No. 3 QB is no small matter
August 6th, 2008, 12:05 am · Post a Comment · posted by Dan Zeiger
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: Score one for me on the hunch meter. Arizona State has announced that, due to space limitations, practices inside the indoor facility will be closed to the general public for the time being.
Arizona State quarterbacks, from left, Danny Sullivan, Chasen Stangel and Samson Szakacsy prepare to toss balls during practice. (Laura Segall/For the Tribune)
Forecasting who will be a college football team’s No. 3 quarterback is by no means a pointless exercise — just ask Oregon and UCLA, which by the end of the 2007 regular season were relegated to their fourth-string signal callers.
With Danny Sullivan secure as Rudy Carpenter’s backup and freshman Jack Elway likely to redshirt, the competition for Arizona State’s No. 3 job will involve the same two players as last season: Samson Szakacsy and Chasen Stangel, both redshirt freshmen.
Szakacsy won the job in camp but later suffered an elbow injury that required surgery, so Stangel finished the season in the spot. While Szakacsy rehabilitated during the spring, Stangel — he of the solid mechanics but spotty decision-making last year — showed signs that he was starting to get it.
“The thing that Chasen is doing is starting to understand the offense a lot better,” coach Dennis Erickson said on Tuesday. “The light bulb is starting to go on, and that makes all the difference. But Samson is throwing the ball better. He’s getting a lot more velocity, and that’s the key for him, how he comes back after that injury. He’s very athletic.”
The QB duel will not begin in earnest until ASU begins practicing in pads on Friday.
On Tuesday, Szakacsy showed his athleticism during 11-on-11 drills by scrambling out of the pocket — something he showed a knack for in the spring — and running to his right for about 35 yards. The biggest play involving Stangel was not as flattering, as he had a pass intercepted for a touchdown by Pierre Singfield, a walk-on cornerback who continues to look like he wants to play.
Highly-touted freshman back Ryan Bass is part of a crowd at running back, but he made sideline observers gasp by eluding two tacklers with sick cuts on an off-tackle run. He is the only player ASU has at the position with that kind of quickness and shiftiness.
For Bass — as is the case for many players — the tempo of the Division I level is the biggest adjustment coming out of high school. If he can assimilate himself during camp, watch out.
Baseball coach Pat Murphy visited practice on Tuesday. While the first-team offense had a break, Carpenter, a frequent attendee of games at Packard Stadium, went to the sideline to chat for a moment.
“He was telling me about his fastball,” Murphy said of Carpenter, who played baseball in high school and has received attention from major-league scouts as a pitcher.
The crowd at practice appeared to be slightly larger than the contingent that showed up on Monday. Fans attending workouts at the Kajikawa Practice Field should continue to be no problem, but I have a hunch that few, if any, spectators will be allowed inside the indoor facility when practices commence there on Saturday.
There is more sideline space under the “bubble” than I expected, but add the training staff and tables, film crew, blocking sleds, equipment managers, ball boys, ASU officials, scouts and, yes, media, and that room disappears rather quickly. We’ll see.