The best story from Arizona State’s 50-minute signing day news conference Wednesday focused on coach Herm Edwards, riding with young assistants Prentice Gill and Chris Hawkins through the streets of Los Angeles, covering his ears as music blared from car speakers.
“About every hour,” Edwards said, “I called (recruiting coordinator Antonio Pierce) and said, ‘I’m safe, I’m still OK.'”
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The most telling story, however, stemmed from Al Luginbill, the program’s director of player personnel. Luginbill brought up the Super Bowl and how San Francisco had the ball with a chance to take the lead in the final minutes. Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo spotted an open receiver and fired, only to have defensive lineman Chris Jones ruin everything.
“Big third-down play, hand goes up in the air, receiver’s wide open and he knocks the ball down,” Luginbill said. “The guy is 6-7 with about an 84-inch wingspan and when he jumps, it makes a difference. We look at that. That right away was something I said, ‘That’s not coaching. That was drafting.'”
Since Edwards arrived in 2017, size has been among the top priorities. Not just up front but everywhere. As Luginbill said, length is everything.
“Check how many times we knock down a pass,” he said. “That’s huge in the football game, and we just don’t do it because we’re not very tall.”
Like in previous recruiting efforts, the effort is reflected in ASU’s 2020 class. Four-star receiver Johnny Wilson stands 6 feet 6, 224 pounds, “a massive human being,” Pierce said. Three-star tight end Jake Ray goes 6-4, 246, but the biggest difference can be found up front with graduate-transfers Kellen Diesch (6-6, 300) and Henry Hattis (6-6, 301). Both are expected to challenge for starting jobs, Diesch at left tackle and Hattis at a guard position.
“I’ll just say this,” Edwards said. “We start spring ball on (Feb. 24). I ain’t even going to say nothing. If you come to practice, look at our left tackle. That’s all I’m going to say. That’s what we want to look like. He’s got to be a good football player now, but our aspirations are to look like that. … To play in the Pac-12, you have to have length, you have to have size and you have to have speed. Period.”
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Overall, the size part remains a work in progress, particularly up front. This will mark the second season in three years in which ASU likely will have to rely on grad transfers to field a decent offensive line. The Sun Devils have added size throughout this stretch, but most of those linemen remain in the developmental stage.
“It wouldn’t shock me if we’re in the grad-transfer business for another year in the offensive line, maybe two years,” Luginbill said. “We’re just not there yet.”
During the early-signing period, Pierce suggested that ASU’s recruiting base was not Arizona, but California. Edwards on Wednesday corrected this. Arizona remains ASU’s priority, he said. Added Pierce: “Home base is Arizona. First base is California.”
Edwards said ASU’s recruiting footprint remains Arizona, California and Nevada, but added the Sun Devils will continue to stretch out for certain needs. Quarterback, for example. The Sun Devils will go wherever they have to go to find that guy. For future classes, ASU plans to attack the Midwest and East Coast for offensive and defensive linemen. “We’re not going to get all the guys,” Pierce said. “I told Coach, we probably won’t get 10; we’ll get four to six. But next year we’ll get more. And then we’ll hit the jackpot and then we’ll control the whole country. Then we’ll be a national recruiting powerhouse.”
It’s a bold play for a program that has struggled to recruit nationally, but the Sun Devils’ recent success in California — they signed eight of the state’s Top 50 prospects to this class — might foreshadow a different result. The first step is just getting on the radar of the nation’s top prospects. The next, and more difficult, step is landing them.
“I can tell you this,” Pierce said. “Taking the fork across the country, and that Sun Devil, and walking into schools and everybody saying, ‘Wow, Arizona State’s here.’ I wasn’t getting pushed back from the other big schools. I was getting pushed to the front of the line to speak to the coaches and counselors. We’re just getting started.”
Signing day came less than 24 hours after Edwards had a staff shakeup. After defensive coordinator Tony White departed for the same position at Syracuse, Edwards named Pierce and special adviser Marvin Lewis co-defensive coordinators. The interesting part: A linebacker, Pierce played for Lewis during his second season in the NFL. Lewis was the Washington Redskins defensive coordinator at the time.
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“They will figure out how to do that,” Edwards said of the shared duties. “You’re talking about two guys who have been together. It’s just a matter of how we want to orchestrate it.”
Overall, Edwards didn’t seem concerned about the changes. Entering spring practice, more than half his staff will be in new roles. Both coordinators will be new, which means the Sun Devils will have to adjust to different schemes, mostly just changes in verbiage, Edwards said. When pressed on the defensive scheme, he did suggest ASU will shift from the 3-3-5 operated under previous coordinator Danny Gonzales. He pointed out that ASU did this last season, particularly in the Sun Bowl against Florida State, so it’s not a huge deal.
“I’m going to leave it at that,” Edwards said. “I’m not going to give any secrets away in a press conference to other teams. They’ll figure it out after the first game.”
Edwards still has to hire a defensive line coach, a position that opened after Jamar Cain left for Oklahoma. He expects to have someone in place next week. The Sun Devils return eight starters on a defense that last season yielded 22.4 points.
“That’s college football,” Edwards said of the staff changes. “Everyone goes through it. When you think about our program, I think we’ve done a nice job of really doing some things where other people look at us and say, ‘You know what? I want somebody off that staff.’ When we first got here, we said this is a program where we’re going to try to lift people’s potential. You can’t keep all of them. … But there’s always a plan behind the plan. We’re never caught off guard.”
ASU’s 2020 class might not be complete — Edwards is still on the hunt for graduate transfers — but the bulk of the work is done. 247 Sports Composite ranks ASU 23rd nationally and fourth in the Pac-12. The most recent additions: the tight end Ray, who’s from powerhouse St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and three-star quarterback Daylin McLemore of Junipero Serra in San Mateo, Calif.
Offensive coordinator Zak Hill on Ray: “Jake provides a big body. He’s a very physical blocker. We were surprised on film that as thick as he was he’s pretty athletic as well. He can bend. He can do some things that you often don’t see guys that big do. We feel like he has a skill set to be both on the ball and be physical up front but also be a movement guy if need be.”
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Hill on McLemore: “Daylin’s one of those guys that was under-recruited and obviously had some limited reps. But his talent and his skill set — he’s 6-3, over 200 pounds, he’s athletic, he’s got good arm strength — he was just in a situation where he played another position earlier in high school. This year he suffered a collarbone break, which limited his exposure. … But we feel like we got a great one. He’s got a demeanor that’s similar to Jayden (Daniels.) We feel like he’s a guy that has a high ceiling and can develop into a really good quarterback.”
(Photo of Herm Edwards with his team at the Dec. 31, 2019, Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas: Ivan Pierre Aguirre / USA Today Sports)
Doug Haller is a senior writer based in Arizona. He previously worked 13 years at The Arizona Republic, where he covered three Final Fours and four football national championship games. He is a five-time winner of the Arizona Sportswriter of the Year award. Follow Doug on Twitter @DougHaller
