Less than two weeks before the season opener, the ASU football team still doesn’t know who its starting quarterback will be when it hits the field against Portland State.
While it appears that the race is down to two candidates, neither one of them knows when a decision will be made. There is, however, finally an answer to when there will be an answer.
An ASU media relations official confirmed Monday that coach Dennis Erickson is expected to name his starting quarterback at his weekly press conference next Monday.
The competition took a dramatic change in direction a little over a week ago. At the time, sophomore Brock Osweiler and redshirt junior Samson Szakacsy appeared to be out in front of junior Steven Threet.
Then the tide turned in a hurry. First, one of the apparent favorites all but fell out of the race. Szakacsy’s lingering arm troubles caused him to miss a majority of practices last week and have mostly killed his chances of being the starter.
Threet has progressed ever since and has at least pulled even with Osweiler, if not ahead.
“I think I just trust myself and my knowledge of the offense a lot more (now),” Threet said. “A lot of the time with a new offense, you get caught up trying to do too much, and I think that was a lot of my problem during the spring.”
Both quarterbacks had similar numbers during Saturday’s scrimmage at Sun Devil Stadium, but Erickson has said that those were only part of his evaluation.
After the scrimmage, Erickson commented on how pleased he was with the progress of all four of the quarterbacks on the roster.
“The improvement of all of them from spring football to camp to now is unbelievable,” Erickson said. “I think that is what competition does.”
Despite his coach saying that the scrimmage on Saturday was no more important than an individual practice, Osweiler admitted there was a bit of added pressure.
“Anytime you come into Sun Devil Stadium, you have a live scrimmage, you have fans, you have media, you have to perform,” Osweiler said. “If you don’t perform, you aren’t going to play.”
Like his counterpart, Osweiler has seen a big improvement in himself since spring practice concluded.
“The biggest thing with myself is every single day I get better,” Osweiler said. “Whether it is something mentally or physically, there is always something I am getting better at. As long as I continue to do that during my career at ASU, I’ll be fine.”
Threet took the reins of the offense on the very first drive of the scrimmage, led it down the field and scampered into the end zone to cap the drive with a rushing touchdown.
Osweiler led a scoring drive late in the scrimmage and connected with senior wide receiver Kerry Taylor for a touchdown. Threet had a chance to throw a touchdown on his last drive, but missed an open Taylor in the end zone.
Overall, both quarterbacks limited mistakes and made the easy throws to receivers.
“High completion percentage and limit the turnovers,” Osweiler listed as keys to the quarterback position this year. “If we do that, we are going to win a lot of football games. For the most part we did that today. I think we need to get our offensive line set quicker so I can get the play started, but that’s a minor little thing.”
Both quarterbacks have some game experience, but Threet has much more than Osweiler. Threet played in 10 games in 2008 at Michigan, throwing for 1,105 yards and nine touchdowns before transferring to ASU.
With one week of practices remaining before a decision is made, including a mock game under the lights at Sun Devil Stadium on Friday, Threet is going to take the same approach he has all camp and let the chips fall where they may.
“I’ve been in quarterback competitions before,” Threet said. “Something I have learned is when you concentrate on that, that is only going to hurt you. Both of us have enough to worry about with our defense and how they’re going to try and stop us.”
