Following an energetic and vibrant few days in Camp Tontozona, coming back down to the valley can elicit some sluggish feelings following a trip away from home. Earlier in the week, that seems to be the case for Arizona State.

Monday’s practice felt a dip below par and a minor step back from the momentum the team had built up to that point.

“You got to be honest for ourselves,” linebacker Zyrus Fiaseu said following Tuesday's practice. “At first, yeah, we were a little low. [The coaches] try to talk to us about not going into a lull after Camp T is done. Fall camp is still going, and you know, we all want to be good. We want to be great with this team, and so we come out here, and we work.

“To me, it's not physical but it's more mental you got to mentally prepare to come in on days like that. We just had an off day, and we just got back from Camp T, which was five days long, so some guys … come in with the mindset thinking that we're kind of done, but we're not job not finished. Coming into practice yesterday, it was a little low, but we came in, and we started working again, and we're all fine now.”

Defensive coordinator Brian Ward noted he felt good about Tuesday's practice, but repeated misshapes carried a sour note to an otherwise productive practice.

“We got to clean some things up,” Ward said. “You don’t want to see guys make the same mistakes. We got to move forward.

“We’re moving guys around and were getting them to learn our defense conceptually; there are some growing pains with it.”

The Linebacker group is poised to be a significant part of the Sun Devils' defensive identity this year, as Ward spoke about the importance of that group’s leadership and mental fortitude in that area of the field.

“A lot of game experience, a lot of maturity in that room, a lot of leadership,” Ward noted. “The best part about it is that we got a lot of depth, we got five or six and a couple of young guys that are coming on. Competition really fuels performance and you see it in that room they bring it every day.”

Fiaseu and the rest of his teammates on that side of the ball played with high intensity during Tuesday’s session, which saw its full duration inside the Verde Dickey Dome. As expected, playing indoors altered the practice’s energy level, utilizing the cooler temperatures to the team’s advantage.

“It's always blessed to be in the dome, getting out of the heat,” Fiaseu admitted. “I think we put in a lot of work. They were lightening up the load today, trying to take care of us, and we still put in the work and came in with the mindset to just keep on going.”

The desire for improvement is there for the Sun Devils and for Fiaseu in particular, as he takes pride in his work ethic and enjoys being passionate about his team. At Tuesday’s practice, he was seen cheering on his teammates and consistently showing his elation when the defense was generating stops.

“I really think we have a higher energy practice every day. I haven't seen bad practices at all. and I really think that,” Fiaseu remarked. “Our practices have just been high energy.”

Fiaseu credits his linebacker coach, AJ Cooper, for his development as well as unity amongst the position group as a whole. Maintaining the unit’s focus has been Cooper’s number one goal. Cooper, a valley native and former Glendale Community College tight end, rigorously worked his way up the ladder coaching at Wyoming and Washington State since 2015. With Kenny Dillingham wanting to bring in high-energy players, it is no surprise members of his coaching staff exhibit that trait as well.

“Coach Cooper is all the energy.” Fiaseu laughed. “Boy, if our energy's down, oh, he's gonna bring it. If he's bringing it, oh, you don't want him to bring it. It's a lot. But Coach Cooper's a great guy.”

Fiaseu has been riding a wave of momentum as of late. An interception during Camp T’s Saturday scrimmage was followed by an interception returned for a touchdown on Wednesday night. The linebacker joked that his teammate and defensive tackle Jacob Kongaika alerted him on Saturday of what he could expect during his assignment.

“With that pick, Jacob told me plays going this way.” Fiaseu laughed, talking about Kongaika. “You told me the guy's making a wheel [route], so if you don't catch him, you suck. I don't want to suck.”

Fiaseu believes that the team bonding that took place in camp Tontozona was not lost on him nor his teammates and has aided him personally and the defense as a whole to show marked improvement as fall camp progressed.

“One of the coaches told me going to camp as individuals, you come back with the team,” Fiaseu explained. “So just seeing everybody come into it… I'm a big yapper, so it's not hard for me to talk to anybody, but to see other guys come together from different backgrounds and coming together with people. I just like to see it.”

With Camp Tontozona now a few days removed for the players, Sun Devil football looks ahead toward its second scrimmage of fall camp on Saturday, taking place at Mountain America Stadium. For Fiaseu, playing under the lights at that venue doesn’t change any routine or increase motivation, and having that mindset can only help the betterment of him and his teammates.

“I just love to practice,” Fiaseu remarked. “Football is the only thing I've known. So, coming in Mountain America (Stadium), yeah, it's a different setting. But when I practice with those guys like this, it's fun.”

The ASU defense’s strides from the first day of fall camp until now, have shown tremendous growth and resulted is the majority of those session tilting in their favor. They do so while exploring different alignments and situations responding to the offense’s adjustments, as the group sharpens continues to sharpen their performance.

“The looks that we’re getting on offense are challenging us every single day,” Ward admitted, “and Arroyo (offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo) and his staff are in figuring out, ‘Hey, they’re doing this we’re going to do this today to combat what they’re doing.’ It's great for us because it challenges us to think outside our box.”

“Defensively we are where we want to be, now we have situationally, call-wise everything that we’re doing is really pretty much in. Now it's just adding wrinkles to it and cleaning up the fundamentals which we are.”

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