Arizona State Sun Devils College Football Pregame Quote, 09/01/2025

On after watching the film vs. NAU:

Penalties killed us in the football game and then pretty much kind of what I thought the tags were struggling with what they were doing. That was good stuff. We don’t see much of that stuff versus our defense, so it was different and I’m excited to go clean it up. That’s the best part about this week is we’re just going to practice craziness because we faced three down and four down all camp. It’s just a good learning experience for me to help our guys more. We’d have a couple of days in camp where we practiced verses the schemes that are a little bit unconventional and a little bit crazy by nature, not unsound. They’re very sound but just crazy chaos is their middle name. So we’re going to work on chaos a lot this week and get better at chaos.

On Ben Coleman’s performance at center and concern for injury:

Good snaps pretty much all night. I mean there wasn’t really a snap that was catastrophic to a place. That’s good for his first start. I felt bad for him. He’s played six years of college football and it’s the first time he gets to make mic points and play center. It’s something we’ve really never shown him, so we kind of threw him to the wolves there. So we got to do a better job preparing guys throughout fall camp for that type of stuff. He’s good to go, no issue there. (Justin) Wodtly, he’s getting looked at. Usually at this meeting I don’t really know for sure what’s happening. Obviously he went to get looked at, so we’ll see his availability. I should know by the end of the day tomorrow. Nothing other than that that really showed up in the game that can linger up to now. Now sometimes things show up on Monday. Guys wake up Sunday, they feel bad, then Monday happens and they feel worse about something, but nothing like that yet.

On the culture of SEC football and the hostile environment:

It’s gonna be fun. They love their football down there. I think we showed that we love our football here Saturday. I think it was like 106% capacity is what I just saw. It showed that this place loves football too, but down there they’ll definitely be there at 9 a.m. for a 6:30 p.m. kick and they’ll be getting ready to roll. It’ll be their first home game of the year, so I’m excited. The football down there is really good.

On the pass-heavy gameplan:

I told Coach Arroyo I wanted to throw the ball around a little bit in the football game. That was our kind of plan going in. We threw it around and we had some big throws that were called back. If you add those two penalties, there’s another 140 yards of passing, and I think the narrative is, ‘can you believe Sam set the record in his career for 420 passing yards?’ The best part about football is one guy on one play can kind of take away from a whole positive. So we were trying to be aggressive in the football game. Part of that’s on me, just what I wanted to do going into the game. But yes, we faced that same problem at Texas State and we faced chaos. We’ve got to be able to run into chaos and not away from it. So I agree with you 100%.

On Mississippi State this year compared to last season:

They’ve added over 30 transfers. They’ve added eight junior college players, so around 40 veterans to their football team. When you add 40 vets, that’s not including the high school class they signed. So this team is really 65-70% new from last year’s team, so a lot of new faces. They’re playing hard. You can see Coach (Jeff) Lebby and his identity is starting to show up and the passion he has for the game is starting to show up. So a completely different football team. There are still some guys that are returning for them that were good football players last year that are returning again, but there’s a lot of new guys.

On Jaren Hamilton not getting a lot of play time versus NAU:

Going into the game, we had a game plan in terms of how we wanted to attack and do things. He didn’t play as much as we probably planned on him playing. I forgot to mention Jalen (Moss) went down. We’re still seeing what his status was when he was taken out for the game. So that kind of threw a little bit of a curveball in that plan because they’re a little bit different players. Then it was ‘OK, now our substitution patterns are off in that grouping’, for some of Jaren’s plays potentially. It was just the flow of the game, wasn’t by nature. Probably got to try to use him more, if the situation’s necessary and if we feel like he’s ready enough to play.

On Max Iheanachor’s injury status:

We’re still monitoring that. Sundays are our off day, so Monday we come in and this is a fairly early meeting and they get checked out. They get checked out Sunday, but again on Monday, depending on the injury, so I don’t know. I don’t get the results back until tonight, which is when we finalize our game plan. So before we finalize our game plan, I get who is high probability and low probability. So I don’t quite have that in these meetings.

On Blake Shapen and his growth into year two with Mississippi State:

He’s year two in the system, so he’s more comfortable in the system. You can see his comfort in the system. They’re all year two in the system. So they’re just a little bit further ahead than they were last year. You can see it. They’re more comfortable than they were last year off week one’s game. So I don’t know if you can ever do the same thing twice to a good player. I think if we line up and we try to just copy paste and say, ‘oh, the game plan in the first half worked last year, let’s do it again.’ I think that’s a recipe to not feel good.

On if preparing the team with humidity will be a week-to-week basis:

We’ll definitely prepare for the environment. We’ll have the cowbells rocking for practice and stuff like that. We won’t mix humidity in just from the dehydration effects. We don’t want to distract by making the practices worse. At the end of the day, we have to be a better football team. We have to coach better. We have to get our guys to execute better. So this full focus is on us, regardless of who we play. Same thing I said before NAU, same for Mississippi State. We met today and saw the errors. I showed them my errors. I showed them our errors as a whole group, and then it’s like, ‘OK, this is what we have to do to fix it and let’s go fix it and go play a football game.’

On the special teams unit performance and any takeaways:

The special teams were explosive. They had one explosive (play) versus us to be honest they had a really good scheme. We have got ot give credit to that. The way we’ve never had somebody double our field five, they doubled our field five. That guy’s never gotten reps versus a double because most teams don’t do it. They showed field return as their complimentary return and they showed field and gave middle with a double five. You have got to give them credit too in week one. They had a good plan and they popped it. We’ll be ready for it now that we’ve seen it. Our guys have seen it live and our guys will be ready if another team tries the fake field middle return. So it was good, they had a good plan. Other than that our special teams played really well. I called a backup punt on the five-yard line) and they get an extra 20 yards probably off the return because I called backed up and not a regular punt. The next time we get in that scenario we call a regular punt, he booms it 60 yards so I probably cost our team about 35 yards just off that one call alone. But other than that our explosives on special teams were huge, we flipped the field a couple of times. The fake punt that was good, we blocked a punt, an aggressive look, a 6-2 look. So I thought there was a lot of positives on our specials other than my one mistake and then the one time they got us.

On week one allowing the coaching staff get more comfortable:

I think every team is different. I think every team is different, even when you have a lot of returners, every team is different. Like on the field, some people can handle more on game day than others. As a team, like some people can take change and say, ‘hey, This is different and they can adapt.’ Some people are really good if they master something versus everything and they’re going to be better than the opponent.  So I think when you’re early in the season, you’re trying to learn what this team is best at. I absolutely hate early-season games. They’re like, I think I said that before NAU, It’s so hard because, don’t feel like you can prepare your players as good early in the season as you can later in the season. You just don’t know. There’s so many unknowns that it’s more difficult to prepare, because there are unknowns. So I hate early-season games. I like once you get into the meat and potatoes of the season. So this is my least favorite time. I chase ghosts, watch everything on the planet. The teams do something they’ve never shown on tape and it’s exciting to adjust on the fly.

On what he’s seen from Keith Abney in his time here and what he provides:

He’s about 20 pounds heavier so physically he grew. I think that’s the most. He’s always been a hard worker, he’s always been intelligent and always been savvy. I think physically just his body got bigger and then obviously the more reps you get the more you recognize things. He definitely recognizes offensive formations and stuff like that to give him tips on how to align better. But I would say his overall size, speed, athleticism he’s really elevated that part of his game.

On what he’s seen from camp that will bring a killer instinct on the road:

We have got to show it in practice, we got to practice with it and then we have to be able to go play with that level of intensity. At the end of the day, how bad you want something that matters. You know what you pour into your cup is what you’re going to pour out. And if you think that you can pour something special in your cup and it’s going to magically create more water for you to drink, you’re absolutely wrong. What you put in is what you’re going to get out. And I think that was really good. We’ve had a little bit lighter camp. Anybody’s who’s been in our practices has seen it, it’s not quite as intense. So our first game for us isn’t absolutely shocking to me because part of that is my fault because I lightened camp because we have a lot of bets. Getting a game like that hopefully out of the way, surviving a good team that was chaotic and had a lot of good schemes and hopefully we get to learn from that game and get back to that passion because that was a key.

On what he thinks seeing a defense like NAU’s early in the season does for them and how it helps Sam (Leavitt):

I mean, other than one player, he had a really good game. I think he would say the opposite. It’s like, I played horrible. ‘No, he didn’t’ but that’s, that’s the standard and that’s what you want. But, other than that, one play that you like to have back, I thought he played well. I think seeing things that you’re not used to, I thought he handled it well, to be honest, Other than that, like I said, the one play at the end of the game, he played really good football, even with guys in his face at times that shouldn’t have been in his face. So I thought he played good. I thought he handled it well. Sam’s pretty good at adapting on game day. I think that’s one of his biggest strengths is adapting on game day.

On playing up to Mississippi State’s tempo:

They play so fast. Now if you can’t get lined up, you’re screwed. You better get lined up, get the call, and understand who’s carrying the verticals. Understand who’s in the run, how you fit in the run, and if you don’t they’re gonna get on a roll and take advantage of you because they’re not gonna let you, they’re not going to give you a time to catch your breath. They’re going to keep pushing the pedal to the medal. So we’ve got to be able to get a line on defense. We’ve got to be able to get on the same page and if you have one in May, they’re going to score a touchdown, so they operate. So you, you cannot beat yourselves, and I think that’s the communication piece.

On the dynamic between Kyson Brown and Ryleek Brown playing off each other:

I think the both of them played really well, I think Kyson when he got a few of his moments played well. I think we’re going to try to get those three guys and continue to get them involved in the gameplay because I thought they did play really well, all three of them. There’s a few times for the most part they ran hard, they ran through tackles, positive runs. They probably should have run more direct runs in the game plan to just get more downhill. More of an identity and the same thing happened in Texas State last year. We kind of lost our way a little bit with not being direct. At the end of the day that’s going to be our identity is downhill running the football, so we have got to establish that.

On how important communication will be against Mississippi State and how it was against NAU:

I thought it was good. There’s one thing about communicating and another thing about communicating correctly. I thought our communication was good. I thought we were just at times not communicating correctly because, the variety of things we were seeing that, like I said, I didn’t do a good enough job getting our guys ready for it. You can’t expect people to make like seven adjustments in the same game. I mean, if you’re making seven adjustments, you didn’t do your job as coach. So that’s where I start. I’m like, if I’m telling guys like if he’s here, do this. If he’s here, do that.  I’m like that’s on us, right? And it’s a compliment to them. So I think that’s where for us we just have to practice in some more chaos. It’s not like I said, not a big deal. Same thing happened to us week three last year, then we came out in week four, and I don’t know who we played, but we probably scored a lot.

On the Big 12 Success and the conference depth:

We play in a good conference. It’s competitive. The best way to put it is every game could go either way. Not every place I’ve been at has been that way, you know the games you’re probably going to win and you circle them. This is definitely a league that you cannot X or check any game preseason. Every conference game is just open and that’s what makes it fun. It makes it horrible and fun and exciting and horrible and fun and exciting and just repeat. Because anything can happen on any game in the Big 12.

On preparing for Mississippi State speed snap to snap, what he’ll input on defense:

We’ll like up in two different huddles and one huddle we’ll run a play and then the next time we’ll run a play and everything’s got to get aligned. Because we can’t play at that tempo. That’s something you have to be. You have to be all in on playing in that tempo to tempo to be able to play at that tempo. So we just use two different teams to play at that tempo. Because if we try to play at that tempo, we would go different ways. Because that’s not what we do. That’s one of the advantages they create is you have to defend something that you’re not used to practicing and force that communication, force your guys being on the same page, and then they have good schemes to pair with it. But all they need is for you to misfit one thing, miscommunicate one thing, and you just gave them a free touchdown. They didn’t even have to earn it. So they get a lot of free plays, teams misaligning, not even the ones they have to work for. Then they have to work for their other plays, but they also get free plays if you don’t communicate right. So that’s why it’s such a big thing.

On ASU volleyball and his relationship with head coach JJ Van Niel:

JJ’s a buddy. We talk in the offseason, we got together and just talked how we ran our programs. He does a phenomenal job when you look at what he’s accomplished in his time here. Up until yesterday and what he accomplished yesterday is really remarkable. I don’t think he gets enough talk, enough pop. Everywhere that people ask me to speak, I think he should be the person speaking right next to me. Everywhere that Graham (Rossini) goes to speak, I think he’s the type of guy that can speak right next to him because he’s earned that right. He’s a guy for what he’s done for that program is really impressive.

On the wide receiver room going forward other than Tyson:

I think, for us, we had a big play by Malik (McClain). He would have ended up having three catches for about 80 (yards). So, I think that question would be completely different if there wasn’t a penalty, and I think that’s the best part about football. But, narratives get spilled, and I think the key for our football team is to say ‘Who cares about what the narrative is?’ The wide receiver room is in a really good place. Multiple guys can make plays and when given those opportunities, they made plays. There were a couple times when they didn’t, but at the same time, when you have Jordyn Tyson, if a team’s not going to do something to drastically take him away, wouldn’t you be a fool to not throw him the ball? I think there’s a balance there too if you have a really good player who’s by himself. Like ok, let’s get everybody involved, but they’re still leaving him by himself. That’s part of the negative of being chaotic (defensively like NAU) is it’s harder to double. So, if we could have managed the front better then he could have gone for (over 200 yards). We just couldn’t manage that with all the chaos. I think, moving forward, it’s just taking what the defense gives us. We have a lot of confidence in our wideouts that if a team chooses to double JT (Jordyn Tyson) and remove that, that we can run the ball and throw the ball to other people. That doesn’t concern me one iota.

On Anthone Cooper’s interception:

It was great. It looked like he was jumping on the couch. Elbows all wide, he didn’t even have his elbows tight. He still caught it. I told him at the team meeting. I’m like, ‘man, can you tighten your elbows to catch it?’ He goes, ‘Did they review it?’ ‘Yeah.’ And he goes, ’It was still confirmed, wasn’t it?’ So it’s just awesome to have a play like that. (Albert Smith III) with the tipped ball, there were a lot of positives in the game too, and that was one of them. We tipped four balls in the football game. That’s good football. That’s good D-line play. It’s tipping balls. Our 3rd down defense was incredible on 3rd and 3+. Our 3rd and short defense was not good, but our 3rd and 3+ defense was probably statistically the best that we could have had since we’ve been here. So there were some positives, too, in the football game. Our explosive play rate, you look at how explosive we were on offense. I think we averaged like 7.5 or 6 yards per play. Like, that should not equal the result. We got 7.6 yards per play. If you just stay out of your way, you’re a top 15 offense in the country. So there were so many positives that get pulled from the game, and that was kind of what the message to the team was. We can make it what we want to make it. We’ve got to get out of the way of the players, let the players play and stay out of our own way, and all is good because we’ve got a really, really talented football team. I love our football team. I think we’re as good as we want to be, and I think that’s the best thing. When you play a game like this and somebody lines up and runs duo at you and possesses the ball for 36 minutes, and you’re like, ‘dang, we’re in trouble.’ But when you play a game like that and they had some really good schemes. They did a really good job. They got us as a staff more than they actually got our players. You say, ‘Ok guys, we’ve got to step back. We’ve got to let you guys take over from here on out.’ So, even though it didn’t go as smoothly as we wanted, I really think it just shows what we have to be as a staff with these guys and then it shows me that even when we don’t play well, and that’s a good football team, we never felt like the game was actually at risk. It never slipped below a one-possession game and there were games last year like Oregon, Idaho, a one-possession game in the fourth quarter and Oregon runs the table. So, you can either grow from these and attack it and learn or you can panic and have everybody think we’re not good enough and (feel the need to) change everything. It’s not about changing. It’s about solidifying what you want to be good at and doubling down.

On the staff’s approach to road games:

It’s interesting. Now that we play in a lot of smaller towns (against Big 12 opponents), we stay further away from stadiums for our road games. So, we stay about an hour and 15 to 20 minutes away from the stadium this week because that’s the nearest hotel that’s not a casino. Then some guys are finicky eaters, so it’s like some guys at these hotels, they don’t like the food, it’s not good. So now we get sandwiches on the side. We played Texas Tech last year and our guys got sick the day of the game. We had about 10 guys getting IVs because their stomachs were sick from the food. But it’s just learning and growing along the way. So now we need the food we get and then if a player who’s a finicky eater, we also need a sub sandwich or a hamburger or something that they’re comfortable with because you’re gone. The pregame meal and then the night meal, if they go that amount of time without a good meal. So that’s something that I learned. Like when you’re going to Seattle, the food is unbelievable. But with some of the smaller towns, it’s harder to feed 160 guys, so we’re just trying to adapt.