Arizona State QB Sam Leavitt holds a list of quarterbacks he aims to surpass

Arizona State Sun Devils Quarterback Sam Leavitt has a list written on a board in his room.

It’s a list of quarterbacks, and no, it’s not the ones he hopes to be. It’s the quarterback he wants to topple on his way into his 2025 season.

Leavitt would not pass on the exact names of the list, but it is a tactic he has been using for some time now to help give him the extra push of motivation when he needs it.

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It’s something Leavitt learned from his older brother, Dallin, who played six seasons in the NFL in safety.

“I’ve never had a list that grew up,” Leavitt told Pakinomist Digital. “There were always people ranked taller than me that I would look at, but I guess my brother Kinda said at one point, ‘You have to start someone.’ For him it worked really well.

“Taken a couple of years before I was really interested in it because I was just so under-recruited to grow up that I wasn’t even listed-not even in the top 25 or top 50. So it’s pretty hard to put names up.”

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The list is now eligible for Leavitt, whose breakout season in his first year with Sun Devils showed someone worth being in the conversation from the top college -football -quarterbacks that were coming into the 2025 campaign.

Leavitt was an overlooked Oregon Duck’s view before transferring to Michigan State in 2023. He only saw time in four games and he made the leap again, this time to head coach Rob Dillingham’s Big XII team in Tempe.

The move turned out to be the best when Leavitt helped lead Arizona State to College Football Playoff after winning the Big XII conference. Leavitt threw in 2,885 yards with 24 touchdowns for six captures, while also hurried in 443 yards and five scores.

“Now I’m at this time when I’m around the top-10 guys, I put these names up and it just gives me a little extra,” he said. “When I need a little extra motivation to get up 30 minutes earlier, or go to bed earlier, do my last pair of stretches, or see this little bit of bond when it’s like ‘Ugh, I really don’t want to.’ This list gives you the last little kick.

Arizona State Sun Devils Quarterback Sam Leavitt responds after a game against Texas Longhorns under the Peach Bowl. (Brett Davis-Preferred Pictures)

While he can supply fuel when needed, Leavitt’s drive doesn’t have to be about reading other quarterbacks’ names every day.

Despite all the good that came out of last year for Leavitt, he is not at all happy with the results.

“I didn’t play to the level I wanted to play and I left so much on the table I felt,” he said when asked how he reflected over the 2024 season. “It just gives me driven in high season to go what I have to do. And that’s how any player should feel – you should never feel happy with what you did.

“I even look back on my senior year when we won the state title, it just never really sat with me. I don’t know I just didn’t play on the level I wanted to play and I guess perfection is what drives me and makes me who I am.”

Sun Devils now has a goal on his back as the reigning big XII masters, so Leavitt and his Arizona State teammates enter the new year with high expectations.

Arizona State Quarterback Sam Leavitt during spring practice at Kajikawa practice fields in Tempe on March 25, 2025. (IMagn)

And that’s fine for Leavitt, who has another word on his blackboard next to the list of quarterbacks: Heisman.

“I want to say a Heisman and the National Championship, it’s the final goal,” he said. “But every single day it makes the team get better. You have to have these big goals in general to chase something. But it doesn’t come without the daily work, so it’s just getting better and outworking myself from last year. The outworking team that is out of myself, playing out myself, so all that is the most important goal day by day.”