{"id":509110,"date":"2026-10-27T04:08:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T04:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/509110\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T04:08:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T04:08:14","slug":"san-diego-state-makes-quarterback-call-after-stone-saunders-impressive-first-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/509110\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego State makes quarterback call after Stone Saunders’ impressive first start"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sean Lewis of the\u00a0San Diego State Aztecs\u00a0<\/a>isn\u2019t playing any coaching games this week with his quarterback situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the Aztecs having little room for error in getting bowl-eligible for a second straight season, Lewis named redshirt freshman Stone Saunders as the starting quarterback for Saturday\u2019s home game against staggering Washington State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c(Jayden Denegal) remains day-to-day, and because of that, Stone will start this week,\u201d Lewis said at his weekly news conference on Monday. \u201cSo, he’ll get the bulk of the one reps as we go forward with all things.\u201d<\/p>\n

After last Saturday\u2019s wild 56-59 loss at Colorado State, SDSU (3-4, 2-2 Pac-12) needs to win three of its last four games to become bowl-eligible. WSU is 1-7 and 0-4.<\/p>\n

Saunders earns another opportunity after breakout performance<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a tradition in sports that an injury shouldn\u2019t cost a starter his job. But with Denegal still recovering from an ankle injury suffered the week before, Lewis made the logical choice in naming Saunders the starter for the second straight week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Saunders was beyond impressive in his first college start.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He stepped right into a duel with CSU QB Hauss Hejny, who was coming off a three-game absence with a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n

Saunders completed 23 of 33 passes (70%) for 369 yards and two touchdowns, with two interceptions. His first interception was returned 38 yards for a touchdown to swing the momentum late in the second quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hejny was pretty much unstoppable. He passed for 333 yards and three touchdowns while adding 85 yards and two scores on the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The shootout ended with the Aztecs outgaining CSU 565-549.<\/p>\n

Lewis praises Saunders while acknowledging costly mistakes<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s probably one of the best performances that we’ve had since we’ve been here. 369 yards passing, the whole collective of the group, each guy doing their part,\u201d the coach said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cStone was timely with his throws. He was accurate. He was making good decisions both in the pass game and the RPO game,\u201d Lewis said.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, there were two decisions that were critical errors that we need to address, and that we cleaned up this morning. And in the moment, looking at it, and him explaining why he did what he did, there was sound logic behind it, and he’ll learn from that as we go, and we can help him better as a staff as well in those moments, but he did a good job. He’s been working for this opportunity and was able to take advantage of the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saunders credits preparation and veteran teammates<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt good. It was nice being back out there. Obviously, you know, I’ve been waiting to play a little bit, but yeah, it felt good through a week of practice; I got a lot of reps at practice during the week,\u201d Saunders said. \u201cI felt comfortable when I was out there through the preparation, so it felt like just another day. I was just worried about going out and executing the plan that we had and being at Colorado State.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saunders didn\u2019t play last season at Kentucky as he utilized his redshirt season. He transferred to SDSU in the offseason due to a coaching change. He made a mopup appearance in the 53-20 season-opening win against Portland State, but broke his collarbone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Saunders was cleared to return, there was speculation he would replace Denegal for the Fresno State game after the senior was benched in favor of Draiden Trudeau in a 66-14 loss at Oregon State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lewis stuck with Denegal against Fresno State and he led the Aztecs on three scoring drives before limping off the field. Saunders came on and directed the Aztecs to the 26-23 victory behind Cooper DiLeva, who kicked a 53-yard field goal with 57 seconds left.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wisely, Saunders taps more experienced teammates for advice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just rely on the guys around me,\u201d the QB said. \u201cI have a lot of veteran guys around me and guys that have been through a lot of battles, and you know they help me out a lot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Running game provides support for young quarterback<\/p>\n

Sauders also credits the play of SDSU\u2019s 1-2 punch of Lucky Sutton and Javion \u201cChop\u201d Kinnard at running back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re both amazing backs,\u201d Saunders said. \u201cLucky’s been a huge help to me. I feel safe giving him a ball every time. I feel like we’re going to get at least five yards a clip every time Lucky gets it. They’re just both so fun to watch. You know, when you hand the ball off to him, \u201cChop\u201d might jump over somebody or do something special every time. But yeah, we\u2019ve got two great backs, and they play with a great offensive line. It was a lot of fun to watch them go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Lewis of the\u00a0San Diego State Aztecs\u00a0isn\u2019t playing any coaching games this week with his quarterback situation.\u00a0 With…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-509110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}