When the Sun Devils travel to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for their season opener against USC on Nov. 7, there will be no fans in attendance. Instead of the raucous roar of the Trojan faithful, only the pure sounds of football will echo throughout the nearly 100-year-old concrete bowl in South Central L.A.

Well, the sounds of football and ASU’s Frank Darby.

Now in his fifth year in the maroon and gold, Darby is a player who is impossible to overlook. Whether dancing in warmup lines before games, hyping up teammates in the weight room, or chirping at his teammates on campus, Darby’s sprightly approach to not only football but life, is well known to Sun Devil fans.

The confident, vibrant receiver is a roaming beacon of positive energy to all that interact with him and despite an unconventional summer full of uncertainty, the Sun Devil veteran’s energy remained unmatched when he sat down with the media following ASU’s first preseason practice earlier today.

For Darby, his energy is a trait he’s possessed for his entire life; however, back home in New Jersey, he wasn’t always able to express his constant positivity. Since coming to ASU though, Darby has erupted out of his shell, aiming to brighten the day of anyone who crosses his path as he brings passion and energy to the lives of the people around him.

“I wake up every morning and tell myself, ‘You are a Sun Devil football player, Frank’,” Darby explained. “I’m just happy, I wake up in the morning and have great energy… I felt like once people saw me as the high energy guy, I had to keep it up.”

Over the past two seasons, Darby’s energy has been difficult to ignore, along with his production on the field. So difficult in fact, Sun Devil head coach Herm Edwards rewarded the receiver with a captain’s slot ahead of this season and told Darby his hard work and commitment had made his appointment well-deserved.

“When Herm told me, I cried,” Darby admitted. “I’ve been trying to be captain here for four years…I’ve (brought the energy) since I got here, in the weight room, even coaching people up that were veterans before I was. I was just trying to show and prove that (I was worthy of a captain’s spot).”

Darby joins the captain’s ranks alongside three other newcomers to this role: linebacker Kyle Soelle, fullback Case Hatch, and quarterback Jayden Daniels. Linebacker Darien Butler is the sole player to be reinstated as a captain from last year’s team.

For Darby, the new role is another catalyst to not only inspire him to prove his worth but also to inspire the team around him. Instead of playing the proverbial hype man, as a captain, Darby now has the opportunity to redirect his endless energy onto others in a definitive leadership role.

“Being that I’m a leader, I’ve got young (players) looking up to me, and if I go out there and don’t practice to the top of my potential or I’m out there doing something lazy; they’re going to do it,” Darby explained.

As the most experienced captain on this side of the ball, Darby is tasked with leading ASU’s new-look receiving core in 2020. Full of new faces and high-impact underclassmen, the potential for the position group is enormous.

Out of the large pool of wideouts available to the Sun Devils, Darby raved about several of his teammates, such as freshman LV Bunkley-Shelton, who also received compliments from another captain, Hatch, along with sophomore Ricky Pearsall and redshirt sophomore Geordon Porter.

Darby, who played in recent seasons with two-first round NFL draft picks in N’Keal Harry and Brandon Aiyuk, went as far as saying the 2020 receiving core is the best he’s ever been a part of.

“Of all the receiving groups I’ve been a part of, this group is different,” Darby noted. “They work harder; they compete at a different level. Just watching them ball and trying to compete for spots…. it’s been amazing. I can’t wait for them to show the world what they’ve got.”

Along with his leadership on the field and in the weight room, the redshirt senior has also done his part with ensuring the health of his teammates, bringing about extra player-guided discipline which extends beyond the umbrella of the captains. Veterans like Darby and redshirt senior Chase Lucas have spoken to the team, establishing guidelines and expectations for the coming months, so the team remains as healthy as possible.

“I just try to remind them every day, ‘Make sure y’all are washing your hands, make sure you put your mask on,’” Darby said. “I’ve tried to get everyone to lock in on (the next) two months…we can party after the championship.”

Despite today’s practice being the first full-speed action the team has received together since last November, Darby’s goals were clearer than a Tempe summer afternoon: win a Pac-12 Championship and leave a lasting legacy.

As the New Jersey native blossomed at ASU, he’s watched Harry and Aiyuk trot off to the pros in each of the past two seasons. After formidbale years alongside the former ASU players, Darby sits as Jayden Daniels’ primary aerial target in 2020 and looks to take advantage of every ball that comes his way.

“Being that our veterans weren’t coming back and I was going to be the only veteran senior on the offensive side (of the ball), I had to put in the work,” Darby said. “Now that I’m here, I’m going to maximize everything, I’m going to get everything out of this (year).”

Darby, one of college football’s top big-play threats, earned a conference honorable mention after his 2019 campaign in which he accumulated 16 catches for 387 yards and seven touchdowns across a four-week stretch. In July, he was named to the 2020 Biletnikoff Award Preseason Watch List, the award granted to the most outstanding receiver in college football.

However, for the jovial and spry Darby, his most important assignment this season is not to burn a cornerback on a Go route for a chance at a deep touchdown strike, rather it’s to lead the team he loves to the victory, all while carrying the same energy that helped him reach this point.

“I’ve got enough energy to give to everybody, so once I’m like ‘Let’s go,’ and I’m on, the whole team just clicks,” Darby exclaimed, imitating the exact way he hypes up his teammates. “I’m going to be the energy guy for us, especially when we go to The Coliseum, and nobody’s in there… It shouldn’t matter about the fans; we all have the same mentality to get out there and win a football game and get to the championship.”

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