TEMPE, Ariz. — Arizona State football wrapped up its second spring session under Kenny Dillingham on Friday night with their annual spring game. We saw a mixture of 11-on-11 scrimmaging as well as competitive drills. Here are three takeaways from the night.
Three takeaways from the ASU spring game
The Quarterback Battle
The main story coming into the night was the quarterback battle. Just days ago, Jaden Rashada hit the transfer portal and is heading to the SEC, leaving a battle between transfer Sam Leavitt and returner Trenton Bourguet.
No quarterback throughout the spring has been labeled as the “first-string guy”. Both Leavitt and Bourguet have had ample opportunities to play with differing groups of receivers.
To begin the showcase each quarterback had a chance to show off in situational drills. The first situational drill of the night was Redzone.
Each unit had two drives to show what they could do.
Bourguet and his unit had the first crack at going for a touchdown. The returner threw two passes on the drive, one throw to the sideline that went by receiver Derek Eusebio. Several plays later, Bourguet threw a check-down pass to Raleek Brown that was stopped short of the line to gain, a three-and-out for that unit.
On Leavitt’s first drive, he didn’t attempt a pass as running back Cam Skattebo ran it into the endzone.
Bourguet’s next drive went very similar to his first, as he was again stopped short of the chains on a throw on third down.
Leavitt finally got a chance to show what he could do on his second drive of the game. While it may not have been a throw, Leavitt took a quarterback keeper 16 yards to the house for a touchdown.
Throughout the spring game, Leavitt has shown a great ability to scramble, designed or not.
After the game, Marcus Arroyo praised the work of Leavitt throughout camp and said this may have been the best camp a QB has had under him.
“Candidly, I mean, [Leavitt] came in and took the job,” Arroyo told 247 Sports after the game. “We had Jaden — whoever else it was, it didn’t matter — but Jaden hadn’t had much practice. [Rashada] was hurt, came in, and Sam really was still carrying the flag. I think that that part of the competition was a foregone conclusion in some way.”
Defensive line
All spring the eye opener has been the defensive line. Last season, the DL had major depth issues and some production issues late into the season. At the end of last season, Dillingham noted the issues and vowed to fix them.
Defensive line coach Diron Reynolds says the room has grown immensely year over year and he has about 20 guys that could see the field next season.
During last night’s showcase, the defensive line caused havoc as it had been doing all spring practice. Notably, the run defense has improved night and day from last year, particularly in the A gap.
Defensive lineman Prince Dorbah noted that the team had been putting a lot of work this spring into the inside run and it showed.
Virtually no running back, including the bar of soap Raleek Brown, could run the ball inside.
All of the runs last night at some point got pushed towards the boundary.
It is safe to say that the defensive line is going to be one to watch out for coming up next season.
Kicking Battle
Coming into camp two kickers are battling for the starting position. Last night, those two kickers battled it out and got four kicks each.
Returning kicker Ian Hershey went up against redshirt freshman Carston Kieffer.
The results went as this:
From 37 yards
Hershey: miss
Kieffer: make
From 47 yards
Hershey: make
Kieffer: make
From 52 yards
Hershey: make
Kieffer: make
From 57 yards
Hershey: miss
Kieffer: miss
One thing to note is that the wind was blowing 20-25 miles per hour the whole night and affected kicking throughout the night.
Nonetheless, the kicking battle has not been decided yet and could go into the early season next year.
That wraps up spring ball for this season and ASU now looks ahead to fall camp and their first game at home against Wyoming next season.
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