When ASU football head coach Todd Graham met with a dozen media members on March 2, he was more explicit in stating problems with the 2015 season than he had been in the past.
He said they blitzed too much, but he pointed out that it wasn’t a drastically higher number than past years. He’s planning to adjust to the talents of their players and mold a game plan around that. Additionally, Graham said he needed to make adjustments earlier in the season.
“If I could go back, I probably would’ve made a few more adjustments last year,” he said.
Graham has three focuses coming into this season: ball security, cutting out negative offensive plays and limiting explosive plays on defense. He listed them in order of importance, but then amended his earlier statements to be 1-A, 1-B and 1-C. However, ball security and turnovers stand out to him.
“If I could have just one thing, I want to lead the league in turnover ration,” he said.
ASU’s problems led to a 6-7 campaign ending in a close loss in the Cactus Bowl. Graham sounded excited to make changes to make the team better.
“You can look at things two different ways,” he said. “We’ve got four starters to replace, we’ve got a new quarterback, and all that comes with opportunity, and the great thing is that we surely aren’t starting over. We’ve got a foundation laid.”
For the first time since 2012, ASU will be undergoing a true quarterback battle. Graham told a story about that spring, when then-redshirt sophomore quarterback Taylor Kelly was expected to be the third string and instead ended up winning the starting job in the fall.
“(In 2012), I met with Taylor Kelly, and I told him you’re the third-team quarterback — after spring ball. And he said, ‘Coach, I appreciate that, but I will be your quarterback.’ And I go, 'Oh great.' I thought, that guy’s kind of cocky … but as we assessed and we analyzed that, we started looking going like, wow, man, he’s the third team guy, and he’s always out there with the second and the thirds and he keeps scoring on the first team defense.
So I told him we’re going to give you a couple of days in the fall and you’ve got to do something. And he didn’t just win it, and it was just clearly him. … We had not made a decision all the way up until the week of the game and we said he’ll be the starter for this week. And then he never relinquished it ...
We're looking forward to seeing who that's going to be."
The quarterback will play a crucial role of establishing an identity on the team. Graham spoke of playing physically and continuing to use a high amount of plays on offense. Last year, ASU ran the second-most plays per game on offense.
“We want to establish our identity as being a physical football team,” he said. “That’s what tempo means. It’s not to trick anybody. It’s not because we’re going fast. It’s creating a fifth quarter.”
Part of this comes with the growth of whichever quarterback wins the starting job. Graham spoke highly of Chip Lindsey, who was hired as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in December.
“I think we hired one of the best I’ve been around as far as just that aspect,” Graham said. “(He’s) a guy that has done nothing his entire life except develop quarterbacks.”
The running game will also be vital to establishing a physical identity. If ASU can continue to run successfully, they will have a greater discrepancy between the amount of plays the Sun Devils run on offense and on defense.
ASU comes into camp with sophomore running backs Demario Richard and Kalen Ballage with experience, but redshirt freshman Jason Lewis could fight for time. He runs well for a 6-foot-3, 235 pound back.
Graham gave his shortest and simplest answer when asked about early thoughts on how the running duties might be split up.
“Put the best guys out there,” he said.
Injury report
Armand Perry received a medical redshirt. He and sophomore Kareem Orr are expected to start at safety in the offseason.
Redshirt junior wide receiver Cameron Smith, who got injured last year and missed the entire season, “looks good,” Graham said.
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