If the ASU football team is going to go from Pac-10 afterthought to Rose Bowl contender, they’ll need to start thinking like one of its junior receivers — literally.
Mike Willie, the transfer from Cerritos Community College in California, holds nothing back on his perception of the team’s goals.
“I’m ready to get this Rose Bowl,” Willie said. “We’ve got the squad to get this Rose Bowl. We have a lot of athletes and a quarterback who can get it done and has been there and has seen it all so he can really help us and we can help him.”
A BCS bowl game to a junior college player on a squad that won four games last year is like Columbus’ Pinta in the distant horizon to an indigenous person.
While there is no player on the Sun Devils who can tell Willie what a premier bowl game looks like, there are a few things Willie can teach his teammates about its current position as an unknown.
“Playing out of anger worked out good for me,” Willie said. “I play with a little chip (on my shoulder) because I feel like I am late to the show. I’m just trying to get back to where I am supposed to be.”
Naturally, Willie was a standout receiver at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in Long Beach, Calif. Numerous Pac-10 schools out of high school recruited him, but there was just one thing missing — classroom performance.
“Everybody knew who I was in high school,” Willie said. “It comes down to grades. That kind of cut me off and put me in under the radar.”
Willie went the junior college route hoping to return to Division I once he made the requisite marks in school. As a football player, he put up decent numbers and a terrific highlight reel.
Willie got the grades.
He then caught the Sun Devils’ eyes. Willie reciprocated the positive attention by signing and he gives a pretty straightforward rationale.
“It was a good feel when I first got out here,” Willie said. “I liked that it had nice weather and it didn’t rain too much. I love playing in nice weather and I don’t like the rain. Erickson was a cool guy. I really didn’t know too much about him, but I came up here and found out who he was and I was like yeah this is where I want to be.”
Willie, who has carried a football around with him almost everywhere he goes since junior college to work on his ball security, has excelled in ASU’s new offense.
Willie is second on the team in receptions and has yet to drop a ball, something that has plagued his teammates. With his size, speed and hands, he may already be ASU’s most significant threat outside.
“He brings a lot of toughness, competitiveness; you always know you can count on Mike,” senior receiver Kerry Taylor said. “He doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. He is really fun to play with and he always has a smile on his face. He’s always loose; he is never uptight; he brings a good vibe to the receiving corps.”
Willie likes to think he brings more than just production.
“My mindset kind of rubbed off on a lot of players,” Willie said. “We weren’t a good squad last year. (Now) we’ve got that mindset that we are going to prove everybody wrong. It’s a new team, new year, so it is a new time for new things.”
Reach the reporter at nick.ruland@asu.edu
