Arizona State QB competition between Jones, Bourguet continues Friday

It won’t be until after practice Friday that the Arizona State Sun Devils will name Emory Jones or Trenton Bourguet the starting quarterback for a Saturday game against the Colorado Buffaloes.

Interim coach Shaun Aguano told Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta that a “pretty even” competition this week will go the distance.

“Both of them did really well and we have another practice today, and we’ll see how that ends up on our final walk-throughs and our fast practice today on me making that decision on who’s going to be starting tomorrow,” Aguano told Bickley & Marotta.

Jones played last Saturday, a 15-14 loss to the Stanford Cardinal, after he was knocked out of the prior game on Oct. 8 with an injury.

Bourguet took over that 45-38 upset against then-21st-ranked Washington, going 15-of-21 for 182 yards, three touchdowns and an interception. It was his only appearance in which he threw a pass this year.

Jones, a transfer from Florida, has thrown for 1,347 yards, five touchdowns and four interceptions in 2022. He’s added a rushing element that includes four touchdowns, but the sack numbers have his rushing totals at 54 carries for 41 yards for the season.

Last week, Jones went 14-of-25 for 227 yards, a touchdown and a pick, but ASU didn’t score in the second half in the loss to the Cardinal.

Aguano opened the starting quarterback job up for a competition this week. He’s looking for a spark against a 1-6 Colorado squad that likewise is working under an interim coach, Mike Sanford.

Quarterback change or not, what certainly will change for ASU’s offense this week is the team’s play-caller. Aguano took away play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Glenn Thomas.

“We made that decision on Sunday, I made that decision on Sunday,” Aguano said of the change. “The difference that you’ll see is probably a little bit more up-tempo.

“I wanted to see how everything played out and evaluate all the coaching staff and make sure our kids were put in a position to be successful and win games … it’s been an evolving process, an evaluation process.”

The Buffaloes have gone 1-1 since Sanford took over for Karl Dorrell.

Sanford has a head-coaching stint at Western Kentucky (2017-18) on his resume, as well as high-level offensive coordinator experience at Boise State (2014), Notre Dame (2015-16), Utah State (2019) and Minnesota (2020-21) before landing at Colorado starting this season.

Follow @kzimmermanaz