Tonight’s dreadful offensive output has Arizona State quarterback Danny Sullivan on the hot seat.
And, as the fans who chanted ‘We want Brock’ will attest, the popular choice to replace him is strong-armed true freshman Brock Osweiler. Osweiler has ascended the depth chart and has all the measurables to become a good quarterback.
But in the rush to anoint Osweiler ASU’s next big thing, Samson Szakacsy has been completely forgotten.
The big question mark surrounding Szakacsy is his health. Elbow problems have hindered him since high school, and I’m not even sure if he could withstand an entire season without doing more damage.
However, if Szakacsy is healthy enough to play, he’s an intriguing option for the Sun Devils.
Szakacsy will never put up consistent 300-yard passing games or be a long-bomb threat. But if you put him and Ryan Bass in the backfield, it becomes a lot harder for opponents to defend.
As it stands, the read-option that ASU does has bark but no bite, because Sullivan is not a threat to run. The same would hold true with Osweiler. While the possibility technically exists for the quarterback to pull back the ball and run it himself, Sullivan and Osweiler wouldn’t do it regularly.
But Szakacsy can beat teams with his legs, which would force defenses to stay honest. In turn, this makes play-action passes better and forces teams out of the Cover 2 packages that hinder big passing plays.
Oregon has great success using running quarterbacks in recent years. Arizona State should consider it.
No thank you. You better have a stable of QBs, ’cause if one gets injured, you’re back to passing the ball with the QB but now you don’t have the practice reps to make it successful.