2017 was certainly a year of transition for the ASU special teams unit, but what is the outlook for the upcoming season? The Sun Devils’ special teams coach Shawn Slocum discussed those topics and more in our interview.

DevilsDigest: How do you assess the team’s special teams play in 2017?

Slocum: “Number one, I felt like our production had fallen a little bit from 2015 and ’16 as a result of losing NFL players at kicker, punter, and returner. I thought there were some young guys that stepped up and did well. I was proud of Brandon Ruiz but one of the things he and I talked about is we have to eliminate the missed field goals in the 30- and 40-yard range. If he does that, he’ll be operating at a high level. He’s got a high upside to him.

“I was dissatisfied with our punter production. I think part of that had to do with, a lot of the process of college football is a learning experience for these guys and even though Michael (Sleep-Dalton) is a little older, he still has a lot to learn in terms of American football. The injury to his quad was significant. At that time, he was punting the ball really well and I was excited. I was thinking, ‘Man, we aren’t going to fall off much there. He’s punting it really well.’

“And then he has this problem and we go two games and he has to punt left-footed and we are trying to manufacture stuff to get through it and we get to Texas Tech and I’m thinking he is ready to go and he expresses that he feels it pregame. So we end up getting a punt blocked because I’m worried about the coverage and so forth and doing something that was kind of risky with the spread formation.

“The point being that we are going to be better there, in that position which is going to help our production because we had been one of the top teams in the country punting the football for two straight years and we need to get back to that.

“I thought in the return game, we fell off losing Tim (White) a little bit. I think we’ve addressed that not only with some guys that are here but with some guys that we’ve signed. N’Keal (Harry) did a great job of filling a need. He’s not necessarily what we want as a returner but he did a great job. I thought his decision making, which I think is important in that position – early we made a couple mistakes in that area. Fortunately, with the punt return game, we decided to start blocking punts, led the country in blocked punts. We would like to take that forward this year along with being productive in the return area.

“Kickoff return, I thought one thing we did a pretty good job of was not get tackled for negative returns, we got the ball outside the 20 most of the time but there was nothing big and that is something that Tim gave us, that element, a lot previously. Kickoff coverage, one thing we’ve done, we’ve been pretty good at kickoff coverage for the last three years with the exception of about one play each year. We’ve got to get over that.

“Now when you start looking at ranking teams in terms of statistics in kickoff coverage, you look at net kickoff coverage. Well, one of the things we had done in the past is kick a lot of touchbacks. Well, one of the things Brandon can do is kick the ball really high, so could Zane (Gonzalez). To me, it’s not always in our best interest to kick it out of the end zone. If you kick the ball high and it comes down on the goal line, and they have to return it and you go tackle them inside the 20, the result of that seven or eight times in a game can make an impact on the game, so that’s one of the things we’ll look at.”

DevilsDigest: What factors affected Brandon Ruiz’s inconsistency?

Slocum: “He’s a very talented young man. He is, in my opinion, a top guy and that is why we signed him. I think he had a solid year. Statistics and numbers are the beauty and those are how you look at them, what you are looking for. One of the things that will be a goal for spring training is to become more consistent in those mid-range areas. I think he will. That’s a learning experience as well. I thought overall he stepped in and did a pretty good job with both jobs.”

DevilsDigest: What determined the height and weight of Michael Sleep-Dalton’s punts?

Slocum: It’s a combination of all of those things (the snap, the technique of a punter, etc.). The uniqueness of punting a football is you have to catch a football in motion, a snap, and it’s different than kicking a field goal because that’s stationary so you have to catch that ball. The challenge for the snapper is to get the punter the ball in a position where he doesn’t have to reset his footwork. Those things play a part.

“It’s a collection of a couple guys doing their jobs and the protection has to be right. It’s a growing experience. You can’t step behind the snapper and have too many thoughts. Swinging thoughts is what I call them, it’s kind of like a batter stepping in a batter’s box. You need to get one thing that you are trying to do and you need to react. It’s still a stimulus-response. Dropping the football is a big part of punting the football because the ball needs to match your foot. But the good thing and the positive thing about Michael is that he can kick a bunch of different punts.”

DevilsDigest: Will Kevin Macias be a walk-on punter?

Slocum: “We’ve got him and we’ve got Matthew Bazarevitsch, who is here, a young man from Los Angeles who has got a chance. We are going to have a good competitive spring with Michael and Matt and I think training camp will be the same way.”

Devils Digest: How would you evaluate the job long snapper Mitchell Fraboni’s did last year?

Slocum: “He did a great job. Number one, he was a great teammate but beyond that, he was a fairly solid snapper and excellent coverage guy. He made some really good tackles, in fact, I was watching some stuff this morning where he went down and tackled (Dante) Pettis from Washington a couple years ago and he had a great play in a bowl game a couple years ago and those things showed up. We’ll miss that. You don’t just replace that. But I think we’ve got several guys here, it’s a competition that will involve three or maybe four guys. One of the things coming out of spring training is to get a direction of where we are going but I don’t think we will get that solidified until we finish training camp.”

DevilsDigest: Does Fraboni have an NFL future?

Slocum: “I was worried about him because he stayed about 225 (pounds) and it is hard to short snap in the NFL at that weight. I would think a minimum of about 238, 240. He really looks great lately. Sometimes it takes those guys a while. When I was in Green Bay we had a young man named Brett Good who is still there. He’s pouring concrete with dad, played at Arkansas pouring concrete foundations with his father and got a chance in Jacksonville and got cut and in Green Bay, we just replaced a 38-year-old snapper in Rob Davis with a young guy from Notre Dame who blows his ACL out in game four.

“So long story short, we sign Brett the week of the opening game of the year of 2008 and he stayed there the whole time I was there, and he is still there. My point is, sometimes you don’t just get drafted as a long snapper.”

DevilsDigest: I’m sure you’re not surprised to see Zane Gonzalez and Matt Haack starting in the NFL as rookies…

Slocum: “I was fortunate to come into a program that had two guys of that talent level. In Green Bay, I was directly involved with drafting Mason Crosby and he had qualities that I really liked. When I got here and saw Zane, I saw some of the same things physically and mentally. What’s interesting about that, one of the reasons why we went out and recruited and signed Brandon (Ruiz) is because I feel the same way about him. We’ll see how his development goes but I really felt like Zane could do it at that level.

“Then all of a sudden, we’re calling a friend of mine who was a general manager in the league last year and said, ‘Hey man, you need to get Matt Haack in the combine. This guy is an NFL guy.’ They changed the rules how the guys are selected to the NFL. It’s almost like a committee that votes on it through the scouts. What I was told, Matt was like the next guy to go, but he had a pro workout here and I worked out a lot of guys in my time in the NFL to now and it’s probably the best workout I’ve ever seen in terms of the numbers. There were a bunch of guys here watching it so he gets a chance in Miami and beats the incumbent out and has a really good year.

“What’s going to happen with Matt, he is going to get better, he is not even there yet. Wait two or three years from now, I see him having the same kind of leg as Shane Lechler who I had at (Texas) A&M. Where the kickers and the punters make their money, is in the NFL season when you get to November and the weather starts to turn bad and you have all these northern climates the games are played in and playoffs usually go through the north, those guys make their money then because when the weather gets bad they still have to perform.”

DevilsDigest: Do you take Tempe’s high elevation into account with your kickers?

Slocum: “Our elevation is about 1,100 feet, something like that. When you go to Lubbock, Texas you’re at 4,000 feet, Colorado is at 5,000, and then Los Angeles you’re like 200 feet. What I think the biggest advantage here is that we rarely have wind that is significant. In my time here, it’s like 7 MPH every game. It’s like six to seven coming out of whatever (direction) and it rarely affects the ball. I recognized that when I was in the NFL looking at guys that come from here. It’s a great place to kick and punt.”

DevilsDigest: So on that note, do you look at stats from ASU kickers differently than you would look at stats of Big Ten punters, for example?

Slocum: “I look at it all. I think you have to look at all of that. Matt and Zane had enough games at Washington, I know they had a cold game at Oregon State before I got here, there were some games like that. All that information is looked at.”

DevilsDigest: Is there a false perception that special teams are a more seamless transition from college to NFL than other positions?

Slocum: “I don’t know. I think the quarterback position is the most challenging position in football, especially mentally. The college game is so much different than the NFL game, I think that’s why we see some of these big name quarterbacks in college go to the NFL and struggle for a while or forever. Then again, we start thinking about punters – in the NFL there are 32 teams and there’s only going to be a handful of those jobs open. There’s always a bunch of good punters that come out of college and it’s hard to get those jobs. So, I don’t know. Each one of them is unique, each one of them have so much detail in them and it’s really an interesting dynamic.”

DevilsDigest: What names will compete for the starting long-snap position?

Slocum: “Riley John, who has done it. (Cohl) Cabral, who has done it. We’ve got a couple young guys in (Michael) Gombert and (Joseph) Reeves who are here now and still if we find somebody else, we still may add a person or two.”

DevilsDigest: Is long-snapper one of the top positions you want to resolve quickly?

Slocum: “I would think so because it’s, no one talks about it until it’s a problem. So I think we are in a position where we will be fine.”

DevilsDigest: Did you foresee your team’s ability to block this many punts back in fall camp?

Slocum: “I believe we blocked six and (Curtis Hodges) blocked two so it was spread out a little bit. Now he is unique in his length because he is 6-7 so some of these punting styles where they take a long time and they sprint out he becomes a factor. What happened, once we got one, it’s kind of like if you return a punt early in the season, then everyone wants to block for the punt returner so your production rises. I watched this on the other side of the fence against Devin Hester, who in the NFL I played as many times as I did, I saw how hard the guys played in front of him because they had a chance every time. It’s kind of that way, it’s kind of like sharks in the water. We got it going so we practiced it better during the week and we called it in the games, guys were making plays. It was fun.”

DevilsDigest: Since you coached the outside linebackers last year, I wanted to get your opinion on some of those players. Was A.J. Latu the most surprising player on the defense at Devilbacker?

Slocum: “A.J. did a great job and the whole time I was here he and was always a guy that could do a number of things pretty well. He played end, he played middle linebacker, he played down low and he was always a go-to guy and I thought he did well. He was very effective early in the season. We lost Koron (Crump) early, and he is unique. His speed creates problems for people and he was productive as a pass rusher as a result of that. So when we lost him it opened up an opportunity for Jay Jay Wilson to step in there.

“I can’t recall being in the course of a season, a guy (Wilson) changing from offense to defense and all of a sudden, in two weeks at Utah, he impacted the quarterback three times, he had a pick-six, he had seven tackles, and in the bowl game he was all over the place so I see him being a very positive guy in terms of playing defense. We may adjust some things, I’m sure we will, we have a new staff defensively but I look forward to seeing what kind of player he can be.”

DevilsDigest: Can Jay Jay and Koron still contribute at a high level in the new defense seemingly without a Devilbacker position?

Slocum: “Sometimes, we as football fans – coaches included – talk about scheme. Scheme is overrated. We are going to have the ability to play three, four and five-man fronts. We can play them all up there if we need to. Just like anybody else. A lot of it is verbiage. You still have two-deep, one-deep, or three-deep, you are playing man. The fronts are a correlation of the coverage and vice versa. So you get a little bit where the degrees of separation are not that great.”

DevilsDigest: From a special teams perspective, you wanted ASU to recruit Brandon Aiyuk and Isaiah Floyd as potential returners…

Slocum: “Absolutely. Both of them. We are looking forward to those two young men coming in here. We think they are going to help us and I think they are impactful players. Obviously what they’ve done has been impactful. I see them coming in here and doing the same thing.”

DevilsDigest: Who do you envision lining up as returners in spring practice?

Slocum: “We’ve got Ryan Newsome and Chase Lucas is a factor. N’Keal has been back there, I’m sure he will get some reps. Trelon (Smith) and Eno (Benjamin) have been a factor. I think we’ve got to zero-in in the spring. I want to come out of the spring with better production at punter, get a direction with our deep snapper and our return game with the returners, knowing that we have potential guys coming in that can help us.”

DevilsDigest: How will your role change as a solely-focused special teams coach?

Slocum: “One great thing about Herm (Edwards) is the communication level on this staff is outstanding. We all talk, we all work together all day. We meet at different times. Really what is unique about special teams is it is a function of offense and defense, it marries the two and the communication is an important part of that. Number one is your play-time with your players, with your practice plans and how you move forward. Even recruiting, things of that nature. We all work together.”

DevilsDigest: What about Herm Edwards’ head coaching style is effective?

Slocum: “He’s a communicator. Great communicator. When you have a guy who’s been through what he’s been through in this football game and at the level, not only as a player but as a scout and a coach, it’s fun every day to come in here and just talk football with him. I sat in there with him and Danny (Gonzalez) the other night talking about coverages and I’ve coached secondary before and sitting in there and just listening to what they did in Tampa Bay and some of the great teams they had there and some of his stuff with the Jets and what not. When you’re a football guy, it’s fun. He brings a lot to it with the background and the kind of person he is. He is an unbelievable man.”

DevilsDigest: Is the chemistry between the new assistant coaches and returning assistant coaches more seamless than people think it is?

Slocum: “Well, we’ve all been doing this a long time and we all realize the necessity for a seamless operation and when we started out, my first conversation with Herm was outstanding. Shoot, he’s known my father forever and I had met Herm several times through my connections in the NFL and I obviously knew who he was and I still go back to his play with the Eagles – the fumble.”

DevilsDigest: How does the New Leadership Model affect your day-to-day operation?

Slocum: “I’m really comfortable with it because I spent that time in the NFL and I think that it’s really all about quality control. There are a lot of moving parts in a big-time program. Whether it’s a major college program or an NFL team so all hands on deck. Everybody has got a role and everybody is responsible and accountable for their role and when that’s the case you put things together and they work well. I’m really excited about what we are doing.”

DevilsDigest: Is there an advantage for you to just focus on special teams now?

Slocum: “Come over and look at this (Slocum shows me NFL statistical special teams data). I’m spending my time sitting in here and looking at all the things that could possibly help us do what we do better. I’m excited about it because I know how to do it this way. It allows me to work closely with Herm in terms of our personnel and make sure that it all meshes together. That’s what’s exciting about it.

“What happens is we’ve got the NCAA rules that give you limited time with guys. For all the time I spent with outside linebackers, that time is available now for these positions like the returner, the punter, the snapper, the kicker, guys that need to grow. Now we can sit in there and really do this thing the right way.”

Note: Jack Harris contributed to this article

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