Fans of the old “seven seconds or less” Phoenix Suns teams would have been enthralled to hear what ASU football coach Dennis Erickson had to say after practice Thursday.
“We would like to snap the ball with about 15 seconds left [on the play clock],” Erickson said. “We went awful fast today. We ran about 65 plays in 40 minutes … We can slow it down anytime we want; we can have a number of different tempos.”
In college football, a 40-second play clock immediately begins after the whistle sounds on the previous play.
At the conclusion of Thursday’s practice, the offense ran its final two-minute drill prior to the start of the 2010 season.
The drive began with a 10-yard pass from redshirt junior quarterback Steven Threet to junior wide receiver Mike Willie.
After another completion that went for 20 yards, the Sun Devil offense stalled and was forced to attempt a 47-yard field goal.
Redshirt senior kicker Thomas Weber drilled the try right down the middle on what was the final play of the 2010 preseason.
Calm before the storm Although nerves are typically common during the first game of the year, the Sun Devils are shrugging off questions on their mental state heading into the opener against Portland State.
“We’ve been waiting a long time,” Erickson said. “Ever since that Arizona game and now we’ve made a commitment to get this program going in the right direction and so all the talk is gone now, we got to out and start playing every week.”
Threet made an interesting comparison while describing his outlook on the season opener.
“Football is a game I love, anytime you’re playing on Saturday you get excited and try and go out and make plays and put points on the board,” Threet said. “It’s football. People that go shopping all the time don’t get nervous shopping. We’ve been running the plays [during practice] and now we have to go out and execute them.”
And as usual, Omar Bolden had something to say.
“We’re fired up,” junior cornerback Omar Bolden said. “All we want to do is make it happen on Saturdays. We got the right guys in place, the right guys leading, and guys out there wanting to make plays ready to play.”
Blitzkrieg Erickson hinted that with the talent level at the cornerback position, the linebackers might be freed up to go after the quarterback.
“If we lock in on the back end like I know we can, we’re going to fire it up and send those guys,” Bolden said.
Expect to see both Bolden and sophomore Deveron Carr in a lot of man coverage come Saturday.
@Os_Island New York Jets’ cornerback Darelle Revis has officially made his mark on Tempe.
“That Darelle Revis commercial, that’s really where I got [the nickname] from to be honest,” Bolden said. “I’m glad he came out with that little saying, so I could adopt it, it’s going to be an island out there.”
In addition to “Os_Island” being Bolden’s twitter handle, the Sun Devil corner also has the phrase written in black sharpie on his cleats. Injury Report For at least the game against PSU, ASU will be without it’s most experienced wide receiver due to a nagging hamstring injury.
“I’m not going to play Gerell [Robinson],” Erickson said. “He’s getting a lot better, he’s close, but there’s no sense playing him right now because he could pull that thing. He doesn’t have confidence in it right now, that’s the biggest thing.”
Reach the reporter at tyler.emerick@asu.edu
