In September, Arizona State interim defensive backs coach Donnie Henderson listed concerns for his unit’s depth behind the experienced likes of veteran cornerbacks Chase Lucas, Jack Jones, and safety Evan Fields.

A lot has changed in the past three weeks for the Sun Devil secondary, as injuries caused Lucas and Fields to miss time against opponents such as Stanford and Utah. With some of his best players out, Henderson was forced to double down on his younger players, focusing on their development and getting them game-ready.

“The first thing that comes up is you’re without (some of your most experienced players),” Henderson opened. “The next thing is who’s going to replace him, and you always try to figure out if the guy that replaces him is prepared to play. You do your best to make sure you can get him prepared, but it’s nothing like being in the fire.

“It’s a little stressful, but that’s what we do every day, get those young guys prepared so you can give them a chance to play.”

Players like freshman cornerbacks Macen Williams and Tommi Hill, as well as redshirt sophomore nickel back Jordan Clark and redshirt freshman safety T Lee, are examples of players that Henderson has developed and helped grow across the duration of the 2021 season. They are the young standouts among the crop that have kept the unit going when the veterans are nursing injuries or need plays off.

“The primary goal of a secondary coach, or any coach for that matter, is to develop players,” Henderson stated. “You have the starters, but to become a good player, you have to develop them, and you have to give them chances to get in there. You have to have confidence in them because that’s what breeds good players. I truly believe that.”

“I always thought a good coach is a guy that develops a player, taking him from a B to an A. You take a C and make him a B. You take a D and make him a B, not a C. It’s all about developing players.”

Two players in particular who have stepped up to the plate over the past three weeks under Henderson’s watchful eye are the Markham twins. Junior safety Kejuan and redshirt sophomore cornerback Keon have each recorded an interception over the past two weeks. Keon’s came first, a deflected pass from Stanford redshirt freshman quarterback Tanner McKee which he grabbed before stepping out of bounds. Kejuan’s was much more spectacular, a leaping grab over a receiver just before halftime in Salt Lake City.

With senior safety Evan Fields nursing an injury and having a down year compared to 2020, Kejuan was called upon to start at Utah alongside graduate student safety DeAndre Pierce.

“To be a starter and go out there on kickoff and have to play the whole game, I thought he did well and communicated well,” Henderson said of Kejuan. “When you’re unsure, sometimes you don’t communicate well; that’s with most positions. He’s developed a confidence within himself – the biggest thing he did in the game was to go up there and challenge receivers.”

“I’m proud of him number one, number two, if he’s going to be in this position, it’s time to pick up his game; he’s got to build more confidence. He’s got to tell himself that he’s starting. When Evan comes back, we will deal with it, but for now, it’s his turf.”

One of the unit’s strengths Henderson addressed on Wednesday was the team’s ability to take away the deep ball. There are still multiple factors to address and improve on, but overall, the 64-year-old defensive backs coach seemed pleased with his unit’s performance.

“Before last week, I would say we were about 85 percent (successful), but we still have some mental errors to eliminate,” he remarked. “In seven games, I think we’ve given up seven total passing touchdowns, and if you really look at it, most of them are in the red zone, so with big plays, we haven’t given up too many, but at the same time we need to buckle down and be more consistent.”

“We want to focus on eliminating the deep ball, for sure. You don’t want the ball to go over your head.”

The straw that broke the camel’s back for the Sun Devils was their second-half collapse against Utah, in which sophomore Utah quarterback Cameron Rising picked apart the Sun Devil pass coverage in a fluidity that resembles a slow, painful death by 1,000 cuts, or death by short routes under the secondary.

Arizona State seldom gets beat over the top, but its issue is being beaten below or over the middle.

“I think what happens is as the game gets going, a lot of guys start out in press and as soon as they get beat on one play, what they tend to do is start backing up,” Henderson described. “That’s to gain that confidence back, so some of those (gains under the coverage) really happened after we might have gotten beat.”

“The first thing kids do nowadays is they back up because they don’t want to give up the big fly. So now they’re going to get challenged in the underneath routes. When they get confidence, they’ll start challenging a little more.”

Overall, the most significant thing Henderson and the Arizona State defense need to take away from the second-half collapse against Utah is working against dual-tight end sets. 111 out of 247 yards through the air against Arizona State on Saturday night were yielded to tight ends, including a pair of touchdowns to junior tight end Brant Kuithe.

Henderson explained that ASU’s weaknesses against two tight ends aren’t just a problem for the Sun Devils themselves, rather a much broader issue across football as a whole. Nonetheless, it’s an area that Arizona State must address if they are to improve and negate the passing attack going forward.

“I’m doing a study right now on two-tight end sets, and they present a problem all across the country, in the NFL too,” Henderson concluded. “If you have two tight ends that you can move around and develop mismatches with athleticism and size, you’re hoping for that pass rush to come along, to be honest with you.”

“We are going to see more of it because people have seen that one way to get us to open ourselves up is to come with two tight ends. We have to adjust to that going down the road.”

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