Feeling at home in Tempe, Brandon Pierce ready to break out

One of the hardest things for any high-level athlete has to be getting adapted to a new team in a new setting and getting comfortable enough to thrive there. It could only be all the more challenging when said athlete officially joins the team only one week before their season-opening game.

This was the scenario last Fall for senior receiver Brandon Pierce, a junior college transfer from College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California, about 35 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

In making the journey across state lines to fill Arizona State’s final roster spot and enroll in the university days before Fall classes started, Pierce knew he was in for a challenge. But based on how things were going back home, he knew he had to make a decision that was best for himself.

“There was just a lot of distractions and things going on back home that, really, I shouldn’t be involved in,” Pierce said. “It was just a product of my environment, so I needed to head up and get out of there, and ASU was a blessing.”

Friends, family, and his general surroundings living in south-central Los Angeles were all part of the problem for Pierce. As a matter of fact, he wasn't planning to join the ranks at ASU in the first place, but their ability to immediately add him so he could find a new home played a big role in swinging the choice.

“I was eventually going to go to (Oklahoma University), but I wasn’t going to be able to go there until the Spring,” Pierce recalled. “My situation back home just wasn’t good, like my living situation and things like that, and Herm talked to me and told me we could do big things up here, and the situation was just awesome.”

While there are plenty of reasons the Sun Devils made a good fit for Pierce, a big one was getting to continue a strong friendship he had developed back home months before he officially came to ASU.

Specifically, senior cornerback Jack Jones would serve as a familiar face among the crowd when Pierce first arrived in Tempe.

“We met a few months before we both came here, back home working out and things like that,” Pierce said. “We were working out back in So. Cal, doing one-on-ones, training, just trying to get each other better.

“I remember at one point neither of us really knew where we were going yet, and then we ended up both being here, and we were just talking about that and how crazy it was…Herm called me, and then I had found out (Jones) had come like two weeks ago ahead of me, and it was just a good situation for me.”

Currently, the pair actually live together as roommates, and Pierce added that he’s like his brother, emphasizing that they are very close.

2019 proved to be a nice redemption year for Jones, who sealed the regular season nicely with a pair of interceptions in the Sun Devils 10-point victory in the Territorial Cup. For 2020, Pierce believes it’s his turn—not that he or anyone within the team believes Jones is going to do anything but get better himself.

However, the 5’11’’, 175-lb. receiver knows that with over 2,000 receiving yards of production gone from last season, he can showcase that blazing speed to play a key role in the passing offense.

“The coaches have let me know that they’re definitely depending on me to be one of the guys who steps up,” Pierce said. “I’m about to be a senior this year, so I’m up to the task for sure. I’m excited.”

Perhaps the coach who’s pushed Pierce the most day-by-day has been, naturally, first-year wide receivers coach Prentice Gill. The 29-year-old position coach shares a unique bond with Pierce, allowing him to get through to the senior arguably more than anyone else can.

“I challenged BP (Pierce) when I got here,” Gill said. “We’re both from the same area. He’s from south-central (Los Angeles), I was born in south-central before I moved to Carson. So, the first thing I told him, I said, ‘hey, everything you did last year doesn’t matter, and I know where you come from and I’m challenging you to be a different guy.’ For the most part, he’s been that. He’s been more on-time to meetings, and he’s been earlier, and he’s been watching more film.”

On Pierce’s end, he admits that it wasn’t the most enjoyable season in 2019, when the one pass he caught for seven yards at Michigan State proved to be all he’d get the entire year. Even though it’s only been a handful of Spring practices in 2020, he already feels his role growing in importance.

“Now that I’m getting more reps, I’m showing that I can make plays and be a leader,” Pierce said. “It was really hard to do that last season because I wasn’t really getting plays, I wasn’t really out there, so it was hard to communicate and vibe with the guys on the field, and things like that.”

By Gill’s account, it’s been a different story this season, starting in the film room.

“It’s kind of a joke in the meeting room, he asks so many questions in the meeting room people are just kind of looking at him like,” Gill explained, making a face after the last part. “But I told him keep asking questions, because he’s learning it, he’s picking it up, he’s playing faster, and he’s playing confident. You can see it, he’s playing confident, and I told him I’m challenging him on the field and I’m challenging him off the field not to make the same mistakes he used to make.

“So, I think me coming in and kind of being able to reason with him, and because we both come from the same area, he kind of knows that I know what he’s about. Me and him have a really good relationship and I can tell him something and he doesn’t second guess it.”

By the sound of it, Pierce is also as enamored with the new offense under first-year offensive coordinator Zak Hill as everyone else. He describes the new system with words that he might even use to describe himself on the field.

“I’ve never been in an offense this dynamic and this technical,” Pierce said. “We line up like in a wrong formation, and then shift to a different one. We’ll be on the ball, and then we’ll get off the ball so they won’t know who’s eligible. All types of crazy things that we’ve got to know, so it’s definitely advancing our game for sure.”

For the season that awaits, Pierce knows that he must become a receiver who helps advance the offense’s game to another level. He’ll look to follow the steps of Jaelen Strong, Tim White and Brandon Aiyuk as JUCO transfers who have made their mark on the Sun Devil program.

If Pierce can live up to his dynamic play-making potential as a slot receiver in this dynamic offense, ASU will be all the more than glad they could be the home he was so desperately searching for last Fall.

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