ASU is coming off of its second bye week of the season and after seeing arguably its most important player go down with an injury nearly three weeks ago, he is cleared to return and the program will make the final decision on if he plays against Oklahoma State this weekend.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Sustaining a rib injury in the 27-19 victory over Utah back on Oct. 11, Arizona State football head coach Kenny Dillingham revealed that starting quarterback Sam Leavitt is going to practice this week and will be evaluated before Saturday evening’s clash with the Cowboys.
“We should have everybody back. Sam should be back but it is still 60-40, 70-30 that he’ll play this week. It’s one of those, we got to see him practice and stuff like that. He is cleared to play, he wants to play, he is excited about playing, he has been putting in the work to play. We’ll see how that transpires,” Dillingham said at a press conference Monday.
This is big news for the Sun Devils who lost to Cincinnati 24-14 before last week’s bye, are 5-2 on the season and bowl eligible if they win one more game. Cam Skattebo had two rushing touchdowns and the defense kept the team in it, but ASU were unable to produce more offense than it did.
While there was a chance that Leavitt could have played, Dillingham stated that ruling him out against Cincinnati was in the best interest of the program to not rush him back and risk another injury.
“He’s actually been cleared for three weeks. For us, this was us protecting Sam and his competitiveness from Sam and his competitiveness,” Dillingham said. “If it was Sam’s choice, he would have gone right back in the game for the next play and then he would have played next week right after that.
“It’s more of like, ‘Hey bud, lets work together here, you are not playing. I don’t care if you can play, you’re not.’ That’s just kind of us and Sam working together and he is cleared and he wants to play, so we got to see him out there at practice and roll from there because I have a lot of confidence in Jeff (Sims).”
Sims, a Nebraska transfer, started in Leavitt’s place and threw for 155 yards from 12-of-23 passing as well as rushing 14 times for an additional 53 yards in the defeat. Trenton Bourguet was elevated to backup but did not play against the Bearcats.
Leavitt started in the first six games of the season, completing 90-of-152 passes and throwing for 1,166 yards, eight touchdowns and four interceptions. The Oregon native has rushed 55 times for four touchdowns and 279 yards.
For Dillingham to be confident in both of his quarterbacks ability to help the Sun Devils win, he is content with either starting either Sims or Leavitt against a struggling Oklahoma State (3-4, 0-4 B12) team who is winless in conference play.
ASU heads to Stillwater and will face the Cowboys on Saturday at 4 p.m. AZT.
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Reporter Alec Cipollini covers the Phoenix Mercury, Suns and ASU Athletics for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on his X account, @AlecCipollini
