Arizona State QB Sam Leavitt on Quinn Ewers: ‘I’m gonna prove I’m the better QB’

Cam Skattebo isn’t the only Sun Devils standout with outsized confidence in front of the media.

ATLANTA — To put it simply, Arizona State Sun Devils redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt is confident in himself, and he’s willing to make it known publicly, providing some bulletin board material for his counterpart, Texas Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers, ahead of Wednesday’s Peach Bowl matchup between the two teams with a College Football Playoff semifinal berth on the line.

“I’ve watched him for a fair amount of time now, and I’m just excited for the opportunity,” Leavitt said this week. “People keep counting me out since Day 1 and I’m gonna go prove I’m the better quarterback. That’s how I’ve felt since Day 1 — I’m gonna go play everybody on the map.”

Offered a chance to back away from that statement after arriving in Atlanta, Leavitt declined.

“I don’t feel like publicity is bad, especially if you’re not saying anything, and just being able to put that on the stage. Quinn Ewers is such a big-time name in college football, and now that’s going to be a big talk on the show, and now you’re going to go into the game and people are going to be watching for stuff, so it’s just an opportunity for me to go prove myself,” Leavitt said during Peach Bowl Media Day on Monday.

The media thanks you for your assist, buddy — this isn’t a matchup with a lot of big storylines otherwise.

In keeping with the team’s theme, Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham defended his quarterback during the final media availability before the Peach Bowl.

“I think our players are just being themselves. And I think a lot of times there’s a lot of how are you supposed to talk to the media? What are you supposed to say? I just firmly believe in, say what you believe. I’m not going to try to prevent our players from saying what they believe,” Dillingham said on Tuesday.

“Those guys have a lot of self-belief because there was a point with the chip on their shoulder that they were one of the only people that believed in themselves,” Dillingham continued.

“And then when they get put in a situation and they’re asked a question and they say the truth of what they believe, if you’re a competitor and you don’t believe you’re the best, are you really a competitor?”

Leavitt certainly qualifies as a competitor in any estimation of the word — Dillingham recounted a story of watching Leavitt play ping pong against a teammate, then moving to shooting some baskets. When Dillingham came back nearly three hours later, Leavitt was still getting shots up.

“I’m walking in with my wife and I said, ‘Watch, I guarantee you Sam is one of the people left in here doing something competitive,’ and she was like, ‘No way.’ He was over there still shooting hoops. And that’s what has gotten him to this point is he’s wired in a way that he just wants to be the best all the time, all the time. And he has confidence in himself wanting to be the best all the time,” Dillingham said.

How confident is Leavitt? Beyond the comment about Ewers, Dillingham said that his young quarterback probably thinks he could beat Michael Jordan at basketball after all that practice. Not the 61-year-old Jordan now, but peak MJ back in the day.

“Jordan then probably,” Dillingham said. “Sam is pretty confident. But like I said, if you’re a competitor and you take the court or take the field in anything and you don’t want to be the best or compete versus the best, then something’s wrong. I mean, that’s the definition of competition.”

Understanding the chip on Leavitt’s shoulder requires an understanding of his background.

A Portland-area product, the 6’2, 200-pounder comes from a football family — his father, Jared, played linebacker at BYU and his older brother, Dallin, was also a standout for the Cougars and currently plays safety for the Green Bay Packers.

Leavitt bounced around early in his high school football career, spending his sophomore season playing in the Salt Lake City area sandwiched around his freshman and junior years in the Portland area. Not exactly the ideal trajectory for college evaluators.

After landing at West Linn as a senior, though, Leavitt threw for 3,184 yards and 36 touchdowns on 170-of-244 passing (.697) while rushing for 693 yards and eight scores, earning Gatorade Oregon Football Player of the Year and the MaxPreps Oregon High School Player of the Year honors by leading his team to a 12-1 record and the Class 6A state championship.

For all the talk about disrespect, On3 ranked Leavitt as a top-100 prospect and a top-10 quarterback nationally. His offer list wasn’t a long one, with 247Sports listing only five, but Dillingham did offer Leavitt as the Florida State offensive coordinator, as did Arizona, Washington, Washington State, and Michigan State, with the consensus four-star prospect picking the Spartans less than a week before the early signing period.

As a true freshman in East Lansing, Leavitt went 15-of-23 passing for 139 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions while running for 67 yards on 13 carries. Two other quarterbacks ahead of Leavitt attempted 160 or more passes and Leavitt opted to depart Michigan State after one season.

Dillingham quickly honed in on his former target at Florida State at the top of his list of five transfer quarterbacks following an abysmal 3-9 season in Tempe to open his head coaching career that saw four Arizona State quarterbacks attempt 38 or more passes.

The early recruiting coup for Dillingham, top-50 prospect Jaden Rashada, eventually transferred to Georgia during the spring window after a poor 2023 season in Tempe that only happened because a reported $13 million NIL deal with Florida fell through, forcing the Gators to release him from his National Letter of Intent.

Leavitt had committed to Arizona State in December, just eight days after entering the portal as Dillingham added Georgia Tech and Nebraska transfer Jeff Sims to provide some extra competition at the position. Given how poor Sims was with the Cornhuskers last season, it probably wasn’t much competition, although Dillingham waited until August 20 to officially name Leavitt the starter, a common tactic for college coaches not wanting to give their first opponent to much advance notice on preparation.

“In 300 clips of team series scenarios, he has two interceptions. So you’re talking 300 clips — that’s roughly five football games — and you have two interceptions,” Dillingham said at the time. “On top of that, he cares, his work ethic, he’s mobile enough. He’s got a lot of traits where I think he’s a really, really, really good football player.”

The ball security foreshadowed one of Leavitt’s best traits as a redshirt freshman — his ability to take care of the football. In rushing for 433 yards and five touchdowns, Leavitt hasn’t fumbled this season and only has four turnover-worthy plays among his five interceptions. That’s elite.

In Atlanta, Dillingham recounted the leadership moment that showed him who Leavitt really was as a quarterback — in early October, the Sun Devils were locked in a close showdown with the Jayhawks in Tempe, taking a lead early in the fourth quarter on a one-yard run by star back Cam Skattebo. Kansas responded with a touchdown of their own to cap an eight-play, 75-yard drive.

Leavitt went up to his teammates with a smile and said, “You guys ready to score?”

Skattebo handled some heavy lifting on the drive after Leavitt ran for 16 yards on the second play before Leavitt finished it with a 31-yard touchdown pass to the team’s best wide receiver, Jordyn Tyson.

The subtle joke cracked by Leavitt gave his teammates the confidence that they were going to win, and the Sun Devils did, responding to another touchdown drive by the Jayhawks with Leavitt providing run sport to Skattebo before throwing a short touchdown pass to Tyson to secure the 35-31 win.

“That was the moment where we’re like, ‘Okay, he plays his best in these big moments.’ He loves the attention on him in these moments. That’s what the best quarterbacks do — they thrive in those moments. That’s when I really felt like his leadership took a next step and the team bought into him,” Dillingham said.

Since then, the Sun Devils have won eight of their last nine games.

“He’s done such a great job as a freshman. What people don’t see is how hard he works behind the scenes — in any great quarterback is a great worker, and he’s an unbelievable worker, he’s an unbelievable person, he’s super intelligent, he’s super competitive,” Dillingham said.

Arroyo echoed those sentiments to Burnt Orange Nation on Media Day, describing a five-hour long session with Leavitt after his arrival in Tempe during which the young quarterback peppered his new coordinator with questions about protections, about quarterback development, anything he could think to ask about playing the position. His offensive coordinator happily closed the door and didn’t want Leavitt to leave.

The attention to detail from Leavitt translated into his game-week preparation as his ability to retain and apply information allowed him to make good pre-snap reads, setting up his processing ability after the snap to ensure that he wasn’t putting the ball at risk. It’s a combination that sets a high ceiling for Leavitt given his athleticism and arm talent.

An area of growth throughout the year has been his ability to know when to scramble and when to keep his eyes downfield looking for big plays. Even though the lack of receiving depth after the season-ending injury sustained by Tyson has limited the upside to Leavitt changing his launch point to pass, he is improving.

“Obviously, he’s a really good athlete. So when you get really good athletes when they are young, they want to scramble, they want to make every play with their legs,” Dillingham said.

“Throughout the season, he’s really gotten better as when to use his athleticism, when to be ultra aggressive, when to not, when to change pros, which is part of being a freshman is to help protect yourself.”

The results tell a clear story — Arizona State won a conference title in Leavitt’s first year as a starter and his QBR, quarterback rating, and interception rate are all lower than Ewers, lending a clear baseline to his desire to prove himself the better quarterback on Wednesday.

But where Leavitt is willing to draw attention to himself in service of the storylines and out of his imperative for radical honesty, Texas players have consistently taken a more measured approach in public.

At Media Day, Ewers reflected that approach.

“Yeah, I mean, I saw it,” Ewers said of Leavitt’s comments. “Just congrats to them on a great year and a great season. I’ve gotten to watch some of their games and he’s a talented player. They’re a fun offense to watch. Again, just excited to be up against them.”

Most of all, Texas has let its collective play speak for itself.

The operative question for Leavitt is, are you really sure you want to make the nation’s top defense in ESPN’s efficiency metric mad at you? The Longhorns may speak softly, but they have sharp horns.

Elders are also supposed to play a role in this whole process, lending some perspective to the young and cocky.

At 34 years old, Dillingham doesn’t really qualify in that regard, and he’s still trying to build his program in his second year — standing up for the public honesty his players like to employ seems like the right play to him, and he’s probably right, at least as it relates to managing the Arizona State program.

But anyone old enough to remember the last time that Texas played Arizona State, a 52-34 win in the 2007 Holiday Bowl, might caution the Sun Devils about what they say within hearing of the Longhorns — throughout bowl week and leading up to kickoff, prolific Arizona State quarterback Rudy Carpenter was running his mouth to the Texas defense, including during pregame warmups.

Carpenter was knocked out of the game in the fourth quarter as the opposing sideline chanted his name.

The Arizona State quarterback hobbled to safety to end an 18-of-36 passing performance that included two interceptions and four sacks. Carpenter spent about as much time getting up close and personal with the grass turf at SDCCU Stadium in San Diego as he did completing passes, trading bold proclamations for unwanted dirt sandwiches.

As Carpenter received attention after a big hit on third down led to an incompletion and a shanked punt by the Sun Devils, commentator Kirk Herbstreit, an elder in the room at a tender 38 years of age, doled out some sound advice.

“Memo to all the players out there who are still going to be playing in bowl games and traveling to a site — go to the events, say nice things about your opponents, smile, don’t say anything to get them excited about wanting to destroy you the way Rudy Carpenter did to this Texas team.”