Video/quotes: Rob Likens on Daniels as ASU’s QB pick – 247Sports

Here is what Arizona State offensive coordinator Rob Likens said about naming true freshman Jayden Daniels the starting quarterback and classmate Joey Yellen the backup.

On Daniels winning the job:

“He doesn’t put the ball in jeopardy and he sees the field. And those were the two main things. For his age and hasn’t had a lot of experience like in college football except for spring practice, his ability to make quick decisions with the speed that’s going on around him and his ability to adjust from the high school speed to the college speed was, I’ve never seen that before. So it’s pretty amazing.

And the ball security thing, that was a really big thing.”

On what Daniels does well and how the team responds to him:

“One of the things you have to look at is, what does the offense do while he’s in the game? So we watched, and we moved the ball while he was in there. Positive things happened. Sometimes you can’t put your finger on it. Sometimes it’s hard for the other guys, and they get blamed and bad things just happen when they’re in there. I’m sorry, but when he was in there, most of the time, positive things happened to our offense.”

On when he knew Daniels would be the starter:

“You saw flashes of his greatness in spring, and then you kind of wanted to see how he did during the summer, wanted to have those guys the chance to see how they went through the summer running all of the pass plays without the coaches out there. And then, really the first week of camp, right before Camp T, started seeing like — yeah. We started talking at night after practices going, ‘Yeah, this looks like it’s kind of heading in this direction if he keeps going that way.’”

On his talents:

“I think that he sees the field as a passer. He’s beyond his years. He sees the field like a junior. It’s really amazing. And then on top, he’s a passing quarterback. He is a legit, drop back passing quarterback who happens to, when he’s pulls….. He doesn’t pull it down because he’s such a good passer. He makes fast decisions. He gets the ball out of his hands. And none of us have seen what he’s going to do when the play breaks down.

On if his arm strength and youth are a concern:

“No, and if I didn’t go through the deal at Cal with Jared Goff his freshman year, I would’ve had some concerns. But I watched him, Jared was not, you know, he was kind of skinny his freshman year. And I didn’t think— I was really worried about him making it through the season. And he made it through the season, I think he got knocked out in the last game against Stanford that year. But Jayden is very similar to his body stature. One thing about the kid is he’s shifty like hopefully, he knows how to slide. We’re going to work on that, and run out of bounds as fast as humanly possible. But I’m not concerned about it.”

On if being present in the spring helped:

“It would’ve been very hard for him to start if he didn’t go through the spring. Because you only got — he’d just be in the learning process of what we’re doing. But he’s a really intelligent kid. That was big — all three of them got here in the spring, that’s huge.”

On how it will be coaching a true freshman quarterback as a coordinator:

“I’m excited. I see some of the things that he can do — now we can’t put too much expectations on him and think that he’s the savior. He might be in two years, I don’t know. But we can’t put that on him now, at all. But what he can become, I just think he’s special. I really do. He’s special.”

On Joey Yellen being named the No. 2 quarterback and how he’s improved since the spring:

“Yes. It all started with changing his body. He lost some weight, he got in great shape. He had some throwing motion issues that he was going through that we kind of got fixed right before camp started. And you can see his arm, and he’s extremely smart. He grew up idolizing Peyton Manning and that’s what he kind of fashions his game after, that he uses his mind to beat the defense along with his arm. And that’s why he’s improved so much.”

On what he expects from the offensive unit:

“The thing is, we will grow and be as dynamic as much as the quarterback can handle. And that’s the tough part right now is we have all of these veterans all around this young kid, and they are chomping at the bit to do, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s run these formations. Let’s do this.’ I’m like, ‘Hold on. We got to just let this kid grow, but when he gets there, I think we can be pretty dynamic and powerful.”

On if he thought Daniels could start when he signed:

“You’ve got to be pretty special to come in and start as a freshman. Once after a couple of practices in the spring and watching his arm, and then going back in the summer, when I got back from vacation, I broke out all of the spring film again after I got away from it. And I watched all of his plays in a row. And that’s when I started going, it started hitting me going, ‘Wow. Look at how fast this guy sees this. Like he sees this so fast. He sees this faster than senior and junior.’ So that’s kind of when it started.”

“>247Sports