Arizona State’s secondary embraced a clean slate at the beginning of the year after being dead last in passing yards allowed in 2015. Now nine games into this season, everything has remained the same on paper.
Its journey wasn’t without change as TJ Rushing stepped in as the new defensive backs coach and fresh faces looked to replace three of four starters from last year. However, the end result has stayed constant as the unit ranks last in total passing yards allowed with 3,578 and passing yards allowed per game with 397.6.
For additional context, no team has given up more than 3,000 total passing yards and there are 87 schools who have not even allowed 2,000 total passing yards.
“I think one of the things that has hurt us is so many different lineups, but that’s just an excuse,” head coach Todd Graham said. “That’s how I would evaluate the whole thing, but it doesn’t do any good to evaluate anything right now. There're times where we’ve played very well, but we’ve also made too many critical errors.”
The entire defense has once again had its tackling issues, but those problems are perhaps most highlighted in the secondary as it is the last line of defense able to stop an explosive play from happening.
Redshirt senior corner De’Chavon Hayes — one of the group’s new starters — said the team spends about 15 to 20 minutes on tackling at practice each day, working on it in periods A, B, and C.
“It’s us going out there (in the games) sometimes being careless,” Hayes said. ”Missing tackles throughout the defense. That’s something you can’t do in ball games. With a lot of running backs, if you miss tackles, they’re able to take it the distance.”
While missed tackles can affect the outcome of games, Hayes said they also prove costly for players as guys seem to be more hesitant and coming full speed and making the play if they are still reeling from a play they previously missed.
“It can be very hard, but you definitely have to put plays behind you,” he said.
Added freshman nickel corner Robbie Robinson on giving up key big plays: “It definitely hurts because you can play a solid game the whole time, but you give up one big play and it changes the game around.”
In last Saturday’s loss at Oregon, ASU gave up touchdowns of 72, 58 and 53 yards to the Ducks.
Robinson said big plays are expected and adversity is going to hit, but the key is not letting one’s confidence become shaken.
“Say if there are 60 plays in a game, you could go 59 correct and the one you play careless could be the big play you give up,” he said. “Everything on film is not wrong, we do a lot of good things in film. But the time that we do slip up in our techniques or we get careless, the other team capitalizes. It’s not something that’s detrimental that’s going to hurt us as a team, they’re things that are correctable.”
Robinson said the secondary has the same mentality as it did when fall camp started, noting that they watch film together and individually. And when they study film individually, they meet to discuss what they learned.
The unit is keeping the faith heading into the last three games, he said.
“As a defensive back, you just have to take a lot of things that people see as embarrassing as a learning tool,” Robinson said. “You’re going to have people in the stands, you’re going to have critics, and you’re going to have people online in blogs bashing the secondary, bashing the coaches.
“But as a secondary, we’re in a group together, we’re all we’ve got.”
