Jared Curtis had the ball in his hands with Vanderbilt within reach of a game-tying moment, but the freshman quarterback’s late attempt to escape pressure against Arkansas turned into the play that helped finish the Commodores off.
With less than four minutes left and Vanderbilt trailing 28-21, Curtis faced second-and-12 and tried to create something after the Arkansas rush closed in on him. Instead of taking the sack, he got the ball away in a compromised spot, and Arkansas intercepted it. The Razorbacks later added a field goal on the next drive and handed Vanderbilt its fourth straight loss.
“What he’s trying to do at that moment is to make a play and really get rid of the ball. He just left it in a compromised position. It’s okay to take a sack sometimes, too,” Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea said about the play.
That sequence was only part of the full Curtis package Saturday night. He showed the arm talent that has made him such a focal point for Vanderbilt’s offense, helping the Commodores trade touchdowns with Arkansas through the first two-and-a-half quarters. But the freshman also came with the mistakes that tend to show up with young quarterbacks, including the pick six he threw in the first half and the late interception that proved so costly.
Lea wasn’t excusing the errors, but he also wasn’t pretending they’re unusual. For a freshman quarterback, the learning curve comes with the territory, and Vanderbilt’s coaching staff has been working through that process right alongside Curtis.
That has meant getting more comfortable each week with what he sees, what he likes and how he operates. Lea said the progress has shown up in practice and walkthroughs, especially in the way Curtis handles the offense.
“I’ve been impressed with his command of the offense in practice and in walkthroughs. I think he’s getting to checks.
I think he’s able to set protections and make adjustments that way,” Lea said. “Those are all positive signs.”
Still, Vanderbilt’s issues go well beyond one quarterback decision or one bad throw. Lea made it clear that Curtis cannot be asked to carry everything on his own, and Saturday was another reminder that the support around him has to improve.
“What we need is strength around him. So we need strength on defense, we need strength on special teams.
And we need the offense to play around him in a way that allows for those mistakes that protects them from those mistakes,” Lea said. “That means the run game, that means the protection.
That means staying on schedule.”
That has been the idea from the start. Lea said the Commodores never wanted to build this season around a quarterback having to do all the heavy lifting, whether it was Curtis or Berlowitz under center. The offense was supposed to help the quarterback, not ask him to rescue it.
“I said this summer coming in, whoever the quarterback was going to be, we were going to need to play in support of him. And that’s not what we’re doing right now,” Lea said.
Curtis finished 19-for-31 for 274 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions. The freshman mistakes mattered, but Lea’s postgame message was just as pointed: Vanderbilt needs more from the pieces around him if it wants to give Curtis a real chance to succeed.
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Inside the program, the frustration has been plain. Players and coaches have sounded dejected about where things stand and where they might be headed, and with each passing week the margin for salvaging the season gets thinner. The challenge now is not just correcting what went wrong against Arkansas, but finding enough traction to make the rest of the schedule matter for something more than damage control. [Read more 🡒]