As far as recruiting storylines go, there will be a ceremony this evening that offers the Super Bowl of decisions. It’s hard to top the intrigue of a 5-star quarterback commitment shutting down his process.
Jared Curtis, the nation’s No. 1 QB prospect for both of the major recruiting ranking composites, will make his decision known at 5:30 p.m. EST at Nashville Christian School in Tennessee.
He’s down to Georgia and Oregon.
AJC’s DawgNation.com will be on hand to stream the decision across all its social media platforms.
Curtis, a rising high school senior, will have the choice of taking millions of dollars per season from either program, despite the increased scrutiny of payments to college athletes through the proposed House revenue-sharing settlement. He will do so from a combined pool of revenue streams from either school, their respective collections, and NIL-based endorsements that will have to go through review by a third party.
This decision is so close that DawgNation has learned Curtis’ representatives have prepared two announcement videos to go in either direction of the decision. It is also likely his representation won’t know until he makes that decision and then shares one of those videos across his social media.
The mystery could also extend to both programs. They will learn his choice when he shares his decision first at Nashville Christian and then with the world.
For Georgia, it offers the rare chance at a recommitment. Curtis, who has been prioritized for years, first committed to the Bulldogs on March 23, 2024.
He reversed that decision about seven months later. Curtis told DawgNation he backed off that pledge because it just didn’t feel right visiting other schools while still being committed to Georgia.
But there was hope.
“I’m still interested in Georgia as long as they are interested in me,” he said in October.
Oregon was one of those schools he wanted to check out. Curtis was even quoted last fall as giving Dan Lanning’s Ducks the “leader” tag. There is no perceived leader heading into today’s announcement.
If Curtis chooses Georgia and goes on to enroll early this December, he will be the highest-rated QB signee for the program since Justin Fields in 2018. He’d be the first 5-star QB signee since Brock Vandagriff in 2021.
The national high school rankings for Curtis are also higher than those of former 5-star signees Jacob Eason and Matthew Stafford.
The latest intel swirling around this decision gives no school a clear edge, although there is some guarded optimism in Athens because of familiarity and location. Oregon’s chief pitches are centered around its program being more successful in developing the QB position of late and its offensive prowess.
There was one other factor likely to heavily impact this choice, but an interview with Peter Webb of QB Reps last Friday seems to have changed that perception.
How much will money matter here?
There’s an ongoing perception the school with the biggest billfold is going to win out in this recruitment. This is, of course, the NIL era, where there have been many publicized recruitments of late, where 5-star quarterback signees have reportedly commanded packages of $2 million to $3 million per season.
Curtis was even given an NIL evaluation by On3.com of $2.7 million.
Webb told DawgNation that neither Georgia nor Oregon was the highest bidder for Curtis. There were other schools, including another SEC school, that had the largest offer. His firm represents NFL Quarterbacks Bo Nix and Riley Leonard and has numerous clients in college football at Alabama, Clemson, Illinois, Tennessee and Texas, among other schools.
They’ve represented Curtis since his sophomore year when some trading card and apparel deals came his way. According to Webb, this decision will not simply be a transactional win for the balance sheets and collectives representing each school.
“It’s pretty simple,” Webb said. “If Jared was chasing the best compensation package, this may have been over a long time ago. These schools may not have even been in the finals. His interest in Georgia and Oregon — and really the difficulty in this decision — has been motivated by the relationships he’s developed during the recruiting process and the unique opportunities both programs provide. We won’t even know what this complete financial framework looks like until after he commits to a university.”
Additionally, Curtis never went to competing programs and set a number for the market.
“We were very clear from the beginning that you want to list out things that are important to you,” Webb said. “You want to look at the location, the campus, the coaching staff. You want to look at the brand, the history of the program, the QB development, the quarterback coach, the offensive coordinator and the system. You want to look at the QBs that have come through their program and made it to the next level. You want to look at the recruiting classes. Look at the room. Are there some older guys in the room that you could learn from?”
It wouldn’t be a stretch to surmise the NIL piece is less than 15% of the overall puzzle here.
“NIL is a part of it, that’s the reality and the opportunity of the landscape right now, but for Jared, it has been a relatively small factor,” said QB Reps marketing director Doug Young. “He knows that getting it done on the field and in the classroom is what’s most important and what will set him up for long-term success. We are proud of Jared for thinking holistically about this decision. It’s a mature approach, and it has been very refreshing to watch it unfold.”
The belief is that Georgia’s bid for the nation’s top quarterback prospect is competitive with the going rates for QBs nationally over the past few cycles.
What would happen here if one of these two schools came in at the 11th hour with a significantly larger offer? Would that sway the decision? Webb said that wasn’t likely to affect this decision.
Curtis has weighed this as if both schools offered the same financial package. The next step was to consider all the other factors and answer this question: Where will he be the happiest playing college football? He took that to heart.
Why Curtis is wanted by Georgia and Oregon
Curtis, who led his team to the state title game as a freshman, had a massive junior year. He guided his Eagles to a 12-1 record and a runaway 49-21 win in his return to the state championship. The 6-foot-3-plus, 225-pound rising senior raised his completion rate 15% in throwing for 2,830 yards, 40 touchdowns and just three interceptions.
He has elite arm talent, but while he’s just in high school, there are sentences that can be formed that project his ability to spin it with the Josh Allens and Matthew Staffords of the football world.
Aside from his 70% completion rate as a junior, the other wrinkle to his game would be his legs. Curtis ran for 637 yards and 18 touchdowns last fall. Although he won’t be running away from elite defenders in the SEC or even the Big Ten, he projects to be a serious red-zone weapon.
The 5-star now holds a 62% career completion mark while throwing for 7,665 yards, 92 touchdowns and 19 interceptions at a level that equates to something between Class 1A and Class 2A in Georgia.
He’s been able to make plays with his legs on the regular, running past boxes he’s either bigger or faster than — or both. Curtis has a career average of 6.7 yards per rush attempt. He’s totaled 1,663 rushing yards and 38 touchdowns.
This decision won’t be the only one for Georgia this month. Or for these two schools. Georgia, Miami and Oregon are seen as the chief contenders for 5-star OT Jackson Cantwell in Missouri.
Cantwell has sped up his timetable with a decision set for May 13. The nation’s No. 1 OT prospect has also recently scheduled a last-minute visit to UGA set for Saturday.
The Bulldogs have never signed the nation’s No. 1 QB and No. 1 OT prospect in the same cycle before under head coach Kirby Smart.
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