No. 1 QB Jared Curtis flipping from Georgia to Vanderbilt shows it's a new day in recruiting

For the sickos among us that still follow high school football recruiting, Tuesday brought a nice Christmas Eve present ahead of the opening of the early signing period on Wednesday. 

Jared Curtis, a quarterback out of Nashville Christian and the No. 1 player in the class of 2026, is expected to flip from Georgia to Vanderbilt, as industry insiders have long expected.

Curtis tweeted after the news broke saying nothing is final, but all the various insiders have kept their tweets up.

Obviously, there are many stories at play here:

-- Vanderbilt clearly has no intent to fade back into oblivion without Diego Pavia next season. 

-- Critics will say Curtis flipped because of money and, well, duh. While we obviously don't know the specifics of Curtis's deal at Vandy, The Athletic reported Tuesday that 5-star quarterbacks typically command between $750,000 and $1 million. Considering all the factors at play, it's fair to assume Curtis is on the north end of that figure, and likely above it.

-- Tuesday is deja vu for Georgia. Two years ago, the Bulldogs lost Dylan Raiola to Nebraska. UGA also finished runner-up for Arch Manning the year prior. This summer, Jackson Cantwell, the No. 1 tackle and No. 4 overall player in this class, chose Miami after visiting Georgia six times. No one's forecasting Georgia's downfall here. The Dawgs will be just fine. Kirby Smart's team is days away from playing for their second straight SEC championship, and on Sunday they'll officially reach the College Football Playoff for the fifth time in nine seasons. Georgia's loss is college football's gain, but Georgia isn't going anywhere on the macro scale.

Mainly, this is the continuation of a college football story.

The No. 1 quarterback in 2026 is going to Vanderbilt, and the No. 2 quarterback is going to Houston. The No. 1 edge rusher is going to Maryland. 

Thirty-four players earned a 5-star designation in the class of 2026, and those players will sign with a total of 19 different schools. The usual suspects are of course in there, but so, too, are Utah and Mississippi State. Texas Tech will sign more 5-stars than Ohio State. In fact, in 2021 (the final class before NIL revolutionized recruiting), the 35 5-stars signed with a total of 17 schools, but Alabama (seven), Ohio State (six) and Georgia (four) gobbled up half of them. This year, no program signed more than four 5-stars, and only Alabama and Oregon managed (afforded, really) to do that. Again: Ohio State is signing the same number of 5-stars as Mississippi State. 

Furthermore, USC is set to sign the No. 1-ranked class. The last time a school outside the SEC signed the top class in the 247 composite was Miami in 2008. In 2026, Alabama is the only SEC school to sign a top-5 class. 

When NIL entered recruiting half a decade ago, the conventional wisdom was that Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State would further separate themselves from college football. The conventional wisdom could not have been more wrong. 

What those self-appointed experts missed was that while an Ohio State or a Texas might have more money than any individual competitor, it's not about that. No one school has more money to spend than the rest of college football combined, and plenty of middle-class programs have enough money to spend to snag a difference-making player.