Four days before his first collegiate start, Joey Yellen rang up a familiar voice. Chad Johnson, Yellen’s former coach at Mission Viejo High School, picked up to unexpected news.

“I think there’s a chance I might play,” Johnson remembers the ASU freshman quarterback telling him.

A week and a half prior, Arizona State freshman quarterback Jayden Daniels hurt his knee after an awkward fall in a loss at UCLA. He hobbled off the field but remained in the game. Crisis seemed to be averted.

Daniels even felt good enough to take reps during the bye week. Then ...

“Then it got tighter and tighter as practice went on,” offensive coordinator Rob Likens said. “(I said), ‘You have to be honest with me.’ And it was somewhere in the middle of the week where he was like (Likens shrugged). When he did that, I kind of knew.”

As Daniels healed, Yellen garnered the entirety of the first-team quarterback reps in practice; but the health and availability of ASU’s star freshman signal-caller still loomed. The shrug sealed Daniels’ fate.

Likens walked into the quarterback's room the next morning to grant Yellen the news he’s wished to hear since he committed. News that would make most 18-year old kids animated with jubilation, that would often inspire a million texts for people to be in Tempe on Saturday.

“‘Hey dude, there’s a good chance you may be starting in the USC game.’ And he’s like, ‘OK,’” Likens said of Yellen. “It lasted about four seconds.”

The impression of his performance Saturday will last much longer in the minds of his coaches and teammates. On short notice against USC, Yellen threw the ball 44 times, completing 28 passes for 292, four touchdowns and two interceptions.

Though it came in a 31-26 loss, it would be foolish to walk away from Saturday’s game not impressed with Yellen’s talent and poise -- especially given the circumstances surrounding his collegiate debut.

Behind a youth-laden offensive line, he, aside from one sack on the offense’s third play, avoided punishment from a large USC front. For the most part, he checked down when needed, quick to find a man in the flats. And on his deep-balls, maybe he didn’t complete the pass every time but his receivers nearly always had a chance.

He led the Sun Devils back from a 28-7 first-quarter deficit, coming within 37 yards of pulling off what would have been one heck of a comeback. After Likens decided against spiking the ball because of ASU’s fast calls, Yellen threw an interception to defensive lineman Christian Rector. Game over.

“Well I thought he did a great job,” ASU coach Herm Edwards said. “Four touchdown passes, it’s the first time he’s ever played a college game and to do that. I give him a lot of credit.”

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As the words filed out of Yellen’s mouth, Johnson listed on the other end with one part shock and a million parts elation. He keeps up with Yellen, but not with ASU football enough to know that Daniels may have been injured. Like a good coach, though, he had a pep talk ready.

“I was just like, ‘Oh my god, dude. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for. This is why you prepare,’” Johnson said he told Yellen.

“(I said), ‘Dude, I’m telling you right now, you cannot watch enough film from now until Saturday. I said, ‘Don’t do one homework assignment, just watch film. School can take a rest for right now.’”

How do you prepare in that situation? For USC … on short notice … with no collegiate experience?

Johnson thought back to the spring of 2018. Josh Rosen, whom Johnson coached at St. John Bosco, had just been drafted by the Arizona Cardinals. The former UCLA quarterback flew to Scottsdale for the introductory press conference then back to Southern California the Sunday after the draft.

With the Cardinals’ playbook in hand, Rosen met with Johnson at Mission Viejo’s football offices to start looking through it, to start studying his reads, progressions, everything. Johnson invited Yellen, he wanted him to watch and understand how an NFL quarterback prepares. Well, he also had a job.

“He was kind of the flashcard bitch,” Johnson joked. “He ended up making 500 flashcards … of plays, of reads. We went through the whole playbook.”

In Yellen’s case this week, Johnson thought, there was no time to waste.

“I said, ‘Let’s go, baby,” he said.

For the next hour, Yellen and Johnson stayed on the phone -- the coach quizzing the player like he had so many times before, the implications of this study session holding just a bit more weight.

Johnson watches a handful of college football games every week. In keeping up with former players and schools recruiting his current players, he’s gained a pretty deep knowledge of the schemes and personnel of most of the Pac-12.

“We went through a bunch of stuff just football-wise,” Johnson recalled. “What does USC do defensively? Who are your matchups versus man (defense)? You know they’re going to play man, that’s what USC does. What corners are you going to attack? What corner does what better?”

Like Johnson and Rosen did a year and a half ago, Johnson and Yellen went through it all, the high school coach pulling from his mental flashcards to prepare his former quarterback for his toughest task on a football field.

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As Yellen broke the news of his start, the only thing Johnson found odd was that there wasn’t a tip ahead of time. After all, the pair had just hung out the past weekend. But even then, Yellen didn’t give an inkling of advanced notice.

During the Sun Devils’ bye week, Yellen traveled back to San Bernardino to be with his family. Last Wednesday would have been Cody Yellen’s 27th birthday. Cody, Joey’s older brother, tragically passed away on August 8 of this year -- just as Yellen and the Sun Devils were at Camp Tontozona.

The Yellens, Johnson said, held a vigil last week. They went to see Cody’s gravesite. They grieved. They remembered.

And, during the week, Yellen, of course, met with Johnson. Before Yellen attended Mission Viejo’s game against Tesoro, he and Johnson hung out. They had lunch. They talked.

But at no point did starting against USC come up. At the time, Johnson didn’t think it was a possibility -- not as long as Daniels, a four-star quarterback who committed to ASU after Yellen, was healthy.

When the Sun Devils signed their trio of quarterbacks -- Daniels, Yellen and Ethan Long -- in December, no secret was made about the quarterback competition. And from the moment he committed, Daniels was the frontrunner.

“(Joey was) definitely was bummed out when Jayden started winning the job,” Johnson said. “In fall camp, he already felt like he was (behind). Then when the tragedy happened with his family, that was really, really hard for him.”

And because Daniels was starting as a freshman, when the season began, no reps went to Yellen. None. Nada. Zilch. The way the coaches saw it, in their attempt to rapidly acclimate a freshman quarterback into college football, Daniels needed all the reps he could get.

Perhaps that makes what Yellen did on Saturday that much more impressive.

“I’ve never had that happen to me before in my 30 years of coaching, to see a kid who hadn’t taken a rep because the guy in front of him is a true freshman,” Likens said. “So he gets nothing. It’s unbelievable, guys. It’s amazing.”

For a second over the phone, Johnson stumbled over his words as he tried to put together a thought. And he’s not a guy often at a loss for words.

Yellen stuck with ASU after two quarterbacks signed with him. He kept a good attitude battling in a competition he always seemed to be trailing in. He prepared like the starter even though he wasn’t. And he did it all in the wake of Cody’s tragic passing.

For Yellen, for Johnson -- Saturday was special.

“It’s almost hard to put into words,” Johnson said. “I was just really, really happy.”

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