Senior kicker Thomas Weber knows about the number 13.
Just like everyone else associated with last year’s ASU football team, it’s unlucky to the 2007 Lou Groza Award winner in the most tangible sense.
If you haven’t heard by now, the Sun Devils lost four games by a combined 13 points.
Here’s the kicker.
Weber strained his groin during a Thursday practice in the Verde Dickey Center (better know as the practice bubble off of Rural Road) before ASU’s home game against Louisiana-Monroe, turning one of the nation’s most potent offensive weapons, similar to one of those really expensive titanium drivers with the head the size of a watermelon, into a wobbly wedge with a mean slice.
The most acute pain for Weber wasn’t around the groin.
“To me, I wasn’t accountable to my teammates and my coaches,” Weber said. “That’s something that is really driving me this offseason. Having to sit there and, you know, we have to get 10 yards closer, or having to punt, or go for it on fourth down was, well, painful.”
Weber played in only eight games during the season, making 8 of 13 field goals. Five of those, however, came in the season-opener against Idaho State. While walk-on freshman Bobby Wenzig did an admirable job in Weber’s place, making three of four attempts on the season including a 49-yarder in the rain against Georgia, kickoffs were often short and off-line and extra points were an adventure.
“To have a guy like that, you don’t know [how much he means to the team] until he is hurt,” Erickson said. “You look at last fall — the games where he wasn’t there and even when he came back, he wasn’t fully there, the true weapon he is. When you have a guy like him, it makes a big difference in how we deal with field position. But he is back and at full strength.”
Weber began kicking in mid-January and has worked in the weight room and on the field, making subtle changes to his approach, including a more active warm-up routine in hopes of getting back to his 2007 form.
“I am still getting back to full strength,” Weber said. “My leg feels fine, but I’m trying to get back to the same explosiveness. I do some different stuff, a more dynamic warm-up.”
3-4 defense unveiled
Erickson and defensive coordinator Craig Bray unveiled the 3-4 defensive alignment on Tuesday, allowing the Sun Devil defense to get more out of their best and deepest personnel unit on the team.
“We spent some time studying it in the offseason,” Erickson said. “A lot of it is going to be third down stuff, but we feel that with our depth at linebacker, we can go into it at any time.”
The 3-4 defense alignment — four linebackers, a two-gap nose tackle, and two ends who play over the tackles — will make the ASU defense an even more dangerous unit than last season, especially against the wide open offenses of the Pac-10.
“Against spread teams, [it’s better because] you can rush three [players] and drop eight easier and you can move people out, as opposed to having to drop a lineman,” Erickson said. “It gives you a little better blitz package against it. To me, it’s a change-up for us, something that creates problems.”
Erickson said his defense, back in the 4-3 on Wednesday, had it’s best practice in the last “three or four days.”
Reach the reporter at nruland@asu.edu
