For the last couple spring practices, Arizona State defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales had been reminding his unit that they still haven’t picked off freshman quarterback Jayden Daniels.
It took until the last play of Thursday’s Spring Game.
Daniels fired a wide back-shoulder fade to redshirt freshman Geordon Porter along the edge of the sideline, allowing cornerback Kobe Williams to adjust and contort his body enough to haul in a one-handed interception.
“He did his thing,” ASU cornerback Chase Lucas said. “We were really practicing the back-shoulder and I think he read it perfectly and just looked back and caught it with one hand. And he’s little so I don’t know how he got all the way up there and caught it.”
It was the perfect way to end spring for ASU cornerbacks.
Williams and Lucas boast three years of starting experience but still have much to prove. In year one, under then-head coach Todd Graham, the duo was thrown into the fire amidst low depth at the position.
Last year, they had flashes but were anything from a lock-down combination. Granted ASU shifted to a new 3-3-5 defensive scheme that added more zone looks and confused most, Williams was solid but Lucas’ struggles prolonged throughout the season.
This year is their chance to put it all together. The experience is there. Their scheme is set. They now expect to be elite.
“We’re locked and ready to go,” Lucas said. “And I think we want another scrimmage tomorrow but they aren’t having it.”
Both missed a fraction of time over the course of ASU’s 15 spring practices because of family deaths, which even forced Lucas to work his way up the depth chart because of his first-week absence.
But when Williams and Lucas attended practice, it was clear. There they were on the sidelines, making sure everyone that walks off the field hears a “Nice Play,” or a, “Hey next time you see that, you should do this instead.” They’ve stepped up to the plate as veterans, leaders of a young defense.
“The main thing I’ve been working on is trying to be a leader, a vocal leader, and everything,” Williams said. “Just trying to take over the defense and be that guy that always bring up stuff. (Sports performance) coach Joe (Connolly) be on me just to point out stuff when I see it and all that- I’m not used to being that leader.
“I’ve always been to myself and just worked out hard, and just try to outwork the next person. But now I’ve just got to focus on everybody around me and just bring them up with me.”
The other part of their leadership qualities that Williams and Lucas have tried to exhaust is using their resources. Unlike most guys in a spring-practice setting, the duo is walking up to head coach Herm Edwards or cornerbacks coach Tony White and throwing questions off of them about coverages, footwork, hand placement and some of the more technical parts of the position.
Edwards tries to teach them what technique to use but then ever so often, Lucas will switch it up and do what he thinks will work better. Edwards usually notices, yelling out, “Hey 2-4,” to call the youngster over. Thus, a dialogue is born.
“We try to mix-and-match ideas and see what’s the best technique for me,” Lucas said. “He asks me, ‘What do you see on the field?’ and I tell him how I feel and all of the things that I see and we go from there.”
An example: During Thursday’s maroon and gold scrimmage, ASU’s defense was in a zone look and Lucas tried to jump a route that he thought was coming. Only it never came. Lucas instantly looked back to a grinning Edwards standing down the field and realized, “I messed up.”
Again, Edwards was right. And, again, Lucas was able to learn something.
Two years ago, after playing running back in high school, the Chandler native learned how to play cornerback. Last year he learned about the 3-3-5 scheme Gonzales brought over from San Diego State. Now the redshirt junior has to perfect it.
“Anything you have time to do is going to be to perfection,” Lucas said. “The main thing we’re really starting to figure out about (the 3-3-5) is that if we run to the ball, big things happen. And if you read your keys and do the things coaches told you to do, like I said, the sky’s the limit.”
Lucas is a confident guy. He likes to talk trash to quarterbacks, receivers, whoever’s willing to listen, really. This season, though, it seems like he knows he needs to back it up.
“I just want to be the best,” Lucas said. “And with me under Herm’s wing, it’s going to get really, really fun this next year.”
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