Arizona State Sun Devils College Football Pregame Quote, 12/30/2024

BRIAN WARD: It’s been one thing after another since our championship game. As you look at that, you’re playing a team like Texas with good storied history and its tradition, and it’s one of college football’s powerhouses. And seeing that we’re being — that we’re right there with those guys and being able to go play in this type of setting is just really kind of surreal.

So especially with the expectations that we had starting the season, like we were like, hey, we’re trying to take steps in the process of getting to where we want to be, and in this season we stayed healthy and we were able to stick to the process and good things were able to happen, and usually that’s kind of the formula for success for anybody.

Man, it’s been amazing and here we are. So we have a team that believes, and obviously they’re a team that has high expectations, and they always do because it’s Texas. And being in this role that we are, the underdog role, it’s really fun to be.

Q. Unique situation (inaudible) they’ve been bringing Arch Manning in.

BRIAN WARD: I mean, it is. I mean especially with the style of play that Manning brings. Ewers is a guy that’s getting 80, 85 percent of the snaps and then they’ll bring in Manning to run specific plays and do specific things. So we’ll be real specific when he comes in and what our answer to it is, and obviously it’s going to be a chess match, and they’re going to react to what we’re doing. So we gotta be on top of that.

But the quarterback situation is one of the reasons — four of the longest years of my life is my son being a high school quarterback on the varsity level. So it was long because it’s a drama-filled position, you know what I mean? And I know a lot of people see that position, especially from an external point of view, as what it should be and what should be happening, and I know that there’s a lot of pressure that goes along with that that puts it on the players and the coaches alike.

So for me as a coordinator, I just gotta figure out a way to call it, but I know that’s not an easy deal — I went through it as a dad. It’s not an easy deal to manage. So hats off to their coaching staff and those two kids.