ASU football’s spring camp ends with starting QB job still up for grabs

TEMPE — Arizona State’s quarterback competition is not yet settled as a bow was tied on spring camp Tuesday.

“It’s a good battle. I mean, it’s definitely going to go into fall camp,” ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham said. “I like where we’re at. We’re not turning the ball over very much and that’s half the battle.”

Cutter Boley appears to be the leader in the clubhouse. He got the vast majority of the reps alongside other projected starters, it being too early to classify these as first-team reps.

He arrived from Kentucky as a top-20 quarterback in the transfer portal rankings and Dillingham quickly talked him having “unbelievable potential.”

There were concerns coming in about turnover issues, and understandably so, after Boley had 10 interceptions to nearly match his 12 passing touchdowns in his seven SEC starts as a redshirt freshman last season.

The 6-foot-5 signal-caller this spring showed solid processing and rarely put the ball in harm’s way. ASU quarterbacks across the board kept the turnover rate low.

Boley developed a rapport with top pass catchers Omarion Miller and Reed Harris, who arrived as top-five wide receiver transfers. There was a short period where they had to get on the same page, but Boley said it’s been seamless acclimating to Tempe otherwise. He added that coaches have simplified that process from a quarterback’s perspective.

“It’s felt like I’ve known this group of guys and these coaches for a long, long time, and I’ve only been out here for a few months,” Boley said.

“I feel like we have weapons all over the place. I still feel like we’re finding exactly what (our identity) is, but overall, we have so many weapons in so many different places. We got a good group of guys up front that could dominate. So, I feel like in every aspect, we’re doing a really good job.”

Boley is competing with a sixth-year player in Mikey Keene, the room’s lone returning player in redshirt freshman Cam Dyer and true freshman Jake Fette. Offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo said their spring showings came without many surprises.

“You hope you get (a veteran guy in Keene) and we got that. You hope that Jake comes in as a young freshman, and … you’re going to have some bumps and bruises but we’re going to see what we thought we saw in our evaluation,” Arroyo said.

“You’re going to see what you saw in the evaluation of Cutter after one year and hopefully you see some things that are a little bit faster ’cause he’s played football and he can step in and have those things not be maybe as bright and fast as they are to Jake. We saw those things.”

Fette was a top-10 quarterback in this freshman class, according to 247 Sports’ composite ranking. The talent has shown up with a ball that flies out of his hand and true athleticism, even if he could stand to keep his eyes downfield longer.

He looks like the best pure thrower of the ball among the group some days, lacking more when it comes to poise and pocket presence against a live pass rush. Not only is he yet to play a college snap, but the competition he faced in El Paso wasn’t the greatest way to prepare for college talent.

“Everyone’s bigger and faster out here, of course, so just getting used to the speed of the game,” Fette said of the toughest adjustment.

If he puts together a strong summer and continues on the trajectory since he joined the team for Sun Bowl practices in El Paso this past December, it may become tough to keep Fette off the field for very long.

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