Vanderbilt is heading into its Sept. 5 opener against Austin Peay with a quarterback plan that has one clear starter and one highly anticipated newcomer waiting for his turn.
Blaze Berlowitz was announced Tuesday as the Commodores’ starter for the first game of the 2026 season, but five-star true freshman Jared Curtis is also slated to see the field in Week 1. For Curtis, it will be his first college football action, and Vanderbilt is making it clear that his role will be real, not symbolic.
Head coach Clark Lea said the staff has a general idea of how Curtis will be used, but the exact plan is still tied to how the game unfolds.
“I think that we have an idea of where we want to insert and I think that will come more into focus as we get close to the game,” Lea said. “But we want to caution against putting hard barriers on that because you have to understand the flow of the game and game situation.”
That leaves plenty of room for the opener to shape the quarterback rotation. If Vanderbilt gets out to a comfortable lead, Curtis could come in earlier.
If Berlowitz struggles, the freshman might be needed sooner than expected. Either way, Lea made it clear Curtis won’t just be thrown into meaningless snaps with backups.
“The most important aspect. This can’t be a situation where we name a starter and he gets all the reps with the ones, right?
What we’re doing is we’re organizing the offense around how we’re starting the game, but we understand that Jared is going to be inserted in the game. And he’ll be playing with the first group of players,” Lea said.
Vanderbilt’s quarterback work in practice has reportedly stayed consistent since the start of fall camp. Lea said both Berlowitz and Curtis have been getting reps and building chemistry with the players around them.
“He’s [Berlowitz] been in game week preparation. He’s going to get the reps he needs to be ready, but we’re going to make sure that we have almost an equal share of those where Jared feels like he’s still developing and he’s also prepared because of that investment,” Lea said.
That’s where things are. How we’re operating so far in the last two days has been basically the same way we’ve operated through training camp.”
So while Berlowitz gets the first crack at Austin Peay, Curtis is expected to be part of the plan from the start, with Vanderbilt balancing immediate stability and the long-term growth of its freshman quarterback.
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