This Sentell’s Intel rep on Georgia football recruiting has the latest with 5-star QB Jared Curtis of Nashville Christian in Tennessee. He ranks as the nation’s No. 1 QB and the No. 2 overall prospect for 2026 on the 247Sports Composite. The On3 Industry Ranking has him as the No. 1 QB and No. 6 overall.
Georgia or Oregon. Oregon or Georgia.
DawgNation has learned 5-star QB Jared Curtis has not made that decision yet.
In advance of Monday’s big commitment decision reveal, Curtis’s representatives have prepared two different announcement videos to go in either direction of the decision.
This thing is that tight.
The decision may not be known until the nation’s No. 1 QB prospect announces it on Monday at Nashville Christian in Tennessee. His agents might not even know. There’s a possibility neither Georgia nor Oregon will know that decision until it is shared by Curtis with the world on Monday.
The lobbying has all been done. Curtis and his family are not expected to meet with either program anymore in the two-plus days leading up to that decision.
The nation’s No. 1 QB will announce his decision in person during a school press conference and share a video on his social media confirming his commitment.
Curtis now has to swirl it all around his head for two more days, for the first big step of the next three or four years of his life. That in itself would constitute enough meat for a story regarding the 18-year-old’s upcoming decision.
That said, there are a few more details about his big decision reveal, including something DawgNation has learned that might contradict the way most have seemed to frame this decision.
What has been lost with the Jared Curtis decision
There’s an ongoing perception here that 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 QBs signees have reportedly commanded packages of $2 million to $3 million per season.
That’s only a small part of the picture.
“He’s a kid who loves ball,” his agent Peter Webb said. “He loves his family and just wants to go to a school that’s going to give him the opportunity to be a great teammate, get a great education, and reach his dreams of playing at the highest level, and I think that’s been lost in the NIL world.”
That’s the way this decision has been consistently portrayed by his circle to DawgNation.
Webb and his team represent Curtis for QB Reps. It is a firm that specializes in QBs. NFL quarterbacks Riley Leonard and Bo Nix are clients, as is former 5-star Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson. Their roster goes deeper than that with QBs at Tennessee, Clemson, Illinois, and Texas, among other schools.
They’ve represented Curtis dating back to 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.
DawgNation has learned neither of these schools was the highest bidder for Curtis.
“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.”
DawgNation has learned that there were multiple schools that had higher bids than his two finalists, including another SEC school. Additionally, Curtis never went to competing programs and set a number for the market.
Webb said Curtis and his family were on the same page from the beginning of the process: chasing the highest bid was neither the priority nor a sound strategy in helping Jared achieve his ultimate goals of a fulfilling college experience and playing in the NFL.
“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 percent 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.”
What else have we learned about the working parts of the Jared Curtis decision?
Here’s a rundown:
- 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.
- These contracts can be structured to pay an athlete in multi-year deals. The compensation package for the first season may be lower than that for the second season when an athlete is expected to contend for a starting spot, rather than during the true freshman season.
- The perception that one of these two schools could come in at the 11th hour with a larger offer to sway the decision doesn’t seem plausible at this time.
- There will be streams of money that could compensate Curtis here. There will be the revenue share opportunity, endorsement deals, trading card deals, memorabilia, and a collective deal. According to the language of the expected House settlement, those endorsement contracts will be subject to the review of a third party for fair market value.
- There are three pillars to the financial package: 1) Revenue share opportunities; 2) The schools that have collectives; 3) What the agency can search for and procure in terms of endorsements at the regional and national level.
- There is the belief here that his family has been through the gauntlet of the recruiting process. Team Curtis is ready for Jared to make his decision, move forward, and start building the rest of his new team’s 2026 recruiting class.
- Curtis is also focused on moving forward so he can minimize distractions and enjoy his final year of high school with his friends and classmates.
- To reinforce that, this is expected to be his final decision, barring a radical change of situation at either program. It is intended to be the finish line of his recruiting process.
- How will this work? The expected process is for Curtis to make his final decision, and then his advisors will start going through all the particulars with all his revenue share and financial packages with the respective collective for the school of his choice.
- This has become such a tough choice because both programs check all the boxes for Curtis on the coaching staffs, the brand, the tradition of each school, the college campus, the development at his position, plus the stacked recruiting classes over the last few years of guys he’d be playing with.
- Curtis holds a high level of respect for both programs. His circle has enjoyed getting to know both programs over a span of years. It is exciting, but it is now very hard to say no to either school.
Jared Curtis would be a historic signee for UGA
There’s a measure of resilience here that has also gotten lost amid the scouting reports breaking down his immense arm talent. Curtis loves the game and loves to compete.
DawgNation saw that firsthand at the Future 50 last summer when a hand injury relegated him to sideline “Coach Curtis” status while the nation’s other top QBs got to fling endless spirals to the best receivers, running backs, and tight ends in the 2026 cycle.
It pained him to watch.
Curtis started as a freshman at Nashville Christian. The Eagles lost their first two starts in one-score games. He recovered to lead his team to the state championship game, but Nashville Christian lost that contest by a 34-27 margin.
He threw an interception at the 2-yard line with 12 seconds left in that one. That 2022 season was one of growth for Curtis as he established himself as one of the nation’s elite QB prospects in 2026.
The young man had no idea that he’d be contemplating a financial windfall for any 18-year-old in a few short years. Curtis was just playing ball.
He quickly became a national recruit, but saw his team slide to a 6-7 record as a sophomore at the same time he garnered national acclaim as a 5-star prospect.
For those who might want to throw shade at the Class II-Division A level of ball he plays in, it wasn’t that easy. He threw 52 touchdowns but also 16 interceptions in his first two seasons of high school football.
He just made it all look easy last season.
Curtis responded in his junior year by leading his team 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 percent 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 percent 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. While 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 percent 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 that he’s either bigger or faster than or both. Curtis has a career average of 6.7 yards per rush attempt. He’s totaled up 1,663 rushing yards and 38 touchdowns
That’s why Georgia and Oregon are going down to the wire here while they wait for his decision. His choice will either anchor or level their wildest dreams for their 2026 recruiting classes.
As DawgNation reported earlier this week, that decision will be shared at 5:30 PM EST from a traditional school ceremony at Nashville Christian in Tennessee. DawgNation will be on hand for that event.
It will be big news if he chooses to recommit to play for Kirby Smart and the Dawgs. If he goes on to sign with UGA, he will be the first 5-star QB signee since Brock Vandagriff in 2021. He will be the highest-rated and most talented QB signee for the Bulldogs since Justin Fields in 2018.
According to the 247Sports Composite all-time database, that will make him the second-highest rated QB signee in UGA history, just behind Fields. His 0.9980 prospect rating also places him ahead of former 5-stars Jacob Eason and Matthew Stafford coming out of high school.
It will also be a major story if he’s heading the 1,900 miles or so to play for Dan Lanning’s Ducks. If that’s the case, the onus for UGA will then be to place the full front of their QB recruiting focus on talented 4-star Texan Bowe Bentley.
Bentley also has the Dawgs among his final three schools and would be an excellent fit in Athens in his own right.
Have you seen this week’s “Before the Hedges” weekly recruiting special on YouTube yet? Check it out below.
SENTELL’S INTEL
(Check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)
