As much as the Arizona State offensive numbers in 2020, even in a small sample size, were greatly impressive, it’s no secret that the passing game’s contributions were limited. ASU’s wide receivers coach Prentice Gill evaluates his unit’s production last season and his expectations for a year that should manifest the group’s full abilities.

Devils Digest: How hard is it for you to evaluate your position group following such a short season? You hear a lot of people saying that in their mind, 2020 is a wash and that you have to look forward to 2021, but do you find yourself treating last season and the conclusions you draw from it as if it was a regular, 12-game, or more season?

Prentice Gill: “I evaluated my guys, but I didn’t necessarily evaluate them from a sense of it’s a 12-game season, and if I don’t think they can do it, then they can’t. I’m more just evaluating them from a stance of what they were good at, what they’re not good at, and then how I’m going to use them going forward. That helps me recruit, and I know what I don’t have in the room, and I know what I have to go and recruit.”

Devils Digest: In other words, even though it’s a somewhat minimal sample size, you feel having four games; you can see that you are what you are; you don’t need another two or three games to figure out what really the situation is?

PG: “Exactly. Just evaluate them to see ‘This is what he is. This is what he’s really good at, or wow, I didn’t know he could do that.’ Then I’ll know what else we need to add to the group to make it a complete group.”

Devils Digest: As offensive coordinator Zak Hill is trying to implement a new offensive system, did you feel that back in spring practice as well as preseason practices that the normal growing pains of learning a new system were already there or did you feel that the group had a pretty good grasp on the new system?

PG: “I thought that by the time we got to maybe the second game (of the season), we had a really good grasp on it. I thought the first game we knew it – and I’m only speaking for my group obviously – but we had never run it in a game, and that’s always a little different. I think during the second game, we felt much better about it, and I felt like we got better and better as the weeks went on.”

Devils Digest: How would you describe the challenges that this new system presented for the wide receivers group? What did these wide receivers need to hone on to be effective in this Zak Hill system?

PG: “I think the only challenges really were that we had a couple of games where we really didn’t throw the ball a lot, and that’s always frustrating for wideouts. I try not to let wideouts get caught up in that. I try to make them concentrate on why we aren’t throwing the ball. I think it was no secret that we struggled in our passing game this season, so I just tried to challenge them, saying, ‘hey, you want to throw the ball? Make Zak throw the ball.’

“We have to do our part to make him throw the ball. Jayden (Daniels) has to do his part. Everybody has to do their part, and so I would say that might have been the only struggle they had, but besides that, I felt like they felt pretty good about the system and they are starting to get a better feel on how each play complements each other.”

Devils Digest: I know that you said starting with the second game of the season (versus UCLA) that this wide receiver group was getting a better grasp of the system and really knew what they were doing. Yet, when you have a game like Arizona where their defense can line up with eight players in the box, and you still able to run it down their throat time after time is that kind of a weird situation where you’re almost taken out of your game plan of a balanced offense in a good way? Obviously as a member of the coaching staff you want to win and don’t care how you come away with the victory, but this is still a peculiar situation for your position group…

PG: “It’s always a good thing when you can just put the ball on the ground and move it. The thing is, in that U of A game, I thought it was a day where we could’ve done anything. We could’ve run it for 70 points, and then the pass we threw to Curtis (Hodges), he was wide open. So it was one of those deals where we could’ve done anything, but I think we got off to a really good start on the run game, and Zak just did a good job of sticking to it.

“At that time, we were 0-2, and you didn’t really want to flirt with experimenting. You just wanted to stick with what was working and get a win. I think that was the thought of that game, ‘hey, let’s get a win by any means. We don’t care how it comes, we just want to win the game and build confidence because we know we’re a good football team, but we need a win to prove that to ourselves and everybody that we are a good football team so that we can move forward.’ Then I think you saw that confidence roll over into the Oregon State game.”

Devils Digest: I want to talk individually about the wide receivers. Let’s start with LV Bunkley-Shelton. As a true freshman, he naturally had to go through the learning curve, but how would you assess his performance in 2020?

PG: “Honestly, I thought he was the most consistent guy. LV is the only wide receiver that I think didn’t play a bad football game. Obviously, he made the mistake in the USC game and he fumbled, but he was the most consistent guy, in my opinion. In that USC game, he caught every ball that was thrown to him, and he did the same against UCLA. He got open consistently. A guy didn’t cover him (effectively) really all season, so I thought he was the most consistent guy.”

Devils Digest: In terms of a downfield threat sophomore Geordon Porter proved that he has those capabilities. He’s a little bit of an older guy in comparison to some of his teammates so perhaps the expectations were higher of him, but what did you think of his season?

PG: “GP showed me a lot. Especially mentally because he’s an older guy, and coming in, he’s battling with a freshman, and he’s waited his turn. Those things can be frustrating, and I know that he got frustrated during the season, but to be honest with you, GP is probably the most mentally strong kid in my room, and I thought every time he got his opportunities, he did a really good job. He came in during the UCLA game in the second half and caught two or three really big balls, and obviously, none of the guys really touched the ball in the Arizona game. In the Oregon State game, he showed what he could do if we can get him in certain situations matched up on certain guys. That guy can fly, so me and him had a long talk about a week ago about his role and that increasing with the different things we’re going to do with him. I think he’s in a better mental space now, but he’s a very, very mentally tough and competitive kid, and I’ve got a lot of respect for GP.”

Devils Digest: I know that you figured between the USC and UCLA game, you had a lot of rust to knock off with it being that it was almost four weeks taking the field between both games. Yet, I thought that a freshman like Johnny Wilson, who struggled against USC, literally looked like a different receiver against UCLA…

PG: “For sure. It was a different player, and I think Johnny was kind of like this in (Fall) camp – his first day wasn’t that great; his second day was better, his third…and then all of a sudden, he got to his fourth day, and it was like ‘OK, there’s Johnny. That’s the guy we recruited,’ and so I think he’s going to be like that in his career. He’s going to be a guy that keeps getting better the more and more he sees things. He’s a very cerebral kid as far as being very much a reps learner. The more reps he gets, the more he learns it, and the thing with Johnny is once he learns it, he doesn’t make the same mistake twice. So, I think by him constantly getting reps; he’s going to keep getting better and better and better. Now, it’s just my job to make sure he’s not complacent.”

Devils Digest: With all the depth you have at receiver, it might have been hard for a guy like freshman Chad Johnson Jr. to find the field, but what are some of the elements of his game that you’ve seen him improve on and what’s his potential?

PG: “Chad will find the field. He definitely will. That dude has been working really, really hard. I think he’s probably shown the most growth since I’ve been here, him and Andre (Johnson). His body control and his feet are similar to – and I’m not comparing – but he’s similar to his pops (All-pro Chad Johnson). His body control is really, really good. He has really light feet, and he’s very creative in his route running when he gets comfortable and when he starts understanding where he’s supposed to be and knowing the system. Even now, he’s night and day better than he was when he first got here. With the weight room work he’ll do with coach Joe (strength coach Joe Connolly) and the great job he does, I got a really good feel about Chad.”

Devils Digest: You mentioned redshirt freshman Andre Johnson. He’s another young guy trying to find his niche, but I thought that Andre was a guy who truly showed some flashes here and there…

PG: “Definitely. I tell the guys, and we always laugh about it, but he’s Dre. He doesn’t look the part, he doesn’t say a lot, but he’s Dre. The dude works really, really hard, and he keeps on getting better. It was good to see him, even though they called it back, catch that touchdown against UCLA because then you finally saw his competitive nature come out as far as a little bit of the trash talking, and he started walking a little bit differently. It was good to see that side of him and I’m excited about him. Dre is a kid that obviously wasn’t a highly-rated kid and didn’t have a lot going on recruiting wise, but I think we made a big turn with him from spring all the way through the season.”

Devils Digest: When you look at sophomore Ricky Pearsall, it’s almost like a carbon copy of Andre. A local guy who wasn’t getting much recruiting attention from Power 5 programs aside from Arizona State took a step forward in 2020. I know you were not on staff in 2019, but I thought he had built on some positives he has shown back then…

PG: “The thing is – and I can only speak since I got here – Ricky is who he is. Ricky is a very competitive kid, and he’s very, very smart. And he’s going to give it his all, all of the time. As long as his confidence is high, Ricky is going to be a sleeper because he’s the receiver that some people don’t think has a lot going for him. But, Ricky, he takes pride in that. That’s what I love about him.

“He takes pride in not necessarily looking like the traditional receiver but being better than all the traditional receivers. That’s what I love about him. He’s very competitive, and he’s transparent about that. We talk, we have a very transparent language in our (wide receiver) room. That dude works really hard, and I think he and LV really push each other (at the H slot receiver). This year, hopefully, we try to get both of them on the field at the same time (by moving Bunkley-Shelton to the X receiver) is the goal because I don’t feel good when I have Ricky sitting next to me, and I don’t feel good when I have LV sitting next to me. So, that’s the goal that me and coach Hill are talking about and trying to figure out.”

Devils Digest: When you talk about sleepers, it’s really easy to forget about a guy like freshman Elijah Badger because he redshirted, but he has created a lot of buzz in Fall camp and even during in-season practices. What can fans expect from Elijah Badger once he does sees the field in 2021?

PG: “I don’t know what fans should expect, but Elijah knows what I expect, and we’ve had conversations about that. Me and him have had a lot of talks, and I tell him, ‘if you’re not a special one in this room, I’m going to be very, very disappointed.’ And that’s going to come down to him. I think he’s very special, and he’s wired differently in his mentality. Me and him have had those talks, and you can expect all you want, but at the end of the day, you’ve gotta put the work in.”

Devils Digest: How would you describe his skills? What do you think the best role on the field is for him?

PG: “He has a very natural ability to sink. He’s not a good route runner yet, but he will be because he has a very good natural ability to sink. He has unbelievable ball skills. Unbelievable. He has great body control, and he’s only 6’1”, but the kid is long. His length is probably like a 6’3”, 6’4” kid, and he’s very wiry strong. He’s really, really good after the catch. To me, he has to improve his route running, he’s gotta improve his football IQ, but naturally, after the catch, he’s very talented. He has great ball skills, and he’s just wired in a way that when the lights get bright, I don’t think Elijah is gonna have an issue with anything.”

Devils Digest: I know you still have to wait a few more months until you can have him on campus, but I can only imagine that you’re pretty excited to get a four-star prospect and an incoming freshman Junior Alexander in the fold...

PG: “Yeah, super excited. He’s the glue, in my opinion, of the receiving core because he can kind of fill in different spots that we’re lacking at. Junior is one of those kids who’s good at everything. There’s not a part of his game that he lacks. He’s good off the press; he’s a good route runner, he has great ball skills, he can track the ball down the field. He’s a quarterback’s guy, and quarterbacks are going to love him. He’s a very smart kid, and so I tried to go out and get a guy I felt can bring balance in the room. He can play outside, he can play inside, and he wants to be here. I think that’s another thing that’s undervalued in college football with recruiting is that you’re so busy going after players that you forget that the player has to want to be here to be his best self. And Junior truly wants to be at Arizona State, he doesn’t want to be anywhere else in the country, and that’s a big thing.”

Devils Digest: I know that when I talked to Zak Hill after the season ended, he said that you try not to put too much on a player’s plate, especially when it’s the first year of a new system, but sometimes you’re guilty of doing that even if you didn’t intend to. Do you feel that in 2021, in terms of the complexity of the passing game that your group as a whole is able to take that next step, and you don’t have to worry about giving them too much information to handle?

PG: “For sure. I think all of the kids, in general, will be able to handle more, and I think that coach Hill probably has a better understanding now of who we are and what we’re good at. Not to make an excuse, but (in 2020) it’s kind of like calling plays blind. This year coach Hill knows what works with these players. He knows what he likes, he knows what worked at Boise (State), but the personnel drives everything. That’s the thing. Personnel drives plays; it’s not necessarily the actual plays; it’s the players behind it.

“The play-caller has a feel for it and has his guys, but just like the kids, I’m super excited to work with Zak because I thought he was really, really good obviously in the four games, and he was calling it blind a little bit. Now, he will be able to implement other things that he thinks fits our guys, and he’ll be able to call it a lot freer and a lot faster, and you’ll see the results of that.”

Devils Digest: I know it’s really easy to lose sight of the work that wide receivers do in run blocking, but when you see all the numbers ASU put up in their rushing attack, you clearly have to feel really proud about what your wide receivers did in terms of run blocking…

PG: “That’s the thing that I was probably the proudest of in the short season. After every single game, I had a coach come up to me from the other side and say, ‘your guys get after it on the perimeter.’ That’s a big compliment to a coach because wide receivers don’t want to block, so that’s just what it is. I try to do a really good job of developing a relationship with my guys and get them to see the importance of things that I deem as important and trying to get them to buy-in. The fact that they did what they did on the perimeter showed that they bought in. As long as the buy-in is there, we’re going to be a really, really good group.”

Devils Digest: I have to address the elephant in the room, and that is the fact that you were pursued by USC. It’s easy to tell that you’re very happy at ASU; obviously, that’s why you’re still here, but at the same time, it must have been a hard decision as much as it was also a compliment to you when USC is coming hard after you like they did?

PG: “It’s a surreal deal for me obviously because I’m an LA kid, and a lot of people don’t know that my dad has worked at SC for over 30 years. My mom lives three minutes from the school. So, obviously, that’s a situation where it’s very ideal for me, and a lot of those guys up there are ones I still started with (when Gill was on staff at USC). In my first year coaching on the Division I level, I got hired by Clay Helton when he was a quarterback coach.

“So, it was a tough deal going through it. Emotions are everywhere, right? Those guys up there feel like family, I have guys on this (ASU) staff that feel like family, and that’s the business of it. That’s the part that I’m learning is trying to separate the business from emotions, and that’s something that coach Edwards talked to me a lot about. I love it here, and the guys in the room I feel like they need me.

"We have a really good deal, and there were a lot of things to walk away from, but I told the guys ‘I’m in, clearly. I walked away from this thing. I’m in, and now you have to show me how much you’re in,’ and now there are no excuses on both parts. Obviously, it’s a good thing to be wanted, but you’ve gotta make the right decision for you, and I felt like I did that. I felt like I made the best decision for myself at the moment, and I have to move on now.”

Devils Digest: The makeup of this ASU staff is really intriguing to me. There’s so much youth, as well as so much experience on the other side, to balance it, and it’s impossible to ignore the elite recruiting skills of the staff as a whole. As a member of the staff, which now has all the pieces in place, what kind of vibe do you get every day at work?

PG: “This staff is different. You’re right about that. It’s different than when I was at SC. It’s different than when I was in Oregon. And it is what you said; you’ve got young guys like me, (tight ends coach) Adam (Breneman), Hawk (defensive backs coach Chris Hawkins) on the staff, and then you’ve got Herm and Marvin, dudes that are constantly making fun of us for being younger – and they have energy, though. That’s the thing; a lot of people would be like, ‘there’s older coaches, and these younger coaches and the younger coaches have energy.’ Our older coaches have energy, and then we’ve got middle coaches like AP (defensive coordinator Antonio Pierce), and (linebacker coach Chris) Claiborne and Rob (defensive line coach Robert Rodriguez), and they have energy.

"The good thing, and I think the reason why it meshes, is there’s nobody on this group that doesn’t have energy. I think that’s a really cool deal, and it’s very, very different. Having Zak (Hill) from Washington, and (Shaun) Aguano is from Hawai’i, and I’m from LA and Hawk is from California; we have other California guys. And then you’ve got vets and legends like Herm and Marvin. It’s a very different deal than anybody. Everybody’s from different places, but it’s fun. It’s fun in the office. I tell people all the time I haven’t really had a bad day at work since I’ve been here.”

Devils Digest: Everyone is pointing at 2021 as being that special season for the program. Like you said earlier, there are really no more excuses. Everything is in place for this team to have success, but when you examine the wide receiver group in specific, why do you feel 2021 should be so different for this unit than 2020 was?

PG: “Obviously a 12-game season makes it a lot different, but I think just the biggest thing is experience. Our defense is very experienced. I think that people know that. I think that our defense played well in every single game. Even in the games that they gave up points, they caused turnovers, so that’s the biggest thing. And I think that we can run the football, and when you can play defense, and you can run the football and your team has all that experience, you have a shot at winning games. That’s how I’ve lived in this conference, and I’ve been on two teams that have won the Pac-12 (Oregon and USC). Both times we were able to play defense, and we were able to run the football. If you can do that, everything else will tie in itself.

“Another thing, I tell people this all the time ‘you can look at the last 10 years of this conference. No team has won this conference without having a good quarterback.’ And in my opinion, we can play defense, we can run the ball, and we’ve got a special guy at quarterback. So, to me, we check off the three boxes that I’ve experienced in this conference as far as winning it. Now that we have those three things now we have to go put in the work to do it.”

Devils Digest: When spring practice concludes what do you want to see from the wide receiver’s that’s going to make you feel good about their development?

PG: “I wanted to see them keep gaining confidence. The biggest thing is that I want to see them compete. All the other things we need to work on, I will take care of that. I’ll make you we’ll get the individual drills to work on specific things, I’ll make sure that we are harping on it. But I want to see the confidence and the competitiveness of the group lift up. This group has talent everywhere, so if we have confidence and we are competing, I don’t know any group in the conference that is better than us. I’ll stand by that.”

(Gabe Swartz contributed to this article)

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