Danny Gonzales picked his eyes up. He lifted up the brim of his black ASU hat and peered over the devices and shoulders of the reporters standing around him.
The adjacent door to the press conference room had just swung ajar and a three-man stream of dejected Sun Devils emerged from a brief postgame media session. Tillman safety Evan Fields was the first to enter his defensive coordinator’s sightline, working his way around the media toward the locker room. Quarterback Jayden Daniels and receiver Brandon Aiyuk trailed.
Gonzales paused. Mid-sentence, his response halted for something more pressing -- a chance to look at and acknowledge his players, to tell them ASU’s 34-31 loss to Colorado wasn’t their fault.
“Fought your tail off, Evan. Nice job,” Gonzales said to his walking players. “You guys did a nice job. Jayden, you did a great job tonight.”
The Sun Devil defensive coordinator is always one to harp on miscues. When things are good, he’ll find the bad -- or more so the things that can be improved. If a defensive back makes an assignment error, he’ll let everyone know. If a defensive lineman misses on a tackle that leads to a touchdown, he’ll say something.
All that is to say Gonzales isn’t afraid to call out a player. When ASU loses, Gonzales usually spits out the culprit -- whether it be one person, play or error.
On this night, he was blunt.
“(The loss) was 100 percent on me,” Gonzales said. “That was my fault. They were coached terribly this week. When you get outcoached, out schemed, that’s not the kid’s fault, that’s my fault. They didn’t overcome me.”
Gonzales always leans on the pessimistic side when evaluating his defense. After each of ASU’s first three victories, bits and pieces of Gonzales’ press conferences sounded, at times, more crestfallen than that of the actual losing coaches. In reality, his defense was often the Sun Devils’ saving grace.
But when a unit is only allowing seven points a week -- as ASU’s was through its first trio of games -- criticism is often viewed as hogwash.
Gonzales wished it stayed that way. The seven points ASU was holding opponents to was matched by Colorado after 10-play, 75-yard drive. The only problem was, 55 minutes were still on the clock.
Midway through the second quarter, Colorado quarterback Steven Montez connected with receiver Tony Brown, who had 150 yards receiving yards and three touchdowns, on a deep touchdown. The Buffalos, a quarter and a half into the game, had equaled the 21-allowed points ASU gave up in its first three games.
And it was after that score, Gonzales said, he realized the Sun Devils were in trouble. And not because Colorado was better or had better players -- after all, CU’s Preseason All American Laviska Shenault Jr. went down in the first quarter -- but rather that ASU’s defense needed to make adjustments on things it hadn’t practiced.
Meticulous drive after meticulous drive, Colorado’s offense continued to march down the field on Gonzales’s group. He tried to make the changes on the sideline in between series but things were not translating. So Gonzales hurried to the locker room at halftime, using the entire 15 minutes to install and teach corrections.
The Sun Devil defense allowed 14 fewer points and almost 100 fewer passing yards in the game’s final half but “by the time we adjusted, they had already scored 21 points.”
In all-black attire, with his hands against his hips, Gonzales began to illustrate some of the concepts and adjustments he said his players didn’t practice.
He wasn’t pleased with how his defense reacted to Colorado’s early Jet Sweeps. He thought the game plan didn’t call for enough zone looks. And he thought the Buffalos had a masterful game plan to delay the speed of ASU’s front off the ball.
“We have to do a better job when they go tempo of getting line up faster,” Fields said. “That’s probably the biggest thing, I feel like once they started going fast we didn’t have enough urgency to get lined up, so they got us out of place and made some plays like that.”
What all that often culminated with, aside from Colorado points, was third-down conversions. Just this week, Gonzales spoke of ASU’s improvement in that area. His defense was forcing opponents off the field and stalling drives. Then on Saturday, it seemed the Buffaloes lived on third down.
They finished the game 10 for 17 on third down. In the first half alone, they converted on seven of their nine attempts. The 3rd and short plays, Gonzales says, are more a product of poor defense on first and second downs than a late conversion. The 3rd and 14, though?
“That’s ridiculous,” Gonzales said.
After last week’s 10-7 victory at Michigan State, Colorado was viewed as that nice stepping stone into Pac-12 play. ASU was riding high. The Buffalos had just lost to Air Force. And the game was in Tempe. For all the time Gonzales warned his players not to read their press clippings, he didn’t for a second think that was a factor.
It was the Devils’ lack of adjustment -- or lack to prepare for adjustments.
Until Saturday, the Sun Devils had been in an envious position, one where there wasn’t a need to make adjustments because when something’s not broke, why fix it? Even after Saturday, ASU’s defense isn’t broken, not by a longshot, but the loss to Colorado does afford Gonzales a larger canvas to fine-tune and touch up his defensive creation.
“In the first three games, we didn’t have to (make adjustments because opponents) couldn’t move the ball,” Gonzales said. “This is 100 percent on Danny Gonzales and I apologize. I mean, we have to give them a better chance to be successful.”
