NASHVILLE—For a second, Clark Lea goes out of his way to name all the things that could take away from what Jared Curtis is doing on the practice field for Vanderbilt football. 

Lea notes the back surgery that Curtis had a few months ago. He brings up the movie role that took him out of Nashville in the midst of spring practice. Lea knows the pressure of being a five-star quarterback in a place that’s never landed one can provide. He has to imagine that the public quarterback battle Curtis has put another spotlight on him. He knows that sometimes this all has to threaten to get to Curtis. 

“It is hard for any of us to imagine what it feels like to be him,” Lea said. “He’s someone who could very easily drum up a lot of attention.” 

Curtis’ college stats are 0 yards, 0 completions, 0 touchdowns, a 0.0 passer rating and 0 starts, yet he’s Vanderbilt’s most highly-touted player and has already been the subject of more attention than any player besides Diego Pavia that’s come through the program under Lea. 

His offer sheet included Alabama, LSU, Michigan, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Oregon, Penn State, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, USC, Colorado and seemingly every other power-five program in the country. His recruitment included cameos from Nate Bargatze, Tim Corbin and ESPN’s biggest college football platform. 

Yet, there he was walking alone outside Vanderbilt’s McGugin Center on Saturday morning after battling to earn everything that he came to Vanderbilt to achieve. Lea says he admires Curtis’ humility and ability to drown out external pressure. If Curtis didn’t have that, the Vanderbilt starting quarterback job may have already belonged to Blaze Berlowitz. 

Instead, Vanderbilt’s quarterback competition appears to be trending Curtis’ way after he had what Lea called his best practice on Saturday. Curtis’ showing demonstrated why he’s the subject of a spotlight that no other Vanderbilt player has on him. 

In some ways, Curtis’ day was a microcosm of his camp as a whole. He made the most impressive throws of the day–particularly on the perimeter–but also the few least impressive ones. If anything was made clear about Curtis following Saturday’s practice, it was that nobody within Vanderbilt’s program doubts what he can do. Lea has consistently preached patience, though, as Curtis learns how to adjust to the speed of the game at this level. 

It appears as if Curtis is getting it. 

“I do,” Lea said in regard to whether he feels as if Curtis could start processing the game at a rapidly-increasing level down the stretch of camp. “I’m really encouraged by the day he had today. I'm not just talking about just the results of plays here, because for both guys there are good balls that get dropped, there are times where a protection busts and there's nothing you can do about that. But it seemed like he was calm, the game was slow, and it allowed some of his instincts to come into play. And you saw some of the physical tools as a result.”

Among Curtis’ most impressive plays Saturday were a throw in which he found a receiver while fully in the air, a few big gains on the ground and a few throws that he snuck into laughably small windows downfield. 

Curtis came back to earth at times, but his flash plays have allow Vanderbilt to dream of things that nobody else does. Saturday, it was easy to dream of what Curtis and this Vanderbilt program can be if he puts it all together. 

“There’s glimpses of brilliant play, and then there's also moments where it feels like the operation comes to a gridlock because we're not processing at the speed we need to process at,” Lea said in regard to Curtis.
”The greatest challenge for us is not judging him for that right now. We have the luxury of having two more weeks here and coaching him through it to see where we can get him, to see if he is capable of being the guy that we rely on. And I thought today was a positive step.”

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