Any time a new head coach is hired, a roster churn is expected, especially when the transfer portal allows a team to add veteran players in large quantities in a short period. ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham certainly utilized that avenue when he welcomed nearly 30 transfers. And out of the 118 players (including walk-ons) on the fall camp roster, only 35 are returning players.
Therefore, for the majority of players on the squad, the August 31 season opener against Southern Utah will be the first time they will run on game day through the Pat Tillman tunnel, touch the statue of this iconic Sun Devil figure, and proceed to the Frank Kush Field at Mountain America Stadium. To say that this group is eagerly anticipating that contest would be an understatement.
“It’ll be an experience,” Washington State transfer linebacker Travion Brown said. “It’ll be an honor definitely to touch the (Tillman) statue and be able to take that field; it’s a blessing. I am definitely looking forward to that.”
“I am very excited,” Austin Peay transfer safety Shamari Simmons commented. “I have been dreaming of being at a collegiate Power Five team for all my life, so that first walkout, I am just going to take it in.”
“I am beyond ready,” Michigan State transfer defensive tackle Dashaun Mallory remarked. “I am beyond ready just to be able to showcase to my teammates, to my coaches, and just the opportunity they gave me to come here. It’s good to play in front of Arizona State, but honestly, I just want to pay back the coaches that gave me an opportunity to come here.”
All three players are not just slated to play their first game donning the maroon and gold but are projected to be significant contributors to the defense throughout the season. Mallory has quickly become one of the anchors of the Sun Devil defense and one of the team’s most important veterans, filling an area of need on this side of the ball.
“He’s a coach on the field and off the field,” defensive line coach Vince Amey said of Mallory. “He has been a blessing for me and the guys here with his veteran leadership. He’s an animal.”
At Michigan State, Mallory appeared in 40 games across his four years with the Spartans but only started in four games. Since transferring to ASU, the Bolingbrook, Ill. resident has become an entrenched starter and has been Amey’s prime example for his players to emulate every time he runs through a practice drill.
“I appreciate it a lot,” Mallory said about the leadership role he has taken. “I have always looked forward to it my whole career. I have always wanted to be a leader, and I have always thought I was capable of being a leader. Now that my opportunity is here, I can’t help but be grateful.
“It has been awesome coming out here and being able to tell the guys what I see in my head and the base knowledge that I feel I have. There are times when I mess up, so the ability to be open about my mistakes, too, I feel like, as a leader, that is important because you don’t always wanna seem right. You don’t always wanna seem like the guy doing everything right.”
With a great deal of new players and a nearly entire first-year staff in Tempe, it may be easy to assume that it would be difficult for those individuals to quickly gel in just one offseason. Additionally, defensive coordinator Brian Ward’s scheme for ASU is a complex system featuring various pre-snap reads and movements. At the center of all that chaos is the linebacker group, but Travion Brown feels like, since the spring, he and his position room have made enormous strides.
“A lot of the guys are understanding football and fitting into the scheme a lot faster,” Brown described. “They were able to pick up on it in the scheme, and now it has become second nature. A lot of the guys are playing fast in the linebacker room, and we have guys making plays now because they understand the defense, where the leverage is, or where they can be. It is coming all together.”
On the back end of the defense, the safety group enters the season with some question marks due to the still unknown eligibility picture of Xavion Alford, as well as an injury to freshman Montana Warren, who is only expected to return in mid-October. However, despite those expected absences, Shamari Simmons and fellow safety Chris Edmonds are a competent duo in this role. And much like Mallory and Brown up front, Edmonds and Simmons are also part of a unit whose starters will feature a combination of returners and transfers.
“I feel like we work good as a pair because we talk more off the field than we do on the field,” Simmons said. “It just helps with communication. I know what he likes, and he knows what I like, so it just helps all together.”
And it’s not only the transfer portal additions that will feature many newcomers in Arizona State’s two-deep. Several ASU true freshmen are expected to make their presence known on both sides of the ball. Jaden Rashada was announced as the starting quarterback a few days ago, and defensive tackle CJ Fite, safety Josiah Cox, and cornerback Keith Abney II all appear on track to emerge as key pieces in the rotation for their respective positions. Dillingham is fully on board, letting more than a handful of newcomers from the high school ranks see playing time in 2023.
“I would say three to eight,” Dillingham said when asked how many true freshmen he expected to play this year. “Anywhere in there. You never know what happens with people throughout the season. I think we evaluated some really good players on the defensive side of the ball in particular. I think we found some really good DBs in the bunch.”
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