The Associated Press

PORTLAND — Portland State’s quarterback position appears to be wide open after four signal callers performed almost equally during Saturday’s annual spring game at PGE Park.

Following a five-touchdown showing by the offense, coach Jerry Glanville declared that everyone is on equal footing and he won’t try to determine the order of the depth chart until fall practice starts in August.

“The quarterbacks know where to put the ball. Mentally, they’re there. Now they’ve got to go out and do it (in counting games),” Glanville said.

Tygue Howland, who was the starter in last year’s opener before suffering a season-ending injury, played almost the entire first quarter on Saturday. He finished the period 7 of 15 with a touchdown pass and an interception. But he looked rusty at times and wound up being sacked four times.

Sophomore Drew Hubel, who set an NCAA record last fall by throwing nine touchdown passes against Weber State in his first-ever college start, worked the second quarter and wound up 8 of 14 for 61 yards. While the 2007 Corvallis High graduate didn’t throw a touchdown pass on Saturday, he appeared to have the strongest arm among the four quarterback candidates.

Jimmy Collins got the call for the third quarter and was 5 of 16 for 51 yards. The fourth quarter belonged to Conor Kavanaugh, an undersized left-hander who was the state player of the year while playing at Portland’s Lincoln High.

Kavanaugh attempted only eight passes but completed four of them for 51 yards and a touchdown. It was Kavanaugh’s scrambling ability, though, that drew the most attention from onlookers at PGE Park on Saturday. He ran four times for a game-high 68 yards and two touchdowns.

Kavanaugh benefited from the fact that the Portland State defenders were not allowed to hit the quarterbacks during the scrimmage, only touch them. Before the scrimmage the started, Glanville warned his defensive players that the quarterbacks were off-limits.

“I said, If you hit any of those guys, you’re done (at Portland State),’” Glanville told his defense. “Quarterbacks with red shirts are different than the rest (of the players).”

On his first score, Kavanaugh simply outran everyone on a 25-yard bootleg to the right corner of the end zone. Two series later, Kavanaugh scored on a 12-yard scramble with the final four yards coming on a diving lunge for the end zone. Some of the defenders complained that they had touched Kavanaugh after he went airborne, but the score was allowed to stand.

Despite giving up five touchdowns, Portland State’s defense looked good at times. They held the four quarterbacks to less than a 50-percent completion rate at 24 of 53 and they held the ball carriers to 73 yards on 27 rushes, a 2.7-per carry average.

The biggest plays from the defense were turned in by Matt Bramow, a receiver-turned-defensive back who recorded an interception, and by Quinn Stewart, who ran 62 yards with a fumble recovery.

Glanville lost a large number of seniors from last year’s team that went 3-8, but the coach had a big recruiting season and will bring in 30 newcomers in August.

“It hurts when you lose that many guys but we have a lot of people coming in that will help us,” Glanville said.