Unproven K-State quarterbacks have room to improve

Fans surrender a Saturday for a spring football game to see the quarterback, especially where competition rages. Kansas State faithful would have come close to filling 20,000-seat Sporting Park on Saturday anyway, but getting a first look at quarterback candidates made for bonus viewing.

They should be intrigued by what they saw, but no more knowledgeable about the identity of the opening day starter.

By service time in the program, Joe Hubener and Jesse Ertz have an edge. But generating the most buzz was Alex Delton, the freshmen from Hays who had he not enrolled for the spring semester would be planning his high school prom.

“I could be in a tuxedo now,” Delton said.

Instead, Delton, like the other quarterbacks, sported a green “no-contact” jersey. None of the Wildcats QBs have started a college game, and their inexperience showed. Hubener and Ertz tossed early interceptions, and none of the three completed as much as 50 percent during the first half in a game the matched starters against reserves.

The loudest cheers of the day were showered on Delton. In the second quarter, he ripped off a 39-yard run, the game’s longest carry, and he showed elusiveness and speed against the first-team defense on other attempts.

Coach Bill Snyder raised eyebrows during spring workouts when he compared Delton to former K-State star Ell Roberson, the athletically gifted quarterback of the 2003 Big 12 championship team, and Delton on Saturday flashed glimpses of that potential.

“I’m definitely going through a learning curve right now,” Delton said. “Once you think you have it, you don’t have it.”

To hear Snyder, who noticed seats emptying during the fourth quarter, none of his quarterback candidates did.

“When fans leave early it tells me we’re not very good,” Snyder said.

Keep in mind, this was spring practice, with nothing exotic offered up on either side of the ball and some starters sitting out. Playing in front of a crowd and having the band blaring music for a game-day feel were perhaps the biggest benefits for the quarterbacks.

Ertz, a sophomore, opened the game with the starters. Hubener, a junior who hasn’t started a game at quarterback since junior high, threw nine passes in mop-up duty last year.

But Delton brings promise to the equation, and the race figures to continue through fall workouts and perhaps even into the season. Kansas State has used multiple quarterback in previous years.

That didn’t happen last season with Jake Waters. He gave the Wildcats the luxury of a seasoned quarterback, and it paid off in a championship chase, with K-State reaching its season finale with a shot of at least sharing the conference crown.

Quarterback experience tends to be a major consideration in shaping a team’s preseason perception, and that’s why TCU will probably go off as the Big 12 favorite over Baylor. Trevone Boykin, who finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting last season, is back for the Horned Frogs.

Baylor’s Bryce Petty, who won two Big 12 rings, has moved on, but the Bears figure to be in good shape with Seth Russell, who has thrown 11 touchdown passes in his career mostly as a reserve.

Every Big 12 team except K-State returns quarterbacks who started at some point last season. Even the bottom two teams, Kansas and Iowa State, are set there, although the Jayhawks are awaiting word on the health of Michael Cummings, who injured a knee in Saturday’s spring game.

But Kansas State should be strong in other areas, especially on the defensive side. When the magazines and the preseason polls emerge, the Wildcats will fall somewhere in the middle of the Big 12 pack. Rising above that means one of the QB candidates will have taken control of the position. That didn’t happen in the spring, or Saturday.

This story was originally published April 25, 2015 at 8:09 PM with the headline "Unproven K-State quarterbacks have room to improve."