Arizona State Sun Devils College Football Pregame Quote, 10/24/2022

On the quarterback situation:

There’s some good things that he (QB Emory Jones) did, there’s some decision making that I thought was questionable. There was some inconsistency in the second half I thought a little bit but overall I thought he did OK. Going forward and you’ll see it too that it’s an open competition, a true open competition for those guys. I’m still will say this that I’m going to pick the best guy that will get us that win. Do I think we should’ve won that game? Absolutely. I’m still in the jar about it but I got to get over it and move forward and the good thing about is that I know the kids care because it was tough for them after the game and tough for them yesterday but we’ll move on and I’m going to move on but going back to the quarterback, it’s a true competition the next three days and we’ll see how that plays. There’s no true starter right now.

On Stanford’s defensive adjustments:

I thought from a decision making standpoint there was things open that we didn’t get too. They did tighten up a little bit on Elijah (Badger). They brought more pressure with their interior guys but overall they didn’t change schematically so we should have taken advantage of that and not scoring in the second half is absolutely unacceptable.

On conversations with the coordinators after the game:

I always sit down with the coordinators, get their thoughts and wanting to go series-by-series of what they were looking at and how they would go and attack. This may be a question that is brought up but I will be very involved with the offense going forward in regards to play calling and everything else.

On the open quarterback competition & how he will judge who to start:

A few things, the execution of it, the confidence part of it. I want to see how the team reacts to it. How do we go about from a series in on converting on our situational practices and the overall moxy of the quarterback. The good thing about it is that the kids trust both of them. Now who’s going to be confident to win the job? So we’re going to go about this Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I might not name the starter until I find out whose the guy that I’m comfortable with going forward. With that choice being made, the person I choose I will have full confidence in winning a football game and that’s exactly what I’m asking the kids moving forward is winning a football game.

On if he’s noticed a lack of confidence with QB Emory Jones’ game:

I haven’t noticed a lack of confidence, he came off that concussion. But that first half I thought he did really well, but going back I look at film and what could’ve been. I’m confident that going forward I’ll put the right guy in place and that might be Emory and that might be Trenton.

On the state of play within the team:

These four weeks as I put it up every Sunday. Last week was stacking days that we got 18% better, this week if we practice four days we’ll get 22% better. Last week was too dominate the game, that was one of our stacking themes when it came to games. I changed that in regards to us still getting it together. This week it’s a win by all costs so when we talk about stacking those days we still go about that mantra. When I speak to the team they understand it so they understand that come tomorrow we’ll come back at it, and flush everything else away.

On the challenges running the ball against Stanford:

I thought Stanford’s front line did a pretty good job. There were probably more tackle philosophies in that game than we had in the whole season and so I wasn’t really happy about that. I thought our receivers did a good job getting open downfield. And we delivered on that. We had nine explosives. And so if you get nine explosives, that’s usually a good sign of you being ahead on the scoreboard. But we’re going to have to go back and revamp a little bit on the run game. Again, I’m in those meetings. And I have a very big influence on what’s going forward from from now on on that offense.”

On the confidence level with aggressive secondary play:

When we’re playing against bigger, physical receivers, I challenge those defensive backs to make sure that they get in their face and challenge them. And sometimes it’s tough because they can just body you up, but they played aggressive. I thought Coach (Donnie) Henderson did a good job bringing pressure at times. And I want to play that way. And it has to match up on the offense in all facets. We want to be aggressive. So I’m going to keep convincing Coach Henderson to keep bringing that pressure, and then we’ll try to match it on the offensive side.

On the growth of Elijah Badger and his mindset after the loss:

I think he’s done a great job. Can he get better? Yes. And when the ball is not coming to you, understanding conceptually that you have to stretch the field and do those things, especially when you’ve been keyed upon. And so everybody needs to get better, but he has improved tremendously. We knew what we were going to get with him from an athletic standpoint. Now comes the maturity and mental and making sure you can do it every play, and he’s getting better and better. As you see he’s making huge plays. I thought he was one of the better players on the field in that game. We talked about football is a game of inches. That was truly a game of inches ‚Ķ especially that catch he made ‚Ķ but we look at him going forward as being one of the guys that we need to get the ball to win and especially when I talk with the offense, we need to get the playmakers the football. I mean, that’s any smart, offensive mind make sure that we get those guys the football and then we’ll plug in the rest, but he’s one of our playmakers. (When he made the one-handed catch out-of-bounds), it was heartbreaking, because it was such a big play. And if you look at the film, you see the defensive guys all the way down there, cheering him on. But his mindset is we need to get better as a team. I talked to the leadership group, and they’re disappointed, it’s good to be disappointed. That means they care, and so they also need to make sure that we get up and going tomorrow. So we’ll have a spirited practice, and we’ll get going.

On the injury report for the upcoming week:

LaDarius (Henderson) will probably take one-or-two more weeks. He’s not gonna be back. But surprisingly we came out of it very healthy. And so besides LaDarius, everybody else was pretty healthy ‚Ķ when I talk pretty healthy, there’s those bumps and bruises that probably take a day or so but everybody else is ready to go.”

On wide receiver Bryan Thompson’s emergence:

I think it deals with his confidence and he wants the ball now. There’s receivers that play the balls and run the routes and if I get the ball, that’s okay. Now you’re having guys on that side wanting the football and that makes a difference, so from a confidence level they’re peaking and so Elijah Badger and B.T., even Gio Sanders, now they want the football and again we only got one football, you like to see that. So from a confidence level, they’re gonna go and make plays. I thought the receiving group did a great job making contested plays with people and their face and that was something we knew from Stanford was going to be playing man to man and we needed to make those contested plays or separate one of the two and I thought they did a great job in those contested plays.

On finishing the games:

It’s the focus and want to, that’s the big part. We talked to our kids about making sure that they play to the last whistle and they did it to the last whistle because it was truly to the last whistle. But we need to make sure that we focus and make those plays when they need to and from a coaching staff make those rights calls when we need to. It’s a whole gam-mit of things, to finish you need to make sure to focus throughout those four quarters and give as much effort as you can to finish those games and that’s been one of the things we’ve talked about. Finishing drills, finishing practices, finishing catches, doing all of those things, but to me it’s a mindset more than anything.

On Colorado and any changes with their interim head coach Mike Sanford:

From a defense standpoint, I think they bring in a little more pressure than they have prior. I’ve known coach Sanford prior as well back in the day, so I think there’s just trying to get it together, too and keeping those kids together. They had a tough one against Oregon State last week but I think there’s just bringing a little more pressure, so conceptually there’s a little change. But, they’re trying to get their kids to play.

On going for it on 4th and 11 against Stanford before the delay and using a timeout:

The 4th and 11 we were going to go for it. When we had that delay and I had to put the earnest on the defense and 16 (yards) was just too much and 11 when you call plays and probably get a catch or something for eight or nine and fall for two. 16 was really tough especially when those guys are coming at you and you ask a lot from those lineman. I don’t question that, not using the timeout but I think that was too much from a 4th and 16 standpoint, but 4th and 11th I was going to go for it, yes.