Young, poised with high expectations; how far ASU's defense carry the team?

Arizona State (2-0) defeated the Sacramento State Hornets (1-1) by a 19-7 score Friday night, staying on course through the season’s first two games, if nothing else. More importantly, it means the Sun Devils will be unblemished heading into their nationally televised matchup at No. 19 Michigan State a week from Saturday, but based on the reaction in the locker room, one wouldn’t think that is the case.

“You went in the locker room and you would think that we got beat by 50,” coach Herm Edwards said. “That’s a good sign because these guys know that you know what, we played an opponent that played for four quarters and you got to give that coaching staff and those players a lot of credit, because they played their hearts out.”

Try telling that to the Sun Devil fans, who could be heard booing the offense off the field on numerous occasions. Sometimes just after a bad drive, but even so on drives that resulted in field goals where the offense couldn’t finish with a touchdown after getting inside the 10.

“That’s nothing unusual,” Edwards commented on the frustrated fans. “I played in Philadelphia, that’s nothing unusual…they want to see offense, and when you struggle like that, they get upset. But at the end they were all clapping because we won.”

To be fully transparent, a lot went wrong for the offense to only end up with 19 points. A 68-yard touchdown heave to junior receiver Frank Darby was called back due to a block-in-the-back penalty on senior receiver Brandon Aiyuk, resulting later in a field goal.

Redshirt freshman running back A.J. Carter dropped a screen pass in which he would’ve at least had a chance to score from 10 yards out, and on the next play caught a nice screen pass but fumbled just as he was about to score, allowing the Hornets to recover and wasting a 38-yard punt return by Aiyuk that took the Sun Devils inside the Hornets 10-yard line (the jury remains out on this one, as the player that forced the fumble was entirely in the end zone).

Nevertheless, that’s essentially 11 points given away by ASU- which would’ve put them at last week’s total of 30- but the score is what it is for a reason. Losing out on points due to a nearly 70-yard touchdown being called back and being unable to score on a drive that starts eight yards out of the end zone is no cover-up for the unit’s inability to move the ball and finish drives throughout much of the night.

When Edwards alluded to those fans clapping at the end, it’d be safe to say the ones who actually watched the game were applauding the efforts of the defense, who has now allowed 505 total yards, 14 points and forced four turnovers through the first two games- two in each contest.

“I’ve been telling (the defensive guys) since winter conditioning ‘this is the world we’re going to live in,’ and I got no problem with it,” defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales said. “Whether you’re playing a true freshman quarterback, I mean there’s a lot of things that the offense can’t do because they’re trying to make sure he has success and continues to grow. That’s the hardest position to play on the football field, I mean if you look at the NFL there’s 32 teams, there ain’t 32 elite quarterbacks.

“I thought we played really good defense for about 55 minutes…what you can’t do is you can’t give up a big play, you can’t give up a seven-play, 72-yard drive (for a touchdown) in the fourth quarter and give them hope, you’ve got to bury them at that point, and we’re learning how to do that- we’re not there yet.”

Even though they allowed 305 yards tonight- 263 through the air- which is nowhere near the standard of Gonzales, especially against an FCS opponent, it was this unit’s effort that helped the Sun Devils not panic as the offense sputtered through the first half, and hardly improved in the second.

“It bothers me because we should react better because we played a ton of zone coverage tonight,” Gonzales said of the number of passing yards his defense allowed, also adding, “I didn’t think we tackled very well in the fourth quarter, our angles to the pursuit when they were catching the ball were terrible.”

ASU stopped the Hornets three times on fourth down, once forcing a fumble after stuffing a QB sneak on 4th & 1, ultimately recovered by senior linebacker and reigning ‘Mandrake’ jersey winner Khaylan Kearse-Thomas, leading to an ASU field goal in the final two minutes of the first half, which was the first points of the the night for either side.

This theme is nothing new, as the offense got 10 of their 30 points in week one off of turnovers forced by the defense that set them up inside the opposing 35 yard-line.

But going back to Gonzales’s comment about the world ASU’s defense is living in, one in which they will need to win the team lots of games if they are to reach their team goal of winning the south division, how far can the unit really take this team? After all, the starting 11 is comprised of six guys that are redshirt sophomores or younger, and excluding D.J. Davidson it’s four true sophomores and a redshirt freshman.

However, neither age nor lack of experience should allow one to underestimate this unit’s capabilities, and more importantly, chemistry. It came in last season on the heels of being one of the worst defenses in the entire 130-team FBS without question in 2017, and didn’t allow an opponent to score more than 28 points until the final three games of the 2018 season, all while starting three true freshmen from start to finish, and playing several more as the season went on.

Now, this is a unit who has 11 starters that all played multiple games for ASU the previous year-at the very least- and in Gonzales’s second season, the bar has been raised considerably. Not only that, but the players and fellow defensive coaches are thinking the same way.

“We had an opportunity to shut somebody out again and we didn’t finish it,” Gonzales said, “and that bothers them, it bothers the tar out of me. So, and they’re starting to feed off of my personality, so, uh…we won.”

Going off Gonzales’s earlier comment, the defense looked strong, dare I say elite, in at least the first 51 minutes of the game. After holding Sacramento State to -6 yards on the opening drive of the fourth quarter, the Sun Devils had only allowed them to generate 145 yards of total offense to that point. It simply came down to finishing strong at the end.

“I thought our conditioning was better tonight, I thought they played harder than they did the the previous week,” Gonzales commented, “but I’m really, really disappointed with that finish.

“I’m telling you, 6:20 to go you ought to bury them (ahead 12-0), and we didn’t, we gave them life, we gave them some energy, they score the touchdown, and then on that last play of the game, that guy made a heck of a catch, he wasn’t in-bounds, thank god otherwise, the score would be 19-14, but we got to continue to- we’re not mean enough at the end yet.”

A small example of the rest of the coaching staff following the philosophy of Gonzales came at the end of the first quarter- to backpedal in the game a bit- specifically with linebackers coach Antonio Pierce, believed by many to be the position coach most likely to take a defensive coordinator job next season, if anyone were to do so.

ASU had a respectable opening quarter, keeping the Hornets off the board while allowing three first downs and an average of 3.6 yards per play, Pierce was seen talking extensively to sophomore Darien Butler, and then his other two linebackers in Kearse-Thomas and sophomore Merlin Robertson. Robertson shared some of the contents of that message from Pierce at the end of the first frame.

“Basically to just step our game up and just to feed off the dogs of the defense,” Robertson explained, “to get everybody in place, get the calls down and just do our assignments, and be faster to get lined up.”

The trio responded well, helping ASU only allow four more first downs over the ensuing 36 minutes- with none coming in the third quarter or first six minutes of the fourth- while the yards per play allowed sunk to three in the second quarter and down to 1.1 in the third.

These guys contributed too, with Robertson tying junior Tillman safety Evan Fields for second on the team at six tackles, plus a pass breakup that he’ll tell you should’ve been an interception. Butler added four tackles, a sack and additional half-tackle-for-loss (totaling 1.5 TFL’s) plus a forced fumble, and then Kearse-Thomas added four tackles plus the aforementioned fumble recovery.

Additionally, the stats from week one to two show diversity in contributors. All seven fumbles forced by ASU’s defense over these first two weeks have been by different players, five different players have registered at least 0.5 sacks, while eight different ones have at least 0.5 TFL’s- led this week by Davidson’s 2.5 (1.5 for sacks), while senior George Lea added 0.5 sacks and sophomore Jermayne Lole added 0.5 TFL’s tonight for an overlooked defensive line.

As for the secondary, each starter (excluding Tillman safeties Tyler Whiley and Fields) has notched at least one pass breakup through two games, led today by junior corner Jack Jones with two, who is tied with former Long Beach Poly teammate and starter Kobe Williams with three on the season, after Williams added another tonight. That’s not to mention Robertson’s tonight and freshman corner Willie Harts batting down a pass on 4th & short last week.

As for the guys not specifically mentioned; redshirt freshman Cam Phillips intercepted the only pass of the season thus far with 1:54 left in tonight’s game, all but sealing an ASU victory already ahead 19-7. Sophomore safety Aashari Crosswell leads all members of the secondary (again, excluding the versatile Tillman safety position) with eight tackles through two games, and junior cornerback Chase Lucas led the team with seven tackles tonight, not once being tested on a throw longer than five yards.

The intent of this piece is not to oversell the ASU defense, especially considering the opposition through these first two contests, but merely to provide a window into how the the team can exceed all outside expectations and simply win games throughout the season. But this can only happen if practically every guy who touches the field on that side of the ball, experienced or not, lives up to his potential.

“I think from about the middle of the first quarter to the end of the fourth quarter, (the players) came over (to the sidelines) with really good information, and we had answers for what they were trying to do,” Gonzales said. “We’re still a work in progress, I think we’ve got to continue with the attitude part of it to finish it, this whole week is going to be about finishing.”