(Photo: ASU Athletics)
The No. 13 Arizona State football team (8-2, 5-2) wrapped up its weekly series of regular season practices on Thursday, and is now only two days away from its final home game of the 2014 season.
After a groundbreaking win over Notre Dame two weeks ago, many labeled last week’s matchup against Oregon State and this week’s contest against Washington State as potential trap games that could derail the Sun Devils’ prospects of a College Football Playoff appearance.
A loss to Oregon State last week proved to be just that, and with a crucial Territorial Cup matchup lingering, Saturday’s clash against Washington State poses a similar threat.
As a result, coach Todd Graham has essentially used this week of practices to deliver a get-your-head-on-straight message.
“The big thing is getting prepared mentally to play,” Graham said. “We had a lot of mistakes and errors last week so we talked about the importance of the mental part of it. We can’t rely on athleticism. Everyone has athletes. What separates us from everyone else is our character, discipline and the technique that we play every day being coordinated as a unit.”
Applying schematic lessons from Oregon State to Washington State
This message of level-headedness and focusing on the task at hand translates into the players developing a sound understanding of the game plan from a schematic standpoint.
“Understand it’s a very different team that we’re playing because of their offense,” Graham said concerning Washington State’s notorious ‘air raid.’ “It’s just a different deal. We haven’t played anything like it so we talked about the importance of being assignment-oriented.”
Senior safety Damarious Randall voiced a similar thought.
“They are going to pass the ball 95 percent of the game. Every down, fourth and one they’re going to pass the ball…first and goal from the inch yard line and they’re going to pass the ball. I just never really have seen a team like that. That’s just their style of game and it’s been very effective for them,” Randall said.
Yet the question remains, how does a defense go about stopping a team that displays nearly a complete disregard for the run and opts to uncork pass after pass? Considering that ASU’s defense has shown its most dominant form in 2014 when heavy, run-prevention sets were instilled (against teams like Stanford, Washington and Utah), this may be a bigger challenge than one would expect a 3-7 team to pose.
To combat Washington State’s pass-dependent attack, the Sun Devils will frequently roll out their nickel defense—a scheme that features four defensive lineman, two linebackers and five defensive backs.
The units with the most demanding assignments are the defensive backs (because any down is a passing down for Washington State, they will be under constant duress) and the linebackers (only two linebackers means that their responsibilities are making open-field tackles on dink and dunk passes and on the few occasions the Cougars opt to run the ball).
“It’s big time,” Graham stated about the importance of both units come Saturday. “They’ve got the number one receiver statistically in the Pac-12, number one passing offense in the country. You can’t give up seams and climbs. You have to be sound in space tackling. They do a great job with the screen game. Obviously, we have to tackles well in space and we have to make sure we don’t give up any vertical lines.”
Randall also said that the screen game of Washington State lulls the defense to sleep and then pounces with big passing plays down the field.
“We just have to communicate on the back end with their hurry-up offense. That’s how they get a lot of guys off balance and how they get a lot of big plays,” Randall added.
If the heightened focus on the opposing team’s scheme sounds familiar, that is because this was the exact focus of preparing for Oregon State a week ago.
Though the challenges of facing Washington State’s potent aerial attack are undoubtedly different from facing the exotic offensive looks that Oregon State threw at ASU, the execution of a game plan and a specific scheme remains the common denominator.
ASU failed in its schematic effort to stop Sean Mannion and Oregon State last week, as its do-or-die blitz game plan was torched by gap runs and downfield passes. But with the 4-2-5 nickel scheme being instilled this week, Saturday’s game against Luke Falk and Washington State will provide an opportunity to correct those failures.
First-Team Nickel Defense
Defensive Line: Antonio Longino, DJ Calhoun, Ami Latu, Marcus Hardison
Linebackers: Salamo Fiso (SAM), Laiu Moeakiola (SPUR)
Cornerbacks: Kweishi Brown (Boundary), Lloyd Carrington (Field), Armand Perry (Nickel)
Safeties: Jordan Simone (Bandit), Damarious Randall (Field)
Injury Report and Practice Notes
- Wide receiver Jaelen Strong, linebacker Laiu Moeakiola and safety Jordan Simone all wore gold limited-contact jerseys on Thursday.
- Graham said that Simone and Moeakiola look better from a health standpoint than they did last week. Pencil both in to Saturday’s starting lineup.
- The status of Strong, however, is more of an unknown. He did participate significantly more on Thursday than he did on Tuesday, but Graham reiterated that he is taking a wait-and-see approach with his star wideout.
- Though Washington State’s senior quarterback Connor Halliday is out for the season with a broken leg and redshirt freshman Luke Falk is now at the helm, safety Damarious Randall believes that any quarterback who operates under a Mike Leach system will find success:
“With that system, everything is kind of the same. Each quarterback kind of does the same thing and has the same reads. Everything will be the same as it was with the old quarterback,” Randall said.
- Due to ASU’s implementation of a nickel defense, Chad Adams and Ronald Lewis figure to see an uptick in playing time. Both will have coverage assignments when any of the starting cornerbacks need to be spelled.
Follow Jacob Garcia on Twitter @Jake_M_Garcia or connect with him on LinkedIn.
