Quarterbacks continue to battle as Eastern Washington's spring practices near their end

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Apr. 25—As Eastern Washington's spring football practices enter their final week, the offensive coaches have yet to make a final call about who will be the team's No. 1 quarterback heading into preseason practices in August.

That decision, head coach Aaron Best said, should be made soon after Friday's Red-White game.

With only three quarterbacks on the roster at this point, it would seem like a backhanded compliment to say that Kaden Rolfsness has a firm hold on the No. 3 spot at the position.

But that's not how the sophomore sees it.

"I've just got two guys in front of me that know the ropes pretty well," Rolfsness said after Saturday's intrasquad scrimmage at Roos Field in Cheney, in which Rolfsness scored the offense's lone touchdown. "Nate (Bell) and Jake (Schakel), they've been there and done it before, so it's pretty easy to learn what you need to do and all the ins and outs of playing quarterback."

Yet if any team knows the importance of having three reliable quarterbacks, it's the Eagles, who started four different players at the position last year, including Bell, Schakel and Rolfsness.

So it is significant for the Eagles that Rolfsness, who played more tight end than quarterback at Puyallup High School, is getting meaningful reps during spring ball.

"(When I was recruited), we needed another quarterback in the room, and I'm athletic and I can throw the ball," Rolfsness said. "I just need a little fine tuning on the little things: the short routes, the medium routes. Football IQ is my weakness, but I'm getting there."

Rolfsness entered the 2025 season as the fourth or fifth quarterback, but after injuries to Jared Taylor, Bell and Schakel, Rolfsness was pegged to start the final game of the season at Cal Poly.

It got off to a rough start when Rolfsness threw an interception on his first passing attempt. But he settled in after that, completing 23 of 42 passes for 236 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions while also rushing 19 times for 71 yards and three more scores. Eastern lost the game 43-34.

Taylor graduated, and fifth quarterback Anthony Quinones transferred, leaving the Eagles with Bell (a redshirt junior), Schakel (a redshirt sophomore) and Rolfsness as the team's only quarterbacks until current high school senior Brady Annett joins them this summer.

So far in spring, they've given the Eagles defense three distinctly different looks. Schakel is the purest throwing quarterback of the trio, with Bell a more agile runner and thrower than the 6-foot-3, 221-pound Rolfsness.

"They're all competitors," sophomore safety Bjorn Birmingham said. "We have three different quarterbacks and they all do different things."

Birmingham would know. He intercepted two more passes on Saturday after picking off one in the team's first spring scrimmage last week.

"I am just playing my game," Birmingham said. "I just intercept them, take the ball from them."

After Birmingham's interception at the goal line on the final play of the scrimmage, offensive tackle Gavin Allen was at the bottom of a pile closer to midfield.

The scuffle grew as players and coaches came to their teammates' aid. It was unclear which defensive players were at the heart of the fracas, but Best talked with Allen for about five minutes after most players had left the field.

"The game of football is played with a ton of emotions, and we truly try to not be emotional when we play," Best said later. " I do think if you don't have any of that stuff, where there is zero friction at all, I'm concerned. If every other play is a ton of friction I am also concerned. But my stance on that piece is, I try to make them educational moments in sport or in life."

Best said his concern was how referees might view such a scuffle at the end of a game and whether they might carry a penalty into the next game. He also characterized Allen, a redshirt sophomore and the team's starting right tackle, as one of the Eagles' best offensive linemen.

"You will be very, very good by the end of your career," Best said of his message to Allen, who came to Eastern as a tight end. "You have a lot of the stuff we're asking. You just can't go over the line. You can look at the line. You can get to the line. But just don't go over the line because I don't know how the humans in stripes are going to play that out."

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