Five-star passer Jared Curtis, the No. 1 quarterback in the 2026 class, announced his commitment to Georgia over Oregon Monday night, closing a fierce recruiting battle that sources told ESPN went “down to the wire.”
Curtis, who initially committed to Georgia in March 2024 before reopening his recruitment this past October, is the No. 5 overall recruit in the 2026 ESPN 300. A 6-foot-4, 225-pound junior from Nashville, Tennessee, Curtis previously stood as the cycle’s third-ranked uncommitted prospect.
After entertaining interest from a host of Big Ten and SEC powers, Curtis narrowed his finalists to Oregon and Georgia earlier this year before taking official trips to see each program in March. Sources told ESPN that Curtis held in-home visits with Bulldogs offensive coordinator Mike Bobo and Ducks playcaller Will Stein in the final days of his process last week.
He spent time on the phone with the coaching staffs from both schools Sunday afternoon. On Monday, sources in both programs remained unsure of Curtis’ plans in the hours prior to his announcement. Sources in Curtis’ camp told ESPN that representatives for the coveted quarterback prospect had prepared two commitment videos — one for each school — before Curtis made his public commitment to Georgia via social media on Monday.
A polished pocket passer with 7,637 passing yards and 130 total touchdowns in three varsity seasons at Nashville (Tennessee) Christian School, Curtis rejoins the Bulldogs as the top-ranked member of the program’s 2026 class. He returns as Georgia’s fourth ESPN 300 commit in the cycle, following safety Zechariah Fort (No. 46 overall) and wide receivers Brady Marchese (No. 62) and Vance Spafford (No. 97) in coach Kirby Smart’s latest recruiting class.
Curtis had spent nearly seven months pledged to the Bulldogs when he pulled his commitment last fall with an eye on fully exploring his options in the new year. “I knew I wanted to take other visits,” Curtis told ESPN at the time.
Georgia remained in close touch with Curtis following his decommitment. In January, Curtis met with a series of Power 4 coaches — including Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, Auburn’s Hugh Freeze and North Carolina’s Bill Belichick — while Ohio State, Oregon and South Carolina also entered the chase for the nation’s most-coveted quarterback prospect.
Curtis announced a slate of four spring official visits to Auburn, Georgia, South Carolina and Oregon on Jan. 31, then trimmed his recruitment to the Bulldogs and Ducks in late February. Curtis made his final on-campus visits with the programs across back-to-back trips to Oregon and Georgia between March 8-16, and later canceled follow-up trips with each school in April.
Curtis’ father Jesse told ESPN after those visits that his son was “torn real bad” between the pair of finalists. Georgia and Oregon maintained frequent contact with Curtis and his family in April and this past weekend before Curtis committed on Monday, returning to the Bulldogs’ 2026 class exactly 200 days after pulling his pledge from the program last fall.
“We’ve been to Georgia so many times,” his father recently told ESPN. “We’ve got great relationships with those coaches. We just know them all so well. They’re a bunch of great people and we have a lot of comfort there.”
Curtis, Tennessee’s Gatorade Football Player of the Year in 2024, will be viewed as a potentially foundational quarterback prospect for the future when he arrives to the Bulldogs in 2026.
A big-framed, big-armed passer with elite accuracy and impressive mobility, Curtis logged 5,115 passing yards and 52 touchdowns with 17 interceptions over his first two high school seasons. As a junior last fall, he threw for another 2,830 yards with 40 touchdowns to only three interceptions while leading Nashville Christian to the Tennessee Division II-A state championship. On the ground, Curtis recorded 1,661 yards and 38 rushing scores across his high school career.
Georgia’s high school pipeline at the quarterback position has taken a series of blows in recent cycles, most notably through five-star recruit Dylan Raiola‘s flip to Nebraska in the 2024 class. The Bulldogs signed four-star quarterback Ryan Montgomery (No. 113 overall) and three-star passer Hezekiah Millender in the 2025 cycle. In Curtis, Georgia now has an elite gunslinger and the program’s third highest-ranked quarterback pledge in the ESPN recruiting era, trailing only Justin Fields (No. 1 overall in 2018) and Matt Stafford (No. 5 in 2006).
After missing out on Curtis, Oregon is expected to turn its attention to four-star quarterback Ryder Lyons, No. 50 in the ESPN 300 and the nation’s fifth-ranked passer in 2026. The Ducks have also kept in contact with five-star Houston quarterback commit Keisean Henderson (No. 16 overall) this spring.
Curtis’ pledge leaves four of the 18 quarterbacks ranked inside the 2026 ESPN still uncommitted. That group is led by Lyons, followed by dual-threat passer Landon Duckworth (No. 105 overall) and four-stars Oscar Rios (No. 193) and Bowe Bentley (No. 263).
