Clark Lea thought Vanderbilt had no shot at Jared Curtis — but the 5-Star 'misfit' chose to flip the script

What if I told you that Vanderbilt quarterback Jared Curtis took a different route in deciding where he wanted to play college football , with a school that put zero resources into recruiting him until one phone call changed the future for Clark Lea? And what would you think, as schools roll out the red carpet and do anything necessary to land a coveted prospect, if it was actually the player who recruited the school? A nonconventional recruitment, like the one that took place with Jared Curtis, is rare in this era of college athletics, especially when money is such a driving force in schools staking their claim to industry rankings.

JAYDEN DANIELS WANTED ‘RESPECT’ FROM LSU.

INSTEAD, HE STARTED AN UGLY FIGHT THAT WILL TARNISH HIS REPUTATION Whether it's private jet hours, parents securing houses, exotic cars or even schools offering real estate offerings to a recruit in the hopes of a signature, we entered uncharted waters over five years ago with the inception of NIL.

But in the rare instance of the highly-touted quarterback's recruitment, money was the last thing discussed during a recruitment process that left those on West End, and college football, a bit stunned at how this all came together.

It's one thing to just throw out an offer to a highly touted prospect to get your school's name on the list.

It's another thing to actually find out that this potential five-star quarterback is sincerely interested in your school In fact, Lea was not going to waste his staff's time in pursuing a kid he knew there was no shot in landing.

The reality for Vanderbilt was that in the grand scheme of things, even with all of the momentum created over the previous two years, Curtis was the prize recruit that seemed so far off their radar that inviting him out to practice was most likely the closest they'd get to having him around campus.

"We really didn’t recruit Jared.

Not that we wouldn’t have recruited him, but part of being effective is elimination.

You don't wanna chase things that aren’t gonna happen," Lea mentioned earlier this summer to OutKick about Jared.

"He came to a Tuesday practice the week we were playing Tennessee in 2024.

PETE GOLDING DROPS UNFILTERED TRUTH ON 'EX' LANE KIFFIN, AND NCAA TAMPERING: 'WHAT HAVE WE CREATED? "That was really kind of it in terms of seeing him and interacting, and even on that day I don't know that I spent that much time with them, outside of sitting in the team meeting." All of this came during a time in which Curtis de-committed from Georgia, was lured to Oregon for a short time period, then re-committed to Georgia.

All the while, Vanderbilt was still on the outside, not even thinking they had shot to get on his radar outside of a random appearance at practice like any other recruit.