Three things we learned from the Aztecs’ intrasquad Fan Fest scrimmage on Saturday at Qualcomm Stadium:

And your San Diego State starting quarterback is …

Maxwell Smith. Put it in ink.

The Aztecs still have two weeks before their season opener against USD, and they can draw out this QB competition all they want to make it interesting, but Smith will no doubt be the guy first taking snaps against the Toreros.


In his first time on the Qualcomm Stadium turf on Saturday evening in SDSU’s Fan Fest scrimmage, the Kentucky graduate senior looked more poised and sharper when the No. 1 offense took on the top defense, compared to his closest rival for the job, Christian Chapman.

As one of observer in the press box noted, “It just looked different” when Smith was in charge, and he was right. Before the scrimmage’s late mop-up portion, Smith was the only quarterback to drive the offense to points – a field goal and touchdown.

Smith’s stats for the scrimmage: 6-for-12 for 114 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions. He also had a well-thrown ball dropped by running back Rashaad Penny that would have been good for about 20 yards.

It was Penny who also hooked up with Smith on the scrimmage’s biggest offensive play – albeit against a mix of second- and third-team defense -- taking a short pass on the left sideline and weaving his way to open space to race 59 yards for a TD.


Chapman’s stats: 3 of 10 for 10 yards, with an interception on a ball thrown too high to Penny. The ball bounced off his fingertips and into the arms of Pierre Romain, who returned the pick 63 yards for a touchdown.

Jake Rodrigues, playing with mostly the third-string offense, was 3 of 11 for 30 yards, no TDs and no picks.

Understand, that despite being played in the big stadium, this scrimmage was probably no more weighted for the big picture than any other practice. So Long didn’t immediately agree with the thought that Smith played considerably better.

“I have no idea,” he said. “We’ll watch the film and tell. You can’t just tell watching from the sidelines.”


That is Long’s subtle reminder that they are the coaches and we are fairly uneducated observers by comparison, but it seems fairly clear that there isn’t much reason to send Chapman, the redshirt freshman, into the fray early this season, unless it comes after a big lead is forged against the Toreros.

The offense is still playing catch-up

Long’s overall observation of the scrimmage: The Aztecs have a lot of work to do before their first game. And in that, he is almost certainly was talking about the offense.

“I thought the No. 1 defense played pretty good,” Long said. “And the offense struggled mightily.


“You would like them to be able to move the ball better than they did.”

In the first half, when the first-team defense got all of its work, the offense got only a 45-yard field goal from Donny Hageman. The biggest play given up was a 30-yard pass from Smith to tight end Daniel Brunskill, and that was on a broken coverage by a linebacker.

There were 14 tackles for loss – a staggering number -- including six sacks, in the first 30 minutes.

The defensive line looks stout


It’s a dilemma, as Long says, to try to get a handle on how good any portion of the team is going against teammates, but one seemingly strong area seems to be the defensive line.

Even without projected starting defensive tackle Christian Heyward, nursing a sore knee, the three-man line of Jon Sanchez, Alex Barrett and Noble Hall (subbing for Heyward), along with the “Mike” linebacker, stuffed the run and put plenty of pressure on the quarterbacks.

If the Aztecs are able to do that against opponents it opens up a whole spectrum of possibilities for the defense.

“I don’t know if we can, but if you can control the game with a four-man front, there are all kinds of fancy blitzes, zone blitzes, and fancy coverages you can run,” Long said.


The alternative, he said, is to have to bring more people to the line of scrimmage, thus allowing the other team to better read your coverage.

If SDSU can stay healthy in the front, things will be a whole lot better in the back.