The early days of spring practices for Arizona State have awarded the coaching staff an opportunity to raise expectations on an experienced roster. The Big 12 Champions returned nearly 80 percent of their player catalog from 2024. Because of that, the team has begun spring practice with an additional edge, and defensive coordinator Brian Ward is looking to keep his players’ plates full of new knowledge to build upon last season's success.

“We just have a lot of guys that know what the standard is,” Ward said Thursday. “They’ve been through similar installs; now some of these guys are going on their fifth time installing this with the combination of spring ball and fall camp. So just having that veteran type of group, they know what the expectation is, and there's not a lot new for them. We're just trying to put a little more on them mentally to keep these guys engaged.”

The team's additions outside of incoming freshmen have been strategically calculated. The program aimed to fill holes in the transfer portal and create dynamic position groups while maintaining the majority of its roster.

For the coaching staff, the coordinators and position coaches remain the same from 2024 as well, with some additional changes to the position coach assistants. Most prominently, ASU quarterback Trenton Bourguet, who was in the position group from 2020-2024, was recently hired as a running backs assistant coach to Shaun Aguano, a small tidbit of the overall theme of minimal improvements with the potential for a major impact.

“We’re adding to the arsenal just like we do players, adding coaches,” offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo said. “To add more value in the coaching staff room that can now be on the grass coaching and doing things that can utilize their skill set.

“I think that whether you're the coordinator or whether you're a first-year guy coming into the program who's been doing it for a long time, like Hines [Ward] in year two here, me and him both got a chance to go and add value to what we've had together. So, we're no different than the players. We've got to find new wrinkles for ourselves and new ways to communicate and be effective.”

Just as on day one, the second day of spring practices welcomed Dillingham’s repetitive playlist of “We Are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You.” Both tracks are from News of the World, Queen’s four-time Platinum album. The repetitive soundtrack is part of Dillingham’s continued effort to keep the team humble through the success of 2024.

“I think the guys have tuned it out,” Dillingham claimed Thursday. “Which was the whole goal—to be able to tune out all of the outside noise and just practice. So, we may be able to change that up because I like that song, and I’m starting to hate it.”

Regardless of the methods, the Sun Devils appear far removed from their Big 12 championship summit, including Arroyo, who stressed the importance of going through business as usual with the coaching staff due to the fast-paced nature of collegiate athletics.

“​​I mean, all those things are just on the outside looking in,” Arroyo noted. “I mean, there are things that we can talk about, but at the end of the day, it's a new year, a new program—you’re going to rebuild every year. The cyclical effect of our job as far as talent acquisition and player development, scheme implementation, and assessing what's going on doesn't ever change. It's more of the process over the outcome. We're trying to basically put the outcome last year behind us. Success isn’t a continuum; it’s momentary.”

Ward's coaching history stretches back to 1997, with stints at 14 programs in a wide variety of conferences and regions of the country. Even after nearly three decades of coaching—pre-NIL and the boom of the transfer portal—seeing a comeback this restored is almost unheard of and usually comes with unprecedented success.

“Maybe like once in my career, and we ended up having the best season in school history,” Ward said when asked if he’s ever had this much consistency with roster turnover. “So, the expectation—we're trying to temper it and make sure that we're worried about what's important now as opposed to what happens in August or September this fall. Because we still got a lot of things that we got to improve upon, and really, the focus has to be on us, not on everything external.”

One position group in particular that did see new additions was the defensive back room, with redshirt seniors Nyland Green and Kyndrich Breedlove both joining the team from Purdue. In 2024, senior Javan Robinson and junior Keith Abney II both played a large majority of the snaps with minimal options for substitutes; the duo played upwards of 75 and 80 snaps in a majority of games. The elder players in the room bring experience as they continue to grow together as a unit, and Ward is ecstatic about the opportunity to play a flurry of guys all over the field.

“We just got a lot of experience there with Javan and Keith and all the snaps that they played that really the onus is seeing ultra-talented guys like Rodney Bimage Jr. and Plas Johnson and the additions of Nyland,” Ward said. “We have new guys there like Joseph Smith as well, and really, the idea is we want to build depth right now so we feel like we don't miss a beat. If we got to rotate guys in, we stay fresh. We did that with the defensive line and with our linebackers last year, and you saw the results of that and how well we defended the run.”

As practices continue, the coaching staff will examine and evaluate the team and each position group further. The only downside to spring practices at the moment is the lack of tackling and contact, as the team has not yet put on pads, restricting them from seeing the players play football in its purest form.

“The thing is, with no pads, our game is just really hard,” Arroyo noted. “You're looking at movement skills, communication, effort, but this game's played with pads. And so, once we start getting the shells on and pads on, that's the next piece of it that's really more of our sweet spot. But the guys have come out with good vigor, the guys are moving around, some of those new guys move really well, their size and body control, things like that.”

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