Much has been said leading up to the 2021 season about the vast level of proven experience on this Sun Devil defense, and two of the players who emulate this the most have been named to their respective national awards lists.

Following his preseason watch list placement for the Bednarik Award for the nation's top defensive player, senior cornerback Chase Lucas earned a spot on the Jim Thorpe Award preseason watch list for the nation's top defensive back. His teammate and junior linebacker Merlin Robertson got a nod to the Butkus Award preseason watch list for the nation's best linebacker.

Lucas, a rare sixth-year senior, was a standout four-star running back prospect locally at Chandler High School. Yet, despite never playing cornerback at that level in 2017 as a redshirt freshman, he earned Pac-12 Second Team honors at defensive back and was the only freshman to be named to either the Pac-12 First or Second teams that season. In 2020 he received First Team All-Pac 12 honors as he was the highest graded cornerback in the Pac-12 in coverage last season with a Pro Football Focus grade of 84.7, which was also good, the 16th-highest graded corner in the nation. The senior allowed just 109 yards in coverage, seventh fewest in the Pac-12, while his 7.8 yards allowed per catch were third in the league. He only allowed five first downs, fourth fewest in the league, and forced five incompletions - good for third in the league. Lucas allowed just one play over 15 yards, good for second-lowest in the league, and was targeted just 22 times on the season despite playing over 90 percent of the team's defensive snaps, allowing just 14 catches.

Robertson began his Tempe tenure in impressive fashion as the Pac-12’s Freshman Defensive Player of the Year in 2018. That season he paced ASU in tackles (77), and tackles for loss (8.5), and sacks (5.0). He became the first freshman to lead the team in tackles since Jason Shivers in 2001, as well as the first freshman to lead the team in tackles for loss and sacks since Junior Onyeali did so in 2010. On a national level, he led all FBS freshmen (true or redshirt) with 35 defensives "stops" in 2018 and was tops all Pac-12 freshmen (true or redshirt) with 27 total QB pressures – second most among all freshmen in a Power Five conference. Robertson played 749 snaps as a true freshman, despite missing the Las Vegas bowl game that year and half a game versus Oregon, and that number of snaps registered as the eighth highest total among true freshmen in Power Five conference nationally.

In 2020 Robertson was second on the team with 20 and had one of his best performances ever in a Sun Devil uniform in the season opener versus USC, tallying ten tackles, one tackle for loss, one fumble recovery, and an interception and was named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week. Last season he was not credited with a missed tackle and posted a negative grade on just 11.0 percent of rushing defensive plays on the year, according to Pro Football Focus. His average depth of tackle was just 2.44 yards, seventh best in the league among linebackers.