Dillingham confident in QBs as position battle continues
Quality or quantity? It isn’t easy to have one, let alone both. Yet that’s what Arizona State football might have on their hands in their quarterback room. Throughout nine spring practices, five different signal-callers have progressed in their own way, and it has head coach Kenny Dillingham seeing the bright side.
“You see them a little more comfortable every single day,” Dillingham told reporters after Saturday’s scrimmage. “I definitely saw progress in a lot of things on offense.”
While it’s only intrasquad scrimmages for now, it is a step forward. After Dillingham blasted the team for lack of energy and enthusiasm at Tuesday’s practice, the spirits were high on both sidelines on Saturday. As always, the spotlight will shine brightest on whom the game falls on the most: the quarterback. But which one? Unlike many teams in college football, Arizona State currently has five different players getting consistent reps behind center throughout spring practices.
A quarterback not only does he need to make game-changing plays but also make the right plays that will retain possession and avoid negative yardage. This is something Dillingham preached to his five signal-callers. Ultimately, losing a down isn’t as bad as losing substantial yardage in most cases. Dillingham secretly put this philosophy to the test on Saturday. With an increased volume of deep pass calls, Dillingham noted that he was looking more so for which quarterbacks could get rid of the ball in time to avoid losing yards on sacks.
“Today we called more shots down the field, which really what I’m looking for is whose gonna throw it away,” Dillingham noted. “Who throws the football away on 1st and 10? Who throws the check down for a gain of two on 1st and 10? That’s literally what the day was today. It was, ‘we’re gonna put you in adverse citations and see who will just be smart with the football and who can we trust to be aggressive.’”
It’s an instinct that isn’t taught as well at the younger levels of the game, and Dillingham sees the ability to throw it away as a critical part of not only the team’s fortunes but of an individual’s progression.
“Training your body to throw it away, if you don’t train yourself, you’re never going to do it,” Dillingham explained. “It’s not something that just happens. It takes practice and weeks and months to train somebody that it’s okay to throw it away. It’s the opposite of what they’ve been doing their entire lives. Most quarterbacks, when they get to college, they were one of the top five, ten athletes on their team. They’re used to making everybody miss. When they get to college, it flips a little bit.”
At the college level, making the defense miss isn’t easy. On Saturday specifically, the Sun Devil pass rush got to the quarterback early and often, making decision-making for the quarterbacks that much more vital.
“We play fast, violent, and physical,” defensive linemen BJ Green said. “That’s what we do.”
If Dillingham had graded the decision-making of his QB’s Saturday, true freshman Jaden Rashada would’ve had the best grade. While others such as Trenton Bourguet, Drew Pyne, and Bennett Meredith each checked these boxes, Rashada distinguished himself, having made three different throwaways to avoid sacks on Saturday. Ironically, the newcomer who arrived on campus less than two weeks before spring practice began appeared to be the most seasoned and this underrated skill.
“I’m just playing smart football,” Rashada said of his performance. “2nd-and-10 is better than 2nd-and-16. Knowing you got more life to live after 1st.”
Despite all the positives, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the Sun Devil offense quite yet. There has been a fair share of offensive miscues in the last three weeks, with the most glaring coming in false start penalties, three of them taking place on Saturday. Rather than blame the offensive line or the quarterbacks, though, Dillingham believes the miscommunication on snaps comes from the constant changes at quarterback, with five different players having five different styles and cadences. Yet, even with that valid reasoning, Dillingham pointed out this element as a shortcoming that needs to be remedied.
“Our quarterbacks gotta get on a similar rhythm in terms of their cadences,” Dillingham remarked. “That is throwing it off when you play four, five guys in there with the same group.”
ASU’s head coach made that a little clearer to the players during a live scrimmage, and this time with a lot more intensity in his voice.
“No chance that can happen,” Dillingham said over the loudspeaker following a false start on a 3rd and short situation. “No chance.”
All in all, the play of the signal-callers has improved over nine spring practices, and the skill position players on offense have also displayed that trajectory. On Saturday, one of the most noticeable performers has been wide receiver Coben Bourguet, a redshirt sophomore and the younger brother of quarterback Trenton Bourguet. The wide receiver had slowly worked his way onto the depth chart throughout spring ball before exploding on Saturday with a team-high four receptions, two of them including major yards after the catch. While some on hand may have been caught off-guard, his older brother wasn’t in the slightest.
“He had a great day today,” Trenton Bourguet said. “He’s been putting his head down the last couple of years. Coben’s gonna make a name for himself. I’m not surprised by what he did; he just needed the opportunity.”
Coben Bourguet cited his lifetime work with his brother and developing chemistry with other throwers that allowed for his big day in a quality unit-wide effort.
“The group of receivers, it’s our job to make the quarterbacks look good,” Coben Bourguet said. “It’s good to see everybody grow as a unit.”
Another unheralded name who made his quarterback shine on Saturday was Javen Jacobs. Working as a Swiss army knife in the offense, Jacobs, who transitioned mid-spring from wide receiver to running back, hauled in three receptions while tallying four rushes on the ground. In his newfound role, Jacobs has already displayed the potential contribution level he can bring to the team.
“Trying to make the most of my opportunities,” Jacobs said. “When I’m in there, I’ll do my part to help the guys around me. I love this team. As an offense, everybody’s doing a great job.”
While Jacobs and Coben Bourguet were able to succeed with multiple quarterbacks feeding them the pigskin, come September, only one signal caller will take the field as the week one starter. It’s a competition within the team that none of the candidates would like to lose, of course, but they all understand that this is also a competition that serves the team's benefit more than their individual gain.
“Everybody just pushes each other to get better,” Rashada said of the quarterback room. “Nobody has a big ego to not teach another quarterback about something. Everybody’s getting each other better and teaching each other.”
“We’re all pushing each other to be great,” Trenton Bourguet stated. “We have a lot of good quarterbacks in this room. End of the day, we all want to win. Just gotta compete.”
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