Arizona State Sun Devils College Football Pregame Quote, 10/03/2022

I’d like to thank you guys for being here but I would also like to thank our fans that made the trip over to USC and I appreciate them. We are still in our second time that we are going to do the Devil walk this week and I appreciate the fans being out the first time and we’re all Arizona fans. I know it’s going to be hot but that’s why we live in Arizona and I appreciate the fans being out there too.

On instilling accountability and discipline with the team:

The accountability, the discipline part where we don’t make those mistakes in the game. If it’s done on a daily basis, I think they’ll be accountable during the game. They understand where I’m coming from. The running from drill to drill, it’s the up tempo that I want to that I want to bring to the offense and defense and the type of up tempo scheme that I wanted to have emphasized, it’s doing everything right. The fundamentals, the accountability, the discipline that’ll make us competitive in these games and overall win these games. Some of the kids are like ‚ÄòCoach you’re a jerk,’ but in a good way. I said absolutely and I’ll be relentless as well but they get where I’m trying to get and it’s a process with them and we talk about the process there everyday and about the staff and the stacking everyday. I want to make sure that they understand there’s a point in the season that I want to be at and it will take some time. So again we are going on our night practice and stacking those days, but it is a process that I want us to instill and build with this team and I think everyone has bought in, mostly everybody. The one that was late and the guys that are late to a meeting or a lift, I will be relentless and holding them accountable.

On additional things learned after watching film and improvements in execution:

The more and more I watch it, the more and more I get disappointed. Not because of the effort they brought, I thought they played well but the details and the finish on some of the plays, especially wrapping up on plays that I thought were third down situations that we couldn’t get out of that and the offense was rolling. So the little things I get disappointed because I truly believe and I told the kids that we were in that game to win that game and so when the mistakes happen, there’s always gonna be mistakes in the games. How do we learn from them? How do we learn from it? So the kids are in her on their own taking initiative and watching film and doing those. The closer the game got, the more that I saw the passion and the willingness to win and go for it. When it got away a little bit, I enjoyed watching them step up to it. When we get the onside kick, I saw the enthusiasm because they all thought we were writing that game. That whole week of cultural change was hard for the kids, now they understand. I put a lot on my coaches in yesterday’s meeting. We have to step up and make sure that the kids understand the detail and deliberation they want. They understand and I’ll hold my coaches accountable too. But that deliberation that we talked about in the coaching meeting has to transform into our kids and translate on to the field, and they understand the seriousness about it and we’re all on the same page. You gotta understand that I’m gonna be relentless with the coaches as well to make sure that our kids are put in a successful place.

On Washington being a dynamic team:

It’s an emphasis we had last week, it will be more of an emphasis this week because they were eight for nine on third downs, that’s 89 percent of it. We need to change that and a couple of times we had them in the mist and just didn’t finish it and so we need to make sure we get off the field and put the offense on the field, the offense is playing with confidence. I think Emory (Jones) has finally figured out how to play with this team that he doesn’t have to make the brilliant plays, just make the plays and get the play makers the ball in their hands and we’ll be okay. But going back to the emphasis, third downs on both sided will be an emphasis from here on out.

On how many plays come down to execution:

I think it was a lot to do with the execution, our main focus was containment of the quarterback. If we looked at it, there were two times that he slipped outside of our containment. Most of the time was the inside of our containment, so that comes down to two things. Our guys are too far up the field where they can’t retrace and we’re going to make sure that we can work on that. We’re facing a similar opponent this week and the quarterback was a transfer as well, but athletic as well, so the game plan is gonna be the same. We’ve just got to finish plays and make sure that our guys understand what they’re trying to do to us than just going out and putting their hand on the ground and when the ball is high go for it, but we need to be smart on our attacking, our schematics as well.

On Omarr Norman-Lott and Gharin Stansbury’s Injury Status:

They’re very close, day-to-day however I was very pleased with their running yesterday. They’re running close to full speed. Hopefully today I get a prognosis from today’s treatment and then we’ll see tomorrow if they’re going to be on the field. I don’t want to push them so much that they go backward but I think we’re getting very close and we need them.

On what Challenges Washington’s defense Presents to ASU:

They’re fundamentally sound so we’re going to have to bring the attack to them. They do a good job running to the football. They do a pretty good job in open-field tackling. We need to make sure from a perimeter standpoint we stay on blocks and keeping our hands inside. The fundamental things and the extra effort things that are needed to keep our offense on the field. They’re a fundamentally sound football team and they’re athletic and talented as well. But we want to make sure we impose our will on them and that’s the emphasis that we want to make sure we bring to the offensive side.

On his relationship with Kalen DeBoer and the job he’s done at Washington

Kalen’s doing a great job, I know a lot of that staff. I’ve known Kalen since he was at Southern Illinois when he recruited at chandler. He’s moved up the ranks and I’m very honored to know him. He’s done an incredible job in the last five games to bring their identity. We’re going to have to play mistake-free, error-free football to be in this game. Our kids need to understand what needs to be done but we’re going to have to stop the quarterback as they have a transfer running back as well. We’re going to have to make sure we contain him and not give up the big plays. I think this quarterback (Michael Penix Jr.) loves to go vertical more than anybody else so we have to make sure we don’t give up those big plays.

On the Offense, Emory Jones and the response from rebounding from penalties:

The offense did well, they executed well and that’s the big part of it. Every team has schematics, every coach has their own schematics. How well do you execute. I wanted to make sure there was urgency. I wanted to make sure we were schematically making sure we were successful early with Emory Jone’s decisions. That was big for me. Making sure he has confidence since he was a little beat up last week so I wanted to make sure that he got rid of the ball early enough so he didn’t have to extend those plays since I knew he was hurting a little bit. Let the team do the job, let X (Valladay) and Daniel (Ngata) do the job. I thought he did well, I thought coach Thomas did a great job preparing that team and it came out and showed. But once we get into the third quarter we need to make sure we finish. We have to be proficient and efficient in the third quarter to finish those games since we had a chance to take a lead that series. In my life I’ve used and coach Thomas has used the ‚ÄòWhat’s Next’ mentality no matter what happens What’s next? I’ve never looked back, I’ve tried to instill that mentality with our kids is that if there’s a penalty if something goes wrong as there’s a lot of things that go wrong in the game. We move onto the next play, what’s next for us to be successful in. There was a holding? Okay so let’s go and get the first down, if not then we’ll kick the field goal and we’re just fine. What’s next in everything we do. We can only control what happens in the future and not what’s in the past. I want to instill that what’s next mentality in everything that they do.

On Glenn Thomas’ playcalling and how to build off it:

I have confidence in Glenn. There’s little tidbits that I’ll let him know about but we understand what my philosophy is that I’m going to be aggressive so match my philosophy. Whatever you do from an expertise level that you feel comfortable that our kids can do, you have to understand that you have to match my philosophy because I’m not a guy that will sit back and wait and if that happens then i’m not going to be real happy. So match my philosophy, do what you do and he got the kids to respond so that ‚Äòs the mentality with all of our coaches is to understand my vision and the aggressiveness and fun I want to bring to this team. That’ll be matched on the defenses as well.‚Äù

On the difference in mentality from the first and second halves:

We started to play from behind later in the game. And so, again, like I thought in the Utah game, they understand we’re in passing situations, so they’re gonna pin their ears back and come. I thought, from a mentality standpoint, I liked our kids mentality. But some of those plays dictates those guys bringing more pressure than usual, because of the type of player or the type of scheme we have to go into when we’re working from behind. But the first two drives in second half, I was not satisfied with because one was six-and-out. And then the other one was three-and-out. We got into situations where we were not ahead of the chains; everything that we’ve talked about. And so it’s a learning process for our guys to understand when we come out of that locker room, it’s a new half that we have to win. I deferred the ball on purpose because I want to make sure that our offense gets the ball to set another standard in the second half and to come out on the attack. And we didn’t take advantage of that, especially when we needed to attack and take the lead. Now, USC will be playing from behind, and then our whole game, and we had that ability to do that. And we didn’t take care of that opportunity.

Thoughts on the play-calling during the first half vs. USC:

I think the emphasis was on the execution and doing your job. And then the excitement that the kids brought, I thought was tremendous. Hopefully you don’t lose that excitement and focus going into the second half because they’re in a situation where we’re in a dogfight now with one of the best teams in the country. And you’ve got to understand that you earned the right to be here. Now how do we go about finishing? And that’s the process we talked about from an accountability standpoint, all those little things It’s how do we get over that hump to finish the games? And so that’s the process of what I’m trying to build within our kids to understand that now it’s the finish part. Everything from running from drill to drill, finishing on routes, finishing on how do we go about finishing in the game? I think they understand that and I think you’ll see better effort in practice and our practices have been good, but I think you’ll see better effort this week just because they understand what we’re trying to do.

On seeing the success of former Sun Devils during yesterday’s NFL slate:

Love it. I love it and when he (Rachaad White) jumped in and got in ‚Ķ just seeing those kids have fun is my gratification and doing well at the next level. And then Eno (Benjamin), what the heck is he doing kicking the football? But you know, he’s a talented, diversified kid. Geez, Eno, but those kids are having fun and just sitting there watching it, I love just watching them play. And again, this is a game. This football is just a game. It should be played fun. And so just seeing that, I was super proud of them. Jack Jones, pick-six, too, as well.