In his press conference following the week of then No. 24 ASU’s disappointing 34-31 home loss against Colorado, defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales noted how you can tell who’s winning the battle in the trenches by watching which way the line of scrimmage moves play after play.

While it may not have looked pretty in the conference opener, it sure was improved offensively and defensively at then No. 15 California last Friday. Without having rewatched that game extensively, one can only deduce that was the case after senior starting center Cohl Cabral (who still hasn’t been flagged this season by my count) was named the conference’s offensive lineman of the week, while senior defensive end George Lea was recognized as the Pac-12 defensive lineman of the week, notching a sack as one of his four tackles in an effort where he helped pressure the quarterback and disrupt the run game all night.

Now, with No. 20 ASU sitting at 4-1 overall, and 1-1 in a wide-open Pac-12 South, we spoke with offensive line coach Dave Christensen and defensive line coach Jamar Cain about their assessments and observations regarding their respective position groups, with the Washington State matchup now just nine days away.

Christensen encouraged by the improvement of the offensive line, emphasizes the importance of having the same starting five in the last three contests

Out of everything on this young offense, and youthful team overall for that matter, one could make a legitimate case that the offensive line was consistently subjected to the most chaos and uncertainty before the season even started.

Dating back to day one of preseason practices, when this group was looked at as arguably the asset of the offense with six seniors set to play…only to find out tackle Zach Robertson would be away from the team indefinitely due to personal matters.

Over the six weeks that followed, there was constant shuffling around and evaluation of which young guys would be ready to step up if need be. Of course, Christensen’s job only became more challenging when senior lineman- playing center at the time- Cade Cote broke his foot in practice only a few days prior to opening night.

But fast forward another few weeks to now, and Christensen has found a uniquely different yet effective starting five that includes two true freshmen and three seniors. This starting five has now played together for three games straight, which includes commendable efforts against the big, tough and physical defensive fronts of then No. 18 Michigan State and then No. 15 California.

“I think they’re getting better each week,” Christensen said. “It’s one of those deals- it kind of happened last year to us a little bit- is we play more together, we all get on the same page.

“You can practice a lot, but until you’re doing things at game speed and in a game atmosphere, it just takes a little bit of time and I think each and every week they feel more comfortable with each other, and they’re communicating better, understanding the schemes. We hope that they continue to make the same improvement each and every week.”

He also added he was pleased with the run-blocking effort against Cal, emphasizing that every week the unit must play at a higher level than it did the week before. Specifically, he’s continued to voice how impressed he is with true freshmen in starting right guard Dohnovan West and starting left tackle LaDarius Henderson, who will only turn 18 in December.

“We don’t have a lot of mental errors,” Christensen noted. “We’ve had a few physical errors along the way, but we have not made a lot of mental errors upfront. I think they grow each and every week, again I have not coached a lot of true freshmen, we got two playing every game, it’s uncharted territory for me.”

That’s saying something considering Christensen’s 38 years of coaching experience throughout different ranks of college football. Despite this new situation for the coaching veteran, he states that nothing surprises him with Henderson and West because of their smarts, plus the way they’ve benefitted from following the example of their senior teammates.

“They don’t surprise me,” Christensen said. “(Henderson) is a very intelligent young man, he and Dohnovan both, and they were coached well in high school. So, I think they had a little bit of an advantage coming in, from their backgrounds.

“(Senior center Cohl Cabral's) done a great job, spends a lot of time with those young guys,” Christensen stated. “So does (senior starting right tackle) Steve (Miller), and (senior starting left guard) Alex (Losoya), they all work well together…they do a great job trying to help those freshmen each and every day.”

Cain acknowledges it felt good to bounce back at Cal, with help of Tyler Johnson, and is satisfied with the unit overall but still sees areas for improvement

Using as much brevity as possible, consistency is the biggest thing coach Cain knows his defensive line unit needs to improve on. He also knows they have to look no further than the past two weeks, when the pass rush fell asleep against Colorado in the Pac-12 opener but responded with a fire at Cal that made them an asset in the upset victory.

“We just can’t be happy with success, like the driving force is to continue to get better,” Cain said. “You’ve got to go 1-0 for the week, and that’s my goal, and I don’t think we did that against Colorado. I think we were still off that high off of Michigan State, and then we came in like ‘oh it’s Colorado, we’ll be ok.’ You can’t do that, it’s the Pac-12, you’ve always got division one players.”

Although it’s no excuse for what was a poor showing at home, sophomore linebacker Tyler Johnson, who’s more like an edge-rusher, proved to make all the difference in that stretch. He missed the Colorado game, in which their quarterback Steven Montez “probably didn’t need his jersey washed because we never got him on the ground,” in the words of defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales the following week.

“We all heard the noise from the Colorado game,” Cain admitted. “I was watching tv copy and those guys are like ‘Montez touched the ball 40 times, they didn’t even touch him,’ like oh god, here we go again.”

Then, Johnson returned to the tune of 0.5 sacks and one tackle-for-loss at Cal the next week, clearly making a difference in the improved rush throughout the night.

“Tyler’s a very dynamic player, you don’t get many of those guys like that,” Cain said. “He can rush the passer, he can drop in coverage, he can play the run really good. So, we’re a better team when Tyler’s out there, all the way around, so he’s got to make sure he gets himself right and ready to play.”

Adding on to that, Cain said the sack numbers are another thing that needs to increase. But overall, he’s content with the rotation he has and the way the unit responded with significant improvement last week.

“Last week was a really good week of us playing up to our potential, playing up to our level,” Cain said. “Next thing we got to improve is our pass-rush numbers, I don’t think our sack numbers are where they should be, but that just comes with work, you know what I mean.

“But I’m happy with where we’re at, what our rotation is, the guys are happy with our rotation, so I’m feeling comfortable with where we’re at…I always like to be, for a four-down, I like to be nine deep, for a three-down I like to be six to seven and I felt like we played six or seven guys last week.”

Christensen offers some new insight into offensive linemen who have been shelved in recent weeks, and may or may not see more playing time this season

On the surface, things have settled down for the offensive line after finally being able to start the same five guys for a key stretch of games to open ASU’s power-five schedule.

However, appearances can be deceiving, and the potential for moving parts on this unit between now and the next game against Washington State on October 12 is higher than most might realize.

A good place to start is with the aforementioned Cote, who has been seen donning his uniform and shadowing the first team in recent practices. Considering he broke his foot on about August 26, dressing for the WSU matchup would put him right on the early end of the standard six to eight weeks of recovery time needed to heel his injury, according to orthoinfo.aaos.org.

“He could possibly be ready to go (next) week, so we’ll find out more on Sunday or Monday,” Christensen stated.

It would seem Cote is not going to just jump right back into a starting spot if the unit keeps performing at its current level, but with a matchup at Utah looming on October 19, he could return to action at the perfect time to provide some relief against one of the nastier defensive fronts in the nation- if he doesn’t already return by the Washington State matchup, that is.

Another senior who could work his way into the rotation is senior tackle Roy Hemsley. While Cote plays more on the interior at guard or center, the 6’6’’, 325-lb Hemsley serves as a big body who can seal the edge if he can play technically sound football, which he showed flashes of when he came in for a banged-up Miller late Friday night.

“Roy did a nice job, I was very pleased, in fact,” Christensen said. “He’ll play some more, as he went out and performed.”

But Miller’s status for the next game doesn’t seem much to discuss, as he’s been limited in practice due to a sore neck but should have plenty of time to be ready thanks to the bye week.

“He got bumped up a little bit, he should be fine by next week,” Christensen commented.

Lastly, one more named I’d be remised not to mention is redshirt freshman Jarrett Bell, given the attention we focused on him early in Fall camp, when it was thought that he could end up the starting center when Cabral initially made the switch to left tackle. From the sound of things, it seems that he’s been the odd man out due to some early-season injury troubles, but Christensen remains emphatic about the young lineman’s future in Tempe.

“He’s been healthy,” Christensen commented on Bell. “He’s young, he’s a freshman, not every freshman’s going to come out here and get a bunch of plays. Most programs, freshmen aren’t even playing, so he’s doing fine, he’s going to be a great player for us.

“We’re not going to throw out guys just to give everybody a chance to play and keep people happy, this isn’t Little League, so…”

Cain commends performances of George Lea, T.J. Pesefea in last Friday’s win

As mentioned earlier, Lea was named the Pac-12 defensive lineman of the week for his efforts at Cal in last Friday night’s win. Cain believed it was only a matter of time for Lea, after the senior had a quiet stretch of games early in the season.

“I think George needed it,” Cain said. “He kind of was just hidden in some games, didn’t show up, and then for him to show up as he did on (Friday) and just let it loose- and George will be the first to tell you he left probably about four plays out there.

“Continuing with consistency with George, consistency with the group- but I think that was a good- especially since this last week we really over-emphasized pass rush and dominating the front.”

So over-emphasized, in fact, that Cain even said it was something that coach Herm Edwards discussed with him at length in the week of preparation leading up to the game, and even on game day itself.

“I sat down with Herm, Herm’s only going to tell you a couple of times to get some stuff fixed,” Cain said, “so that’s one thing I want to get fixed, to make sure we can win our one-on-ones on the edge. Because our secondary’s really good, and we cannot allow our secondary to cover for three or four seconds, so we got to do our job and that means just getting pressure.

“I mean we don’t always need sacks, just get him off his spot. Don’t let him feel comfortable back there, he got off his spot several times, the starter did, and then the game plan changed when Modster came in.”

Another guy who helped out on Friday, largely in the shadows but in a much bigger contributing role than has been seen so far this season, is sophomore JUCO transfer and defensive end T.J. Pesefea.

Although Cain concedes the underclassman got off to a slow start, he says Pesefea made the most of his opportunity off the bench.

“I think he did really well,” Cain commented on Pesefea. “He had 21 snaps I want to say, and the first four snaps I wanted to strangle him because I’m like, ‘dude, stay low, use your hands,’ and Herm’s like ‘do you seem him out there?’…’yeah coach, I see him.’

“He came over to the sideline and I said ‘are you ready to play now?’ and he goes ‘yeah,’ and I’m like ‘dude, you go against Cohl Cabral every single day and you do a good job, common now this guy isn’t Cohl Cabral, so just take care of business.’ I’m not taking anything away from that Cal center, but those are plays that he should’ve made, especially those first four, like down on the goal line in the first or second quarter.”

Nevertheless, Cain is excited to be able to add another defensive lineman to the gameday rotation, as Pesefea recorded his first two career FBS tackles in that game. But much like all the other units, Cain and the linemen know this team’s toughest challenges still lie ahead.

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