Arizona State Sun Devils College Football Pregame Quote, 09/27/2021

First of all, our thoughts and prayers go out to Utah and to Washington State. I mentioned to our players yesterday about those incidents that have taken place and we live in this world that we always think that every day we get up and we will control our destiny and our situations and when you see something like that it really hits home. Two athletes, young people, put themselves in a position or however they got in that position and it’s just sad and our prayers go out to both those universities, their families, and everyone involved so that’s probably the most important thing I can tell you today. As far as our opponent, this week we go on the road and play a very good UCLA football team. Jeff’s done a nice job of building this program down there. They have a senior defense, most of these guys are all back. They don’t allow you to run the ball at all; they’re very good against the run. They score a lot of points on offense, they’re averaging about almost 40 points a game and play a good third down defense. They have a dynamic quarterback, he can throw it and run it. They have two big bruising runners, they run the football. They’re a very complimentary football team, they don’t allow you to run but they can run the ball and that says something. They can throw the ball downfield, they’re very explosive in the passing game and they have a good punt returner. They’re a team that plays well and they’re on a roll right now, they’re playing really well. We have to muster up our ability to stay focused and we have a lot of players that have played in, and come from Los Angeles and they have to get their mindset to go back home. A lot of times they get excited about going back home but they have to keep their poise and make sure that this thing doesn’t get away from them. I think we have enough guys now that have been there numerous times in L.A. that hopefully they can keep their emotions in check.

On the run defense performing up to his expectations:

A couple of times it was the runner, it was the quarterback. That’s why the yards went up, he was in the fourth corner. Most of those situations, when you watch it unfold, we had some younger players in there as well, so all those things contribute to it but we have to sharpen up. There’s no doubt, this is a team that likes to run the football and they will run it, there’s no doubt about it.

On what Herm talked about with his team and coaches, knowing Chip Kelly’s schemes:

A lot of eye candy and you have to have clean eyes. If you play with dirty eyes, it turns out being a dirty play, a bad play on your part. You have to play with clean eyes, a lot of eye candy, a lot of motions, a lot of shifts. They go fast, they get you when they feel like they got you off balance, they will run right back up to the line and won’t allow you to substitute and then they go again. So, you have to be ready for that at any time they make a big time first down. They will go, they’re a big time fourth down team too. They’ll go for it on fourth down, when he feels like he has momentum, he’s going to go for it on fourth down. We played them last year and they went for one and made it so they’re very good at running their offense.

On stopping Dorian Thompson Robinson:

I don’t know if you stop him, I think you try to contain him. No one’s going to stop him, great athletes, you’re not going to stop them. That word is overused, we won’t stop. I’m not going to stop the guy, I mean you can try to contain him and hold him to a minimum but you have to understand your rush lanes. Anytime you run by a quarterback, our quarterback does the same thing. You run past them up field and you open windows for the guy to escape, if you watch the last couple of times that quarterbacks ran on us, look at the rush lanes, very obvious, you run past the quarterback, you got a problem. I think all those things come into play, a lot of teams when they go into empty, you empty out the backfield, all of a sudden if you don’t have a person that’s accounted for the quarterback you get the quarterback draw. It happened to us, we get it one time against BYU and the next time we do it right the quarterback gets hit, so, you have to be aware of all those things.

On injury updates:

Which players do you want to talk about?

(Reporter) Chase (Lucas)? Chip (Deamonte Trayanum)?

He’s going to play. He’s going to play. Anyone else?

(Reporter) Thompson (Bryan)?

He’s going to play. Anybody else? Three for three, we’re good!

On the magnitude of this game:

It’s a Pac-12 game and they’re all important. You know that when you’ve been in this conference and I think that that’s what you got to enjoy about it. You can’t determine which one is a big one, the next one if you win is the big one, and if you win again it’s a big one, they all become big because you only play nine. You can’t lose a bunch of those Pac-12 games because then you don’t control your destiny. As long as you continue to win games in the Pac-12 you control your destiny, when you don’t then you’re counting on other people to lose or something that happened and you don’t want to put yourself in that position. I think these players have heard that from me long enough now that they understand the significance of it. You play nine precious Pac-12 games and they’re all meaningful, they just are, and I know we’ll spin it well if they didn’t. To me they’re all big, that’s just the way it works. That’s the bottom line, we’ve got nine games in the Pac-12, how many can you win?

On preparing for road games and fewer penalties:

You are right, it’s a road game, it is a game where a lot of guys from Los Angeles are going home, guys want to play well when they go home, not saying they don’t want to play well all the time but there is family, friends, there are all these distractions when you go home and we have to be careful with that. It’s important that we don’t commit a lot of fouls, those fouls get you in trouble, they give opportunities to the opponent when you get in a game where there are a lot of fouls.

On the message to the players this week:

I think the message is when you don’t give the opponent extra opportunities through your own errors, you can play somewhat of a consistent game both on offense and defense, That’s what you want and when you do that, you have a chance to win. We lost to a team that is 16-1, BYU is 16-1 and when you watch them play, tem they don’t give teams extra opportunities due to miscues, they don’t turn the ball over, they don’t put themselves in bad positions by giving up fouls and they are very consistent, and they play with consistency. That’s what you want, to be a consistent team, it doesn’t mean you are always going to win but you give yourself a chance to win when you don’t beat yourself and that has always been my philosophy as a head coach just don’t muck it up. Don’t muck it up with fouls penalties and turnovers, try to play a clean game that is what every coach aspires to do, play a clean game, if you do that, you have a chance to win games, and you have to have talent and have to have a good team but that’s part of the process too.

On Merlin Robertson’s play against Colorado:

He played a lot better, Merlin is sometimes his worst enemy, the fact that he wants to do too much. This is a part of being a senior for a guy that has played a lot of football. Football is a game where you want to make a play but you have to understand that what is required of you to make the play is doing your job. If you don’t do your job and you just try to make plays you start guessing and you put yourself in a bad position not to make a play and Merlin is so athletic and wants to make a play and sometimes he gets ahead of himself without reading the keys that are required for to do his job and I think last week, he settled down some and wanted the defense to be called and play in the frame of what is being asked and that happens to a lot of players in football especially older guys, ‘I gotta make a play, gotta make a play,’ rather than listen to the call and do your job and make a play. Sometimes we try to press it, and that is just guys trying to do more than they need to do.

On Jayden’s run capabilities expanding the offense:

It does because he, like all quarterbacks that can run, that is a concern for the defense because it is the unscripted play. You don’t practice defense when a quarterback is going to run it is not a scripted play … for the most part, a lot of these quarterbacks in today’s world, they are great athletes and you can’t script what kind of play he’s going to do when he takes off and runs like you can’t practice plays for the defense … but the unscripted one that pops up those are the ones that are scary and Jayden is that kind of quarterback. He can go back and he will see some things and when things break down, he can go make a first down for us. What I liked about Jayden last week is that he understood when the journey was over and he got down and when the journey is over, get down, don’t take the unnecessary hit you don’t have to try to show people you are a tough guy. Tough guys are the ones that play the next play and when the quarterback runs, people are coming after you and we hit a lot of quarterbacks this year, our defense. I tell Jayden you have to be careful and know when it’s over to slide.

On the receiving corps:

I’m okay with it but like any receiver, they’re all needy and they are always open. But, there is only one ball and I think when you have a balanced attack and if you get more guys involved in the offense you have the ability to flow, but the only way you can do that is by running plays, you can’t bog down offensively. You can run eight or nine plays and everybody is going to get the ball whether it be the runners, the wide receivers and all of a sudden, you see them catch the ball and smile and you say, ‘okay, we had a seven, eight or nine play drive,’ we brought Badger in the game, first time Badger’s touched the ball on a reverse and he ran it for a touchdown so that was good to see because he’s got some run talent, if you put the ball in his hand, he can make people miss and we need guys like that and when he has the ball in his hands, he can make people miss and I like that.

On Ricky Pearsall’s passing capabilities:

He is probably the most consistent right now among all receivers. He’s just a really good athlete, he can run, he can pass some, just don’t make him Sammy Ball or somebody … but I’ll tell you what he is, he is kind of like the Swiss army knife, he can do a lot of things, it’s fun to watch him develop, he has been here since his freshman year, and now he is a guy that can make things happen with the ball in his hands.‚Äù