There are no sweeping conclusions that can or should be made after the first day of fall practice. Yet, there is still something to be said about the gains made in the offseason. These advances aren’t limited to the summer weight and conditioning workouts but also to the team bonding activities. And these improvements didn’t go unnoticed by ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham and offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo.

“We sensed the new intent about our offense,” Arroyo said. “Guys had spent a ton of time together. A player-led summer in college football is a huge opportunity now because they can do so much. They can be out there with a ball. We can be out there at certain times. You really sense the gel starting to really kick in, not only the physical piece that comes into being together for six to eight weeks you put in.”

In 2023, the team struggled to find an identity for their offense. The quarterback carousel was in full swing with injuries, and the offensive line wasn’t spared either with their own ailments. This forced a running back (Sam Skattebo) and a tight end (Jalin Conyers) to line up behind center at times, with understandably mixed results.

The returning players feel a sense of urgency this season, as they are still hurting from last year’s woes.

“The physical piece is part of football,” Arroyo explained. “But I think when you got a group that hasn’t been together a long or an inexperienced group, is what you have, more often than not, with many transfers, you’re gonna have a mental and emotional component that’s gonna kick in, and that’s what we really need to pull together … the three things that we talked about that we’re trying to establish an identity, being prepared, locked and loaded, being tough.”

While there are a lot of returning players on the offense, the quarterback room has two significant transfers who are going to be prominent in leading a revamped Sun Devil offense.

Michigan State transfer and redshirt freshman Sam Leavitt is the current frontrunner for the starting spot. Much like the majority of spring practices, he ran with the first team for the majority of Wednesday’s session. Nebraska transfer senior Jeff Sims was next with the second team and impressed in his debut ASU practice.

“I think we’ve made some real upgrades in regards to the ability to push each other,” Arroyo remarked. “Sam’s got an opportunity to feel like you take a deep breath in the playbook and get lined up and know what we need to do. He spent a lot of time with me and the group in the off-season grinding. Jeff came in and has done an awesome job of really learning. He’s been in more offenses than me in 21 years of training camps, and I think the group has put their best foot forward.”

Arroyo, a 20-year-plus coaching veteran, didn’t shy away from his excitement about training camp getting underway. He knows the importance of the effective preseason preparation players need to undergo during a training camp that allows the maximum level of focus in hopes of laying the foundation for a successful campaign.

“You won’t get this opportunity in life to turn everything else off and focus as a group on one big deal,” Arroyo declared. “You don’t get 125 guys together, and it’s a special opportunity for us who played and coached and been in this.”

Arroyo repeatedly spoke about “phase three,” which is how he describes fall camp, which follows phase one of spring workouts and phase two, which takes place in the summer. With some transfers and freshmen only arriving in the summer, it can often be hard to bring them up to speed. This is where Arroyo leans his experience to help the players adjust and go through a successful acclimation.

“There’s a new wave of guys in here,” Arroyo stated. “It’s getting more like pro football, where you got 15 free agents and a couple of draft picks. And you’re like, ‘Okay, I got to reteach the whole thing,’ which makes you as a coach look back and go, can I eliminate the gray areas or create a lot of clarity in what we’re doing?”

Arroyo and Dillingham commented on the new helmet communication technology that, starting this year, will allow coaches to call plays that a quarterback will hear through his helmet, which will virtually eliminate the need for hand signals from the sidelines. NFL coaches have used this technology for quite some time, and Arroyo, who coaches at those ranks with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, knows the great benefits this method of communication carries.

“You’ve got to use it to your advantage,” Arroyo noted. “There are going to be some little things about it that you can tweak and have fun with. I think, for the most part, it’s part of the game now. If there’s an advantage there, you got to hone into what that is and work on it.”

“We’ve talked extensively as a staff, and we’re going to do walk-throughs with it,” ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham said. Every single team period will be with it. We have some nuances of how we’re going to use it that I don’t want to get into, but we definitely have a plan.”