At the beginning of the season, Herm Edwards was asked about his goals. The 65-year old thought about it for a second, thinking back to 2018 and how his team had a chance to win the Pac-12 South right up until the end.
He said that’s what he wants. He wants to be in the hunt.
Heading into their bye week at 4-1, that’s exactly where the Sun Devils are -- in the hunt. ASU is ranked 20th in the AP Poll and, with a 1-1 record in Pac-12 play, is still vying for a conference championship in a wide-open Pac-12.
The only thing, Edwards said, is ASU needs to score more points.
“We ran the ball last year and averaged about 31 points,” Edwards said. “We have to get our point total up. We have to score more and college football allows you to score more.”
Through five games, the Sun Devils are averaging about 22 points a game. Edwards says he’d like to be in the mid-’30s as far as points, which would ideally allow the Sun Devils to put away some games and not have to compete in so many one-score battles, as they have in their last three games.
But, Edwards said, that’s what the bye week is for. This week off affords the Sun Devils not only a period to get right injury-wise but also self-scout themselves and find where they need to improve and how they can improve.
Like all coaches this time of year, he wants some numbers to start shooting upward. Sacks, interceptions, rushing yards, all of it. He sees areas for growth as his team prepares for a brutally-challenging second half of the season.
Sun Devils embracing bye week as a chance to get better, get healthy and work on fundamentals
Following last Friday night’s 24-17 victory over No. 15 California, ASU gets a couple of weeks off from games before returning to action on October 12 to host Washington State. Coach Herm Edwards noted how this will benefit the team, starting with the chance to assess themselves.
“Generally, this is a week where you self-scout, you self-evaluate your football team,” Edwards said. “You also evaluate your players, and that’s very important. We’re at a point now, I think we kind of got a feel for who we are athletically, what players we have. Now it’s how do we fit them in the system and utilize their strengths so they can be successful.”
He also gave some updates on injured players, and explained how the team can use the week to get better.
“(Starting senior cornerback) Kobe (Williams) is having surgery,” Edwards said, “he had surgery on his hand, but he should be available to play (in the next game) so it’s a good rest week for him.
“(Starting senior right tackle) Steve (Miller) has a little sore neck, we kept him out, we kept (starting junior running back) Eno (Benjamin) out- you always keep running backs out when you get a bye just because of what they have to do. (Starting true freshman) quarterback (Jayden Daniels), he participated in a few drills, kept him out. (Sophomore linebacker) Tyler Johnson is still coming off a hamstring, so we kind of babied him a little bit. I would say that’s probably it for most of our guys, there are some sore guys, and we’re limiting certain reps with certain players which is what you always do on a week like this.”
On how the team will work on improving, he added “I think this is a week where you get better with the players; techniques and fundamentals, that’s real important to me. Going back to the basics, don’t lose sight of that.”
Lastly, he brought up something interesting about next week, pertaining to an NFL team with some high-profile stars that will be in Tempe.
“Atlanta’s coming, they play obviously the Cardinals, so they’re coming (next Monday) and they’re going to stay a week here and play on Sunday,” Edwards said. “I told the players, ‘hey, they’re going to practice in the bubble. If you have any aspirations go over there and watch how they practice, watch how fast they do things.’”
Eno Benjamin wins ASU’s Mandrake Award:
There may not be a better week for Eno Benjamin to win the Mandrake Award. Not only does it come on a bye week, which means he gets to wear the black jersey and helmet to practice for two weeks, but he gets to wear it when HBO comes to film next week.
After Friday’s performance in Berkeley, though, he probably deserves it.
The junior tailback ran for 100 yards and three scores on 29 carries. Behind a young offensive line, Benjamin, it seemed, willed himself into the second level on multiple occasions, somehow staying up after multiple Golden Bears got their hands on him.
On ASU’s first touchdown drive, Benjamin finished it off with a 10-yard run on 3rd and 8, then an 11-yard to punch it into the end zone. On both, the Sun Devil running back was hit, twisted, pulled and shoved yet stayed up, used his signature spin move and helped get ASU into the end zone.
“He knew this game was similar to Michigan State, it was going to be a physical contest, especially up front,” Edwards said. “That’s always good when you can get your running back going because when he can run hard like that, it just kind of makes your team feel good. A lot of it was on his own.”
After setting the school record for single-season rushing yards as a sophomore, Benjamin didn’t exactly dominate through four games. With a freshman signal-caller under center, opposing defenses were stacking the box and forcing anyone but Benjamin to beat them. Before the Cal game, he only rushed for 292 yards and three touchdowns.
“It started with our offensive line,” Edwards said of Benjamin’s slow start. “They hadn’t really played together. About the fourth game, they started playing together. Now it’s our third game that they’ve played together where we’ve kind of have it solidified. That helps you.”
Edwards delves into winning road games, where the Sun Devils are undefeated through two contests
Without last Friday’s victory at Cal and the win at then No. 18 Michigan State just two weeks prior to that, there’s no question the Sun Devils would not be ranked at all right now. But with those wins, they’ve already tied last season’s total for away victories, when they went 2-4.
Edwards offered some insight into the psyche that goes into playing on the road and coming out successfully.
“I always say if you can take the crowd out of it and keep the score down early, it’s hard on the home team, not the visiting team,” Edwards stated, “because of the expectations and everything that the fan base has when you play at home.
“So, when you eliminate the noise, (the pressure) becomes more [sic], it becomes harder. It’s like us, we don’t start fast, and if we can keep people down, as far as points, we can kind of build our momentum and we were able to do that fortunately in two road games.”
He also discussed how similar Cal and Michigan State are, both being physical, tough football teams, and even how both game scripts had similarities in that ASU fell behind but was able to come out on top in both games, which were more defensive battles than offensive showcases.
“We didn’t get behind early in the game, so we could play methodically how we wanted to play,” Edwards said. “That helps you on the road.”
After the WSU game in Tempe, the ensuing pair of games- both on the road- won’t get any easier for ASU, as to be expected in a highly competitive Pac-12 conference. First, the Sun Devils visit the No. 17 Utah Utes on October 19, followed by a matchup at the UCLA Bruins on October 26.
Although the Bruins are probably one of the three flimsiest teams in the conference, they proved just a couple of weeks ago that they can’t be slept on. Trailing by as much as 32 points at WSU, UCLA came back on the road to earn its first win of the season, 67-63.
HBO show provides a chance to take a look inside ASU football team
With the upcoming matchup against Washington State, there will be more than the preparation for the game on the minds of the Sun Devils. The week leading up be well documented by HBO for their new 24/7 College Football show.
The show was announced earlier this year as ASU will join the likes of Florida, Penn State and Washington State for their inaugural season.
The experience is one that Edwards hopes will impact recruits in a positive light and they peel back the curtain of the Arizona State team.
“I think it benefits the program because it kind of lets recruits look into what you do behind the scenes,” Edwards admitted. “Look behind the coach and I think they get a good feel of how we do things, that’s the good part. The other part is, I’ve been involved with these things before, and I’ve said it ─ players that don’t talk, all of a sudden they start talking, they want to see themselves on television. I’ve been with pro players who hadn’t talked in three years and those guys showed up and all of a sudden they had dances, and they were telling jokes.”
While this will be the first season the Hard Knocks style show, Edwards has experience with Hard Knocks during his time in the NFL.
Edwards had his team featured during his time at Kansas City before turning down a second chance at the show in New York.
“If you do it right, it takes the fan behind the curtain of kind how hard it is to be a football player,” Edwards said.
“Taking people behind the scenes is important because you’re talking about the game. You get to promote the game, your sport, football. I always say it’s a good thing.
While the show provides a chance to highlight your program, Edwards admitted that the amount of privacy is essentially gone due to the constant recording of the film crew.
“After about three days of it becomes a little bit interesting for you,” Edwards stated. “When you walk into the room, this is what happened to us in Kansas City, every room has an electronic camera that just comes on. I told the coaches if you have any private things to say you need to go outside and deal with it.”
Daniels running ability adds another level to offense
After rushing for 84 yards on 12 carries against a talented Cal defense, the secret of Jayden Daniels running ability is out.
Daniels consistency used his legs throughout the game to pick up key first downs and help lead his team to victory, a secret that has been a surprise for the team.
“I think the pleasant surprise for us is no one anticipated the quarterback was going to be a runner,” Edwards admitted. “I don’t think he’s a runner but he’s averaging about three first downs a game unannounced, that helps you. Now all of a sudden he becomes a part of the puzzle when you play us. You go uh-oh, wait a minute, he’s a pretty good runner.”
While Daniels may not be considered a runner, his ability to get out of the pocket has been especially helpful for an offense that has seen it’s fair share of struggles to begin the year.
The most important to his running ability has come in the form of being smart with the football and knowing when to slide or go out of bounds.
“That was our first conversation,” Edwards said of his conversations with Daniels of when to get down. “I think Jayden knows his skill level ─ he’s been this size all through high school. Now the players he’s playing against now are much bigger and much faster, but he has a sense of where it’s at of what’s about to happen. He understands, and the conversation I have with every quarterback since I’ve coached, know when the journey is over.”
Edwards is not known for his yelling, but he admits that when his freshman quarterback goes outside of the pocket he tends to scream.
A sort of fatherly gesture that tends to humor Daniels as he tends to come to the sideline laughing after hearing his coach yell.
“He can hear me screaming too,” Edwards said. “I don’t raise my voice a whole lot until he leaves the pocket, then I’m coaching him. You may not hear me but I’m screaming as loud as I can scream ‘Get down, as fast as you can.”
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