During his weekly media session offensive coordinator Rob Likens reminisced on his time at Cal while also addressing the present and the future of his offense and the potential they hold.

This potential stems from the true freshmen in almost every position on offense from left tackle, quarterback, to wide receiver.

Here’s our notebook for ASU’s offensive coordinator following the team’s best offensive output of 31 points all season.

Likens sees parallels between his old Cal offense and his current offense

When Arizona State’s Rob Likens looks back at his two years spent at California, he sees a clear connection.

Likens served the team’s wide receiver coach and passing game coordinator during the 2013 and 2014 seasons at Cal as he led a group that was predominately led by young and inexperienced players.

A group that is eerily similar to the young group he is leading now headlined by true freshman quarterback Jayden Daniels.

“The No.1 thing is we were really young,” Likens admitted of his Cal offense. “Very similar to where we know here on offense. We started out pretty good moving the football scoring points, then as the season went on our inexperience kind of showed up and we ended up 1-11.”

While Likens saw the potential that the group held, he ultimately decided to become the offensive coordinator at Kansas where he spent two seasons before joining Arizona State as a wide receiver coach.

During his time at Kansas, Likens admitted that watching the once-promising group headline by quarterback Jared Goff, fulfill their potential was tough to watch.

“Whenever I think back to Cal, I remember leaving and how sad I was when I went to Kansas as the offensive coordinator,” Likens stated. “I knew I was going to miss the payday… I just remember that year Kansas was one of the hardest, toughest times of my life watching (Cal) while we were going 0-12 knowing that I could’ve been there and experienced all the joys that came with the hard work I never got to enjoy while I was there.”

Despite leaving, the now Arizona State offensive coordinator was able to see his hard work pay off, even if it was from afar.

As his former players went to the NFL, Likens was able to the transformation from freshman to NFL draft pick.

A situation that once again seems similar in the eyes of the offensive coordinator on an offense littered with freshman.

“There was like nine guys that go and play in the NFL,” Likens said of his Cal team. “They were just young pups. Very similar to the eight true freshmen we started in certain different personnel groupings the other night. One day they’re going to look up and they’re going to be one of the most explosive teams I think Arizona State has ever had on offense at one point in time.”

Sun Devils learning to overcome youth while creating game plans

Going from a fifth-year senior at quarterback to a true freshman has by all accounts gone better than expected for ASU.

The team sits at 3-1 and Daniels has played well beyond his years as he consistently showed traits usually reserved for the likes of juniors and seniors.

While Daniels has shown a sense of maturity you can’t teach, his lack of experience makes it difficult for Likens to set forth game plans with no prior experience against certain teams.

“We’re inexperienced, have a young quarterback,” Likens admitted. “It was a little different with Manny (Wilkins). You could rely on things you did in the past and say ‘hey remember when we did this against Colorado last year, hey we’re going to do this again’. There was a lot of carryover, there’s zero carryover right now. Every game plan you put in there’s zero carry over from him playing that opponent before and the game plan before. Everything has to be shortened, specific, you can’t just kind of make things up.”

This lack of experience on behalf of Daniels has changed the way the team prepares for opponents as they are forced to focus more on the opponent than their own scheme.

The result of this is game plans that are set week by week with high regard of who the opponent is, a completely different tactic than Likens and his fellow offensive coaches used at Cal during his tenure.

“Our game plan is a little more opponent specific than it would be,” Likens stated. “Like our second year when I was at Cal, we didn’t even look at the film of the other team’s defense. We didn’t care we were running these plays and we were going to run them as fast as we could. This is what was going to happen. We didn’t even care what they did. Here it’s more structural, specific, according to what the defense is doing because you’re trying to get the young guys into the right situation.”

While there is certainly no downside of extra research on attacking the weaknesses of your opponent week in and week out, it shows that the transition of going from Wilkins to Daniels is an adjustment for Likens as well.

An adjustment that has seemed to begin to click as the offense put up a season-high 453 yards as Daniels accounted for 345 of the yards.

Confidence is key for ASU’s offensive line true freshmen duo

For the first time all season, Arizona State was able to play the same starting five offensive linemen for two consecutive weeks.

This starting five included the likes of true freshmen LaDarius Henderson and Dohnovan West at left tackle and right guard respectively.

Whether it was going against Colorado’s defensive line or sense of continuity, Arizona State’s line was able to hold the Buffaloes to just one sack on the game while maintaining a clean pocket for Daniels the majority of the game.

“Everything looked so much more smooth,” Likens said. “We’ve got to just work on staying on our blocks a little longer and I think we’ll pop longer runs. I think that’s going to come. Very pleased with the effort they gave. Dohnovan West, I’m going to just continue to sing his praises. I thought he played like a 2-3 starter and just continues to do that.”

Despite the strong effort given by his true freshmen on offense, the thought of playing true freshmen goes against everything Likens was taught.

The perception around playing them was always one of unpreparedness or one that only came when they were an unbelievable talent or out of necessity.

“You don’t play freshman you don’t do it,” Likens admitted of what he was taught in coaching. “They’re not ready. They’re not mentally ready, they’re not physically ready and if you are playing freshman it means the recruiting in the past has not been great.”

This sense of mentally ready is one that Likens even deals with on his own team as he had freshman Jordan Kerley make his debut against Colorado.

The sense of shock is one that came for Kerley as he went against defensive backs for the first time in live game action.

“A lot of times it’s not physical, it’s mentally they’re not ready,” Likens stated. “They’re not ready to compete at that level. Jordan Kerley came back to the sideline and said those guys are fast, like yeah dude, this is the Pac-12, they are fast.”

The reason behind not being naturally ready is simply by being in such a new and high-stress environment according to Likens.

For many first-year players, this may be the first time stepping away from home which in turn adds more responsibilities.

Add these responsibilities on top of playing in the Pac-12 against some of the top athletes in the nation and the difficulty of the situation only gets worse.

“They’re just not ready to compete,” Likens said. “They’re getting so many different stimuli hitting them from all different areas when they walk onto a college campus. All of a sudden now their mom is not waking them up, hey it’s time for school, now it’s you’ve got to wake yourself up. All of a sudden, the dating scene, everything you can think of that we all went through in college is hitting these guys. Then on top of that, they’re learning a new offense or a new defense, they’ve got coaches screaming at them, they’ve got their own teammates screaming at them because they’re screwing up all the time.”

While all of these reasons serve as a disclaimer of why not to play freshmen nearly at all, it shows how truly impressive what Arizona State has done is.

For Henderson and West, they don’t have a secret to their success just a handful of games into their career.

They simply have a confidence that is unique for someone their age. Confidence that makes the sky the limit for the pair.

“For those two guys to come in and have the confidence they do ─ those guys, they seriously think we could go out and play the Dallas Cowboys right now and they could protect off the edge,” Likens admitted. “They feel like they can and the confidence they have at the age that they are and the lack of experience that’s what allows them to play. That is not common at all in my experience.”

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