The thought had been in Nick Ralston’s mind for a while.

Ralston graduated from Argyle High School in Texas as a running back, a position he’d played for, as he put it, “like, 10 years or something.” He’d come just shy of 4,500 rushing yards while amassing 72 touchdowns in his high school career.

Running back was pretty familiar territory.

But as multiple members of the Arizona State football program made clear, including Ralston, he’s not specifically a running back at heart. First and foremost, he’s really just a football player.

During a spring in which he’s earned the majority of first-team snaps at a completely new position, linebacker, the redshirt junior has proven that.

“I can play offense or defense,” he said. “I think it’s probably the best thing for me and it probably should’ve been the thing that I had done when I first came here.”

The notion that defense could be Ralston’s best option really began to take shape over this past offseason. He’d already been planning to do so for a while when associate athletic director officially approached him with the idea of moving him to linebacker.

In making the transition, it’s been a major help that — as coaches and players alike have attested — Ralston’s best quality is his football IQ.

Defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales wasn’t around to witness Ralston’s days in the backfield. In his short time with the program so far, though, he’s seen enough evidence to confirm that, at the end of the day, Ralston just gets the game of football.

“He sees guards pulling. He knows where to naturally fit. He knows how to slip blocks, he knows how where to send the block to if he can’t make the play,” Gonzales said. “That’s why he’s with the ones right now… We’ve made a few mistakes here and there. But he’s got a little bit more savvy to him right now as far as where the ball is going and what’s going. And he’s kind of earned himself some reps with the one team."

"Nick is a natural football player,” he added. “He kind of has a feel for where the ball is going to go.”

Maybe, as Ralston said, that has something to do with his years on the offensive side of the ball.

“I think that comes from playing offense,” he said. “I think that playing offense for like, ten years or something, has just helped developed that instinct.”

In that sense, learning the 3-3-5 defensive scheme that Gonzales brought with him from hasn’t been any more challenging for Ralston than it has for the rest of the defense. In terms of a transition for Ralston, it’s been much more an issue of learning his specific position.

“I would say that there’s more of a technique curve for me than there is a learning curve in terms of scheme,” he said.

While adjusting to linebacker has been the biggest emphasis for the last several weeks during spring ball, Ralston’s focus entering the summer months is to get himself fully healthy for the 2018 season.

If he’s able to do so, he’d essentially be truly 100 percent for the first time during his time at ASU, particularly due to long-standing trouble with his hamstring. He first noticed it being an issue toward the end of his senior year.

In his first year of college ball, he tore it, and he said it hasn’t truly been the same since.

“My body probably needed like six months off (after high school),” he said. “You know, that really wore on my body, and then freshman year I tore it off the bone and that was a long process.”

Ralston mentioned that, once the initial tear healed, things seemed fine for “about a year-and-a-half,” but during his redshirt sophomore campaign in 2017, things once again went south.

After a decent output in 2016, with 139 yards and two scores on 32 carries, his numbers regressed last season — largely because of the hamstring — to just 22 yards on four attempts.

“I didn’t stay on top of it well enough and last year it was just… it was pretty bad last year,” he said.

“I couldn’t, from game one to game 13, I couldn’t run at all,” he added. “And that’s why I sat out the bowl game because I started up the healing process.”

So, with that in mind, the name of the game this summer is to get fully healed entering fall camp and, eventually, the regular season.

Given the nature of his specific ailment, that’s going to take a bit of patience, as there isn’t much he can do to speed up the remainder of the healing process. He’s going to have to take things slow and limit his personal workouts, but that should ultimately pay dividends going into the 2018 campaign.

“The number one thing is time,” he said. “There’s not a lot of blood flow, because it’s near the attachment point, so a lot of it’s time, managing certain weight-lifting and running. My body’s not built like some of these other kids where they can just run all day and lift all day, I’ve got to be smart about my body and I think that’s something that this strength staff and coaching staff will definitely help me through this next year.”

After a frustrating year dealing with his hamstring, he’ll undoubtedly want to put injury problems in the past in order to handle his new opportunity at linebacker to the best of his ability.

And whether it’s because of his new digs on the defensive side of the ball, or just because he’s got a knack for the game of football, a healthy Ralston has the opportunity to make a major impact on ASU’s defense.

“I’m a football player and I’m a competitor,” he said. “In everything I do, I try to be number one. I’m just lucky and blessed to be able to compete and going to defense is probably the best thing for me.”

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