Grasping new offense, getting up to game speed keys to a productive spring

These days, football appears to be the only major sport that won’t have a season delayed, postponed or otherwise affected by the rapidly spreading COVID-19 virus. Teams, however, will be hurt by for now postponed spring football schedules though, putting the Arizona State Sun Devils in a relatively fortunate position to have gotten halfway through their slate of sessions before our society has come to a virtual halt.

Prior to spring break and a planned one-week hiatus from practices, first-year offensive coordinator Zak Hill discussed the progression of his young offense, the challenges they’ve encountered and the steps they hope to take next, among other things.

Young players getting adjusted to college game

On the offensive side of the ball, there are only a few players expected to contribute who have more than a season of meaningful game experience playing at the Pac-12 level.

This starts with sophomore quarterback Jayden Daniels, and includes players such as sophomore tight end Nolan Matthews, redshirt sophomore receiver Geordon Porter, true freshmen running backs DeaMonte Trayanum and Daniyel Ngata, as well as an offensive line that stands to once again have multiple underclassmen in its starting five.

“If guys don’t have the experience yet, they don’t know what it’s all about, that’s going to be an issue,” Hill admitted. “Some guys handle it better than others. We’re trying to train them and train their habits to benefit them.”

Is stands to reason the speed of play is naturally an adjustment for anyone in their first two seasons at the college game. Currently, though, Hill is less concerned about this aspect—which should improve over time—and more so concerned with individuals making a consistent, positive effort to learn and get things right.

“I think the urgency of those guys, as far as wanting to learn it, studying film, being at things on-time, being prepared overall has been pretty good,” Hill said. “I think the effort is pretty good out there at times; sometimes they’re playing a little slow because they’re thinking. But there are a few practice habits that we need to change, and we’re working on that too.”

As any college coach knows, one of the advantages of spring football is its ability to get less experienced players a good deal of valuable reps scrimmaging against their teammates.

This has been the case for Trayanum and Ngata, who have both seen their fair share of reps with the first-team offense, especially with redshirt sophomore running back A.J. Carter sidelined with illness during the last couple of practices.

“There’s a lot of thinking going on,” Hill said of the pair of newcomer tailbacks. “But they are coming along and they’re developing in this whole process of the operation of seeing signals, and ‘where do I need to align,’ shifts and motions, cadence changes, there’s a lot to it.

“They will be ready to go, and now it’s just getting to that mental point—they’re very mature kids, that’s what I will say about those guys. They’re mature, they handle themselves really well…they’re getting used to the game speed a little bit, and now it’s just making adjustments. But they’re both smart guys.”

Much of this adjustment to the next level involves not just plays and coverages but knowing how to execute certain plays in certain coverages and take what’s given to them by the defense. To this point in time, it seems as if that has been to blame for some of the larger than usual number interceptions seen in practice—a few to the the fault of the quarterback, a few to the receiver, or in some cases both.

“We got to understand the coverages a little bit better,” Hill commented, “from a wide receiver standpoint, but also from a quarterback standpoint. Understand what type of ball we need to throw on certain routes, taking some air out of some balls too if we’re not getting behind the coverage.”

Either way, much of the burden in getting comfortable enough at the college level to play at game speed will fall on an individual player. After all, the NCAA only allows coaches to have a finite number of hours with their players each day.

“Ultimately, at the end of the day, we can only have so much time with them as coaches,” Hill stated. “They’ve got to plan ahead, and ‘where can I get this extra study time,’ and ‘what means and what support do I have?’”

Coaching staff mindful of installing a new offense at the right pace

To an extent, the implementation of an entirely new offense under a first-year coordinator and a fairly new coaching staff on that side of the ball ironically puts veteran players more on par with inexperienced teammates in terms of comfortability with the offense.

Even if it’s sufficient for intra-positional competition for reps, it won’t be conducive ultimately for the team the longer guys have an insufficient understanding and feel for the new scheme. As a result, there’s extra pressure on the coaches to present these new concepts in the right format and pace.

“It’s still early in the process of them understanding even just the operational stuff,” Hill explained. “We’ve got to be smart with how much we put in, but we also got to challenge them in their own right to be able to go, ‘alright, this is going to be tough.’ We want to show you that it’s going to be tough, and then that can kind of set the tone for that future learning.”

Presently, it seems to be a quality over quantity scenario, with coaches emphasizing the need to truly getting to know the concepts and plays they are working with at the moment.

“We need to be very detailed with what we’ve got in right now,” Hill said.

Once players effectually have a tight grasp on the concepts that have been presented, then another level of concepts will be introduced. For now, self-evaluating and correcting the current body of work are the short-term goals in spring practices.

“It’s going to be a little slower at this point,” Hill remarked, “because we’re both installing and there’s both a lot of communication that’s still happening. Sometimes we as coaches need to pull back a little bit and go, ‘alright, let’s just let these guys play,’ and not try to communicate as much during practice, and then try to correct a lot in the film room.”

ASU’s offense has truly been revamped, mostly through an extensive amount of pre-snap motions and reads. Hill detailed what his players will be adapting to this year.

“In the offense, there’s a lot of ability to make signal adjusts, to read coverage and to take advantage of certain opportunities,” Hill explained. “Are we good at that yet? No, we’re not. But we’re starting to understand that these concepts we’re putting it, whether it be the route-specific stuff or whether it’s true full concepts, there’s a big picture of what’s the defense playing? What’s the defense giving us?

“So, a lot of those guys now are transitioning their mindset to identifying safeties, and coverage, and where’s the leverage. So, there are changes for them. And then when are we going to signal-adjust, what plays are we going to signal-adjust on, where are those possibly going to happen? So, I’ve got to have that communication with the quarterback and go ‘ok, I’m ready for it, yup, you gave it to me, and here we go.’”

Just as much as anyone else, if not more so, it’s an adjustment for Jayden Daniels as well. Even though it’s not been a seamless process to transition offenses, Hill assures the young signal-caller continues to take the right approach during this transition.

“(Daniels is) still figuring out what we’re asking him to do on each play,” Hill said. “There’s just a lot more going on now. From a signal standpoint, from a protection standpoint, from shifts and motions, where does that motion need to come down to? How do I use my cadence with these shifts and motions? Now that we’ve got some cadence changes, how am I using those?

“So, that’s what spring ball’s about. It’s about playing with those things…it’s a process, but I think he’s enjoying it. I know every meeting he’s asking good questions and we’re diving into it.”

On more of an underlying note, Hill noted that it’s been a priority of the staff as a whole to constantly be demanding of players on and off the field. The belief seems to be that keeping players on their toes will help them handle in-game adversity better when those moments arrive.

“We’re going to challenge them as coaches to work through this and then be able to handle the adversity,” Hill said. “That’s the other part of it. Like alright, things aren’t looking good in practice; we false start, or we get a bad snap here, bad snap there. How are we going to respond to this? If this happens in a game, alright now we got to flip the switch, move onto the next play and handle adversity with some positivity.”

Players begin to settle into their expected roles

For starters, Hill believes one of the important “non x’s and o’s” aspects of spring football are players figuring out if or where they fit into the team’s player leadership, and if so, how, in the wake of the first gatherings after the departure of prior senior and veteran leaders.

This facet becomes of particular importance when practices are lacking in execution or effort, because a player speaking up can often do more to rejuvenate a group than the words of a coach.

“I do think spring is also about those leaders that have left the program now, and who are the next leaders that are stepping up,” Hill said. “So, challenging those guys to now, as soon as we start to see that dive in practice or that adversity start to hit, what are you going to say to help the team out, because it can’t always come from the coaches.”

Although still seven months new to the program and coming off a season with extremely limited reps, senior receiver Brandon Pierce might just be one of those guys.

My story from a couple of weeks ago details things from Pierce’s end and ASU’s offensive coordinator added his own perspective.

“Brandon’s been fiery, he’s been out there and he’s had a little spark to him,” Hill noted. “He’s competitive, he’s very inquisitive, and he’ll ask questions and he wants to get the knowledge and be right. So, I’ve been extremely impressed with him so far as him coming to practice and wanting to be, you know, ‘give me the ball.’

“I’m good with that. I want guys that want the ball and want to go make plays. As long as they’re doing the right things on and off the field, I want those hungry guys, and he’s definitely got that fire to him.”

Hill shared similar remarks regarding his tight end group, which is highlighted by sophomore Nolan Matthews and senior Curtis Hodges at the moment. He described the group as excited to be in this offense as they realize the opportunities they’ll be receiving, adding that they need to continue and keep expanding their understanding of what is required to effectively play as a tight end in this offense.

Sophomore Ethan Long is poised to be an addition to this position group at times, as he’s adapted a utility, do-it-all kind of role since he fell to third in the depth chart during last year’s quarterback competition—the position he was initially recruited to ASU for.

“We’re trying to test Ethan out at some different spots and see where he can pick up some of that stuff,” Hill said. “He’s a smart football player, and he’s hungry, and he wants to get on the field. So, we’re just trying to find some different ways to do that for him.”

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