Arizona State worked through its preparations for Stanford with the knowledge that its defensive back group would be challenged by the intimidating height and size of Stanford’s receivers.
Sophomore wideout John Humphreys is listed at 6 foot 5 on the Cardinal’s official roster. Tight end Benjamin Yurosek, another sophomore, is also 6 foot 5. Junior jump ball maestro Elijah Higgins measures 6 foot 3. In contrast, none of ASU’s cornerbacks in the team’s two-deep depth chart are taller than 6 feet even.
Jack Jones did not care. The characteristics of the players on the field were not relevant to him. ASU had to be elite in coverage no matter what.
“They got basketball players,” Jones said. “You gotta match up.”
The super senior cornerback defended his island with intensity and ferocity during ASU’s 28-10 win, daring Stanford quarterback Tanner McKee to test him in man coverage. He fearlessly patrolled the waters of ASU’s secondary, never allowing his opponent to get a clean release off the line. Jones battled all the way down each route stem, his 5-10 frame never ceasing to be a flurry of physicality and scrappy desire to swat away any football that came into his airspace.
Jones finished with four tackles, an interception, and two pass breakups. The highlight of his lockdown performance was his interception in the third quarter, ASU’s second takeaway of the night, and Jones’ first of the season. Jones stepped in front of Humphreys to pick off McKee’s ill-fated throw, shielded the ball from the receiver draped on his back, then lateraled the ball to a zooming DeAndre Pierce in a brilliant show of instincts and veteran chemistry. Twenty-seven yards later, Pierce crossed the goal line, turned, and pointed to Jones in celebration.
“Pitching the ball is something that the defensive backs have been talking about for a while now, probably since fall camp,” Jones said in a postgame press conference. “But we never had an opportunity to do it. When I got that opportunity, I saw ‘Dre behind me and just went with it. I knew it was me and the receiver out there on the island. I turned around, and ‘Dre was there. Luckily, he caught the ball.”
“That’s the kind of stuff you just do on instinct,” head coach Herm Edwards said. “I’m glad it worked because if we would’ve fumbled it, you’d have seen a mad head coach, right? It’s all pretty when it works, and it’s just football, guys are having fun, and it really was a great play for both of them.”
Stanford’s receivers ran a niche route tree against ASU. While the Cardinal offense is effective at using the enormous dimensions and vertical advantage of its playmakers to exploit mismatches, the large targets were rarely effective on routes that attacked the deeper areas of the field. Instead, Stanford heavily relied on short slants and back-shoulder fade routes to move the chains.
Before it took the field against UCLA in Pasadena last weekend, ASU watched how Stanford methodically picked apart Oregon during its two-minute drill comeback. McKee connected on numerous in-breaking routes, slicing open the vulnerable underbelly of the Ducks’ pass defense.
Once his unit arrived in the end zone, the offense switched tactics. McKee targeted Humphreys on three consecutive pass attempts where the lumbering pass-catcher posted up his defender but failed to come down with the football. Stanford finally tied the game on a goal-line fade touchdown by Higgins on the last play of regulation. In overtime, the same strategy eventually resulted in the game-winning score.
Edwards saw the performance and knew what his defensive backs needed to accomplish on Friday to restrain Stanford’s “lob it up” mentality. Throughout the week in practice, Edwards himself oversaw the defensive backs and instructed proper technique when defending the fade route specifically.
“You got to put facemask to facemask because, in the era of today’s football, the back-shoulder fade comes into play,” Edwards said. “If you turn the opposite way from the receiver, you can’t get back to the ball. You have to have enough ability to turn your head to the receiver and also play the ball.
“We worked on that all week. I put my coaching hat on, actually. I took the corners and said, ‘this is what we’re doing this week. We’re going to do this, and this is how we’re going to do it.’ And they listened.”
The preachings did not fall on deaf ears. Jones was a marvelous sight guarding Stanford’s fade routes. On 3rd-and-6 from ASU’s 30-yard line the second quarter, Jones broke up a pass intended for Humphreys and executed what Edwards told him in the days leading up to the game. Jones stuck like glue, did not allow Humphreys to dominate him in the contact phase of the route, and hawked the catch point. McKee’s ball was promptly swatted away; Stanford was forced to kick a field goal, then punt after an illegal substitution penalty ended the prospect of obtaining points on the drive.
“I feel like the fade ball, of course, size has something to do with it, but it’s all about will and want to,” Jones said. “You can’t allow somebody to go over your head and dunk on you. That’s what we were saying in the locker room. That’s not cool. So all week, we were focusing on outside leverage and not allowing them to catch the fade.”
Jones nearly recorded another interception defending a fade route by Higgins on a 1st-and-10 situation in the fourth quarter. Jones remained in front of Higgins throughout the entirety of the play but muffed the ball as he elevated to thwart McKee’s pass. Another breakup in the face of wide receiver Silas Starr was negated by a roughing the passer penalty on freshman 3-technique B.J. Green.
Where much larger cornerbacks had failed this season, Jones thrived. However, the game did yield its fair share of controversy in the beginning. Jones was actually on the sideline for ASU’s first two defensive stands. He came into the game in replacement of Chase Lucas, who suffered a lower back contusion making a tackle out of bounds in the first quarter. From his outside position, Jones watched as Timarcus Davis mistimed his jump, and McKee lofted a perfect ball to Higgins in the back left corner of the end zone. The hatches needed to be bolted down fast.
“These are some big receivers, and we knew it is going in,” Edwards said. “They’re scary, and they’re gifted players that can catch the ball. A lot of jump balls, you see it every week, and for the most part, we did a pretty good job of really not allowing that to happen.”
Numerous faces saw playing time as ASU experimented with their boundary fortifications. Tommi Hill, Keon Markham, and Jordan Clark all were pitted against Stanford’s receivers to varying degrees of success. In the end, ASU chose to proceed with Jones and Davis as its primary line of defense in the defense’s 4-3 base.
Clark was the first choice in nickel packages and had the best outing of his young career, erupting for an interception of his own, a pass breakup, and an emphatic fourth-down denial on Stanford’s last drive in the third quarter. The stellar play was a continued positive trajectory for Clark after the redshirt sophomore gave up a TD in blown coverage against BYU. Since then, Clark produced a pass breakup against Colorado and a huge third-down tackle on Dorian Thompson-Robinson to set up Eric Gentry’s game-defining tackle for loss versus UCLA.
“Jordan Clark is a young, tremendous player,” Jones said. “I feel like he’s got a bright future ahead of him. He’s just gotta keep knocking down those stepping stones, and he’ll be alright.”
The adjustments worked, and the Sun Devils only allowed three points in the second half. Edwards thought the secondary’s ability to handle themselves one-on-one helped the secondary out a lot. The Sun Devils played zone coverage to start, then shifted to cat coverage after halftime to maximize pass-rush pressure. A tipped pass breakup by Timarcus Davis fell into the hands of fellow cornerback Keon Markham for one of the Sun Devils’ three interceptions.
Defensive coordinator Antonio Pierce gave credit to the defense’s stiffness in the trenches. The unit was also aided by Stanford’s reluctance to confront the Sun Devils upfront.
“It was a compliment to us that they didn’t want to run the ball,” Pierce remarked, “and then when they decided to, they couldn’t. We just got to keep playing that way.”
With its third conference opponent slain, ASU sets its sights on Utah, which figures to be another tough test as the Sun Devils travel to play in Salt Lake City, UT, next Saturday. The Utes are a matchup that left a stark impression on Pierce in 2019.
“We’ve been 5-1 before,” Pierce said. “It didn’t end well. We don’t want to talk about it. It’s next [opponent] up with a tough challenge coming up on the road against Utah. It’s always been a bloodbath since I got here.
“Two years ago, they beat up on us. They got after us, so we need to be physical.”
Join your fellow Sun Devil fans on our premium message board, the Devils’ Huddle, to discuss this article and other ASU football, basketball, and recruiting topics. Not a member yet? Sign up today here and get all the latest Sun Devil news!
