The dress rehearsal of Saturday’s mock scrimmage for Arizona State continued the development of the Sun Devil offense under new offensive coordinator Zak Hill, and star quarterback Jayden Daniels. For many on the Sun Devils’ offensive side of the ball, it was the closest opportunity to game action as they will find heading into ASU’s Nov. 7 opener at USC.
It also represented the first time Hill was able to coordinate the offense in a game-like situation after ASU’s spring practice schedule was cut short due to COVID-19, leaving the Sun Devils without their normal spring game at Sun Devil Stadium.
“I thought the operation was really good,” Hill said of the mock game, in which ASU ran roughly 80 offensive plays in a scenario equipped with timeouts and officials, just like a game. “I thought our guys were locked in; they were focused, and there weren’t fundamental errors.
“I thought it was fairly clean overall from an offensive standpoint. You just don’t know. You get into the stadium for the first time, and you’ve got a few things we’re trying to do with our defense. The guys handled it well, they competed well, and I thought the sense of urgency was there.”
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Along with changes to the offensive scheme with the addition of Hill comes a new form of communication for ASU’s sophomore quarterback. The Sun Devils’ mock scrimmage was one of the first experiences at the college level of Daniels working with a coordinator down on the sideline, rather than in the coaches' box as former offensive coordinator Rob Likens did during the 2019 season.
“I think it’s going to be good for me to be on the field,” Hill explained. “I mean, if I ever needed to go in the box, I could do that, but I think it’s going to be a good opportunity for me to affect Jayden and the offense to be in the sideline huddle and just be a resource for all those guys down there.
“You’re kind of isolated up there in the box, so it’s easier to think, but you’re not as well-connected. So, I think making in-game adjustments things like that I think, are going to be easier being on the sideline.”
Growing the relationship between Daniels and Hill remains one of the keys to a successful Sun Devil offense. The second-year Sun Devil quarterback noted he believes Hill’s presence on the sideline should help him adjust on the fly against Pac-12 defenses this fall.
“Last year, coach Likens was in the box, so I would go on the phone, and he may see something different from what I’m seeing on the field,” Daniels noted. “I felt like just the communication level of going and being able to talk to coach Hill right after a series and telling him this or that, we can game plan on the fly.
“It’s just attacking defenses in different ways. To have that level of relationship that we’ve built, and the communication level and the trust factor, I’ve felt like it’s going to expand when he’s on the field after a series and during games.”
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Over the course of his first two seasons in Tempe, head coach Herm Edwards often tipped his hand in mentioning when he felt the Sun Devils’ offense might need to play more of a game-manager role rather than game-breaker. But, high praise from Edwards followed Saturday’s scrimmage showing.
“I thought the offense did some things that were kind of fun to watch,” Edwards told reporters Monday. “Saturday, you saw signs of things to come hopefully… It was pretty competitive, but I saw some things offensively that kind of made me smile.”
Edwards singled out Daniels and his “impressive” performance Saturday, but Tuesday, Daniels spent time touting the improvements of his teammates on offense.
“I believe my level of confidence is high,” said Daniels, who passed for 2,748 yards as a freshman. “I trust what the coaches are doing with the offense, the personnel and game plan the right way, so we are able to succeed. I trust the guys around me to go out there and make plays. I know they trust me to go out there and do what I have to do, and it’s just that level of trust factor that we’ve built these past couple of months.”
As Arizona State approaches its season-opener the coaching staff is getting more and more protective as to who is standing out. With a new scheme and plenty of new talent to incorporate into his offense, Hill remains a benefactor of withholding information before taking on No. 21 USC, something he tried to do Tuesday.
“I don’t think there was a particular position that really stood out or I felt like needed a great game,” Hill said when asked about who stood out during the scrimmage. “I thought the wide receivers did a good job; I thought the perimeter blocking was good on the edge. I thought our o-line is coming together, whether it’s pass-blocking or run-blocking... From an overall group standpoint, I thought all those positions really played pretty well.”
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Less than two weeks out from the first game of the season, Hill said the young contributors on offense are just getting a sense of what a real college-level game plan is like. In matching up with new USC defensive coordinator Todd Orlando, Hill said every year the first game presents a different challenge regardless of whether the opponent is implementing a new scheme or not.
“It doesn’t matter who you are facing,” said Hill, as the Sun Devils prepare for a Trojans defense led by Orlando, who was fired by Texas after a disappointing 2019 season for the Longhorns. “They’ve got new stuff, a new coordinator, all that stuff. It’s always a challenge. You don’t know what they put in during the off-season; they don’t know what we put in during the off-season.
“That’s the fun part of it, I think.”
After experiencing his first season-opener last year against Kent State, a game the Sun Devils won 30-7; Daniels said there’s a lot to learn from that experience.
“You can game plan for something else, and then they can show you something different,” Daniels explained to reporters Tuesday. “It’s just about going out there and sticking to what we planned and what we want to do. Our philosophy for how we want to go out there and attack them, and then if we have to make adjustments on the fly, we just make them on the fly.”
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One of the areas in which Daniels improvement may show this fall could come in his understandings of the protections. With his growth in knowledge and the additions of graduate transfers Kellen Dietsch and Henry Hattis, a cleaner pocket and better run blocking could follow.
“Last year just going in as a freshman I didn’t know too much about the protection,” Daniels admitted. “I was just trying to build a relationship with the o-line throughout the season, so to be able to build that relationship with the o-line now I know the different types of calls that they make, I’m able to talk to them and help them out so if they don’t see some things, we’re all able to be on the same line of communication.”
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