Jamar Cain had a dilemma. The Fresno State defensive line coach had just learned, from his former boss and current ASU offensive line coach Dave Christensen, that the Sun Devils had some movement on their staff.

“Would you be interested?” Christensen asked.

“Yeah, for sure,” a delighted Cain responded.

So Christensen told Cain to get in touch with Arizona State defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales to discuss the job, but then the defensive line coach ran into his problem. “I didn’t know anybody that knew Danny,” he said. “So I was like, ‘Alright, we’ll see what happens.’”

A little while later, Cain’s phone rang. He looked down and noticed the New Mexico area code, quickly answering it thinking it was likely just an old college buddy calling (Cain went to New Mexico State.)

Instead, it was Gonzales, who coached at New Mexico until 2008, offering Cain the job. That call came on a Tuesday, the new Sun Devil defensive line coach was in Tempe on a Friday and proceeded to hit the recruiting trail immediately.

Since then, his days have been hectic.

Staying at Christensen’s house in Peoria, Cain gets up at 5 am to arrive in Tempe by 6, diving straight into the complex 3-3-5 defensive playbook. Then he’s out on the practice fields and heads right back to the playbook.

Oh, and he’s trying to find a house.

“There’s text messages with my realtor who’s like, ‘Hey, these houses came on the market,’ and I’m like, ‘Alright, I don’t have time to look at it, you look at it and tell me if it’s good or not.’” Then I try and talk to my wife. The last three days have been crazy.”

The notion of getting a realtor may seem like one to pass over but it represents the larger picture of Cain’s hiring. He is Arizona State’s fifth defensive line coach in the last five years, signaling more turnover for guys like redshirt senior defensive end George Lea.

When Cain sat down with the returning defensive linemen, Lea wanted to make sure that the younger D-linemen wouldn’t have to go through the same thing he did.

“I wanted to make sure that he was here for everybody else who is coming in and everybody who signed here,” Lea said.

Cain’s response: “I told those guys, ‘Hey guys, I’ve moved so much that for me, I’m a West Coast guy, like I keep saying, we’re going to be here for a while.’”

So far, though, just two practices into his Arizona State tenure, Cain, who replaced defensive line coach Shaun Nua after he left for the same job at Michigan, hasn’t exactly been able to get after his guys the way he wants to.

After Darius Slade and Jalen Bates announced they were transferring last week, just five scholarship defensive linemen remain on the roster. During practices, one has to play on the first-team and second-team line because the depth is so limited.

“It’s very tiring but the people who didn’t want to be here decided to leave,” Lea said. “We can’t fault them for leaving, it just is what it is.”

Cain understands, that for now, he and the linemen will simply have to make do with their limited numbers, even if it’s tiring. After the first day of practice junior lineman Shannon Forman finished practice, went to class then came home and just “laid there.”

“You just don’t know how it felt to be out there,” Forman said. “Coach Cain kind of talked to me today about it and said, ‘You’ve got to be ready.”

All the defensive linemen have nothing but good things to say about Cain, who sophomore defensive lineman Jermayne Lole says reminds him of Nua. They’ve even been tasked with helping their coach through the playbook.

Gonzales’ 3-3-5 scheme is complex to say the least. While at Fresno State, Cain had an outsider’s glimpse at the set each year when the Bulldogs played. But even then he still wasn’t exactly sure what was happening in the movement- and disguise-heavy 3-3-5 look.

“Terminology is so different than anything I’ve ever done before. I’m trying to concept it and make, OK, this is like that but it’s really not that,” Cain said. “So that’s been the most difficult challenge for me right now, and trying to buy a house at the same time.”

As Lea put it: “He teaching us and we’re teaching him.”

Cain is just trying to get through this transition period with an eye towards the fall, when the Devils’ will get freshman defensive ends Stephon Wright and Amiri Johnson, who Cain recruited heavily while at Fresno State. ASU’s new defensive coach grins thinking about finally being able to get after his group with more guys.

“Fall camp will be a lot different because we’ll have more bodies,” Cain said