top overall selections in a draft.
Vanderbilt isn’t accustomed to having that quarterback. But it wasn’t accustomed to winning 10 games last season, either. Times can and do change.
While the Commodores appear destined to accept their step back in this rebuilding year of 2026, there’s immense hope for the future in this entertaining, strong-armed quarterback who’s learning and growing and scrambling and flinging footballs around like Josh Allen.
Dude is going to be a lot of fun to watch on West End.
So long as he stays.
Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and hang out with him on Bluesky @gentryestes.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Jared Curtis says he's happy, and that's a good sign for Vanderbilt football | Estes
