On a sleepy Monday morning with the marine layer shielding San Diego State football from the sun’s heat and with the players recovering from the first week of fall camp, the biggest question on people’s minds changed from “Who will be starting quarterback?” to “Can any of these quarterbacks actually start?”
That was the impression from the 10th practice of the fall, 19 days away from the 2015 season opener against University of San Diego, when surely a quarterback will start. But the “who” part of that is still up in the air.
Will it be Maxwell Smith, the graduate transfer from Kentucky who misfired early and often on Monday?
Or will it be Christian Chapman, the redshirt freshman from Carlsbad High who found himself trying to put together broken plays more often than not?
Head coach Rocky Long is confident in both.
“I don’t think we’re near as nervous about who would go in after the starter,” Long said. “I think we got two guys who can play for sure, and maybe a third and fourth guy who can play in a pinch.”
The bigger news came when Long said he might not name a starter until the USD game on Sept. 5 because he doesn’t want the Toreros to prepare for the starter in their practice.
From the obvious department, SDSU’s quarterbacks play better when they don’t have a pass rush in their face.
During 11-on-11 scrimmages, the offense was plagued by dropped passes, fumbled handoffs, broken plays and interceptions.
“We’ve got to get them more team reps,” Long added. “They don’t throw it nearly as good in a team setting and they have to. Maybe they won’t be as good (as without the full team on the field), but they’ve got to be better than they are.”
The concerning part was it didn’t matter if it was against the first- or second-team defense, the quarterbacks — and the offensive line for that matter — weren’t sharp at all.
Who will start at middle linebacker for SDSU?
It’s never easy to replace a player with NFL talent like Cody Galea, who’s currently in training camp with the Indianapolis Colts.
For linebackers coach Zach Arnett, a New Mexico graduate who played for UNM under Rocky Long, it’s a toss-up who will start at middle linebacker.
Arnett is the coach who is usually the most visibly — and vocally — upset with players, either for missing coverage assignments, using bad technique or not working hard enough.
One’s first impression of Arnett might be that he’s a naturally intense guy. So, what grinds his gears exactly?
“Bad football. I’ll be the most laid-back, happy guy in the world if we’re going out there and doing our job and flying around and playing good football,” Arnett said.
Three players all have an equal shot at the starting middle linebacker role.
Sophomore Jay Henderson is one. He has the physical abilities to do well at the position and he played in the SDSU defense last year, so he’s a little more familiar with the complex defense.
Ryan Dunn is also a sophomore, but transferred from the University of Arizona. His advantage is he is size (6-foot-3, 235 pounds) and his work ethic.
Randy Ricks, a junior-college transfer from Arizona Western, is the tallest of the three at 6-foot-5. He’s also the fastest.
Arnett has a high standard of expectations for his group, but concedes the three frontrunners for starting middle linebacker all have their disadvantages, too.
“We pride ourselves on how physical we play on defense,” he said. “If guys aren’t playing up to that standard, they don’t play.”
“They all know it.”
Quotable
Arnett dropped this thought-provoking line when reminding a linebacker that he wouldn’t get any playing time if he didn’t use the right fundamentals.
“You can’t roll if you’re not square!”
